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Recruiting and integrating stakeholders and sustaining participation in environmental management: A conceptual framework and case study from the Great Lakes Area of Concern
Citation:
Holifield, R. AND K. Williams. Recruiting and integrating stakeholders and sustaining participation in environmental management: A conceptual framework and case study from the Great Lakes Area of Concern. Great Lakes Areas of Concern Conference, Sheboygan, WI, May 16 - 17, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
The impact of this study is the discussion that the recruitment, integration, and sustaining of participation over time can be a challenge. We present strategies for addressing these challenges that emerged in the survey and interviews, and we also suggest a series of questions and topics for future research on stakeholder participation in environmental management.
Description:
Stakeholder participation is now widely viewed as an essential component of environmental management projects. Although scholarship has identified and conceptualized numerous elements and components of high-quality participation, we argue that the processes of recruiting stakeholders, integrating them into decision-making processes, and sustaining their participation all merit more explicit inclusion in conceptual frameworks and research agendas. To support this argument, we present findings from a survey and interviews conducted with managers and advisory committee leaders in a case study of US and binational (US and Canada) Great Lakes Areas of Concern. Our findings suggest that recruitment, integration, and sustaining of participation over the long term all present distinctive ongoing challenges for stakeholder participation in environmental management projects. We present strategies for addressing these challenges that emerged in the survey and interviews, and we also suggest a series of questions and topics for future research on stakeholder participation in environmental management.