Abstract

Shifting social and ecological contexts for conservation in North America have highlighted that wildlife agencies must engage with broad constituencies to achieve their missions. Responding to limitations in practitioner capacity to find, understand, and plan for engagement with a broader array of stakeholders, we developed a web-based method for stakeholder analysis and used it to identify and describe the activities of 214 organizations, including businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and local, state, and federal entities, that promote wildlife viewing in Virginia. We found that the majority of these stakeholders provide social opportunities and informational resources related to wildlife viewing. We also identified geographic and programmatic gaps that informed strategic planning within the state wildlife agency for meaningful engagement with wildlife viewers as a growing constituency. This project demonstrates the ability of web-based stakeholder analysis to generate inclusive and actionable insights about relatively new and unfamiliar stakeholders for natural resource management.

摘要

北美保护的社会和生态环境的转变凸显了野生动物机构​​必须与广泛的支持者接触才能实现其使命。针对从业者寻找、理解和规划与更广泛的利益相关者接触的能力的局限性，我们开发了一种基于网络的利益相关者分析方法，并用它来识别和描述 214 个组织的活动，包括企业、非政府组织，以及促进弗吉尼亚州野生动物观赏的地方、州和联邦实体。我们发现这些利益相关者中的大多数提供与野生动物观赏相关的社交机会和信息资源。我们还确定了地理和计划差距，这些差距为州野生动物机构​​内部的战略规划提供了信息，以便与日益增长的选区的野生动物观众进行有意义的互动。该项目展示了基于网络的利益相关者分析能够为自然资源管理的相对较新和不熟悉的利益相关者生成包容性和可操作的见解。