Stakeholder Prioritization Tool

Name: Stakeholder Prioritization Tool (IUCN/SSC 2008)

Reference: IUCN/SSC (2008). Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook. Version 1.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Species Survival Commission. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/scshandbook_2_12_08_compressed.pdf

Conservation planning step(s) when this would be used:
This tool would be used in the Prepare step, as part of assembling a list of planning workshop participants or other project collaborators.

Description of tool use:
This simple tool uses qualitative information to help organizers identify and prioritize potential participants for a planning workshop based on: subject matter expertise; degree of influence over project outcomes; and likelihood of being impacted by project outcomes.



Experience and expertise required to use the tool:
Little or none. Once explained, the tool is intuitive to use as a visual aid to collective decision making.

Data requirements:
A list of potential collaborators/attendees and knowledge of their relevant attributes (see above).

Cost:
Free

Strengths and weaknesses, when to use and interpret with caution:
This can be particularly useful for high profile conservation planning situations where there are many interested parties and relatively few workshop “seats”.

Case study:
Consider the following set of stakeholders that could be invited to a hypothetical conservation planning workshop for a tropical forest mammal:
•    High-level representative of the national wildlife management agency – Given critical priority as they have considerable decision-making authority and could be markedly impacted by intensity of future regulatory activities.
•    Farmer who owns land within the focal species’ native habitat – Given critical priority as they are likely to experience significant economic impacts from actions taken within the species’ range
•    Conservation biologist with expertise on the focal species in the field – Given high priority as they have a significant impact on planning outcomes through existing data availability, and the impact that planning outcomes have on their future field study projects.
•    Marine ecologist who works in the nearby coastal areas – Given interest priority as they are unlikely to deliver a significant impact on the nature of recommendations (low data availability) and will be minimally impacted by actions taken in the tropical forest zone.
•    Urban citizen representative who strongly favors development of the local forest resource – At best, given interest priority as they are unlikely to offer constructive and collaborative participation in the decision-making process. If they are openly hostile to long-term species conservation efforts, they may be removed from the list of potential participants.


 
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Contributor(s) name: Philip Miller                                
Affiliation: CBSG
Email: pmiller@cbsg.org
Date: January 18, 2012