Incorporating stakeholder input in research priorities for the Aleutian Islands

Abstract

Federal law requires that resource management agencies consider stakeholder input in the selection of preferred alternatives for proposed actions. Not only do stakeholders contribute unique perspectives on the impact of alternative actions and the desirability of various policy objectives, including stakeholders in the decision process adds to the perceived legitimacy of those decisions. Incorporating stakeholder input is legally required and advantageous to sustainable governance of the oceans and implementation of a National Ocean Policy such as ecosystem-based management. Agencies use a variety of formal and informal mechanisms to solicit and incorporate stakeholder input. In this study, we compare expert panel and stakeholder rankings of research and information needs in the Aleutian Islands region to see if stakeholder preferences are consistent with those of resource managers and experts when the analytical hierarchy process is used to prioritize those research and information needs. Normalized individual ratings were averaged across interest groups and compared to ratings averaged across all respondents. Spearman rank-order correlations were used to test the statistical significance of differences between groups and against the overall mean. Sensitivity analyses were used to check the robustness of the rankings across groups. We found a high level of association between rankings by an expert panel and rankings by stakeholders and little sensitivity to the make-up of stakeholders. These results suggest that the analytical hierarchy process can serve as a useful mechanism for organizing stakeholder input for environmental planning and resource management.