A Web-Based Approach to Stakeholder Analysis for Identifying and Understanding Broader Constituencies in Wildlife Conservation

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.