NEAFWA 2018

AUTHORS: Catherine Doyle-Capitman; Daniel J. Decker - Cornell University

ABSTRACT. Natural resource practitioners are increasingly taking a collaborative, landscape-level approach to wildlife and habitat conservation. Despite its potential advantages, this approach faces challenges. Primary among these is ensuring ecosystem-wide goals for conservation, such as those articulated in the Connecticut River Watershed Landscape Conservation Design, can effectively inform local management plans and actions. This necessitates working with local stakeholders. Opportunities for local stakeholders to participate in wildlife-focused landscape conservation planning are usually limited, in part because conservation leaders are uncertain about whether, when, and how these stakeholders might most effectively participate in decision processes. We conducted a multiple-case-study investigation to understand how social data and local stakeholder engagement are currently being used in three collaborative landscape conservation (CLC) initiatives in the U.S., and how participation opportunities impacted the CLC planning process and the utility of associated planning products. Results indicate local stakeholder participation and human dimensions considerations during planning are essential to enhancing the local relevance and utility of CLC planning products and promoting local stakeholders’ support of CLC efforts. Local stakeholders should be engaged at the start of decision-making processes, receive communications throughout these processes, and have the option to participate directly or through a representative. Findings also indicate all potentially impacted stakeholders—not only those focused on conservation—should be involved during CLC planning. Results and recommendations from the study are intended to benefit CLC development teams in their efforts to plan and implement socio-politically feasible, broad-scale conservation efforts.