Page 85 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

Effectiveness of scientific tools in decision making processes
uk/forestry/INFD-6A5LAC). The role of the scientists involved was to facilitate and mediate. The team consisted of a social scientist, a conservation scientist, and a model engineer. Also a local scientist played an important role. He was an employee of the Forestry Commission and could therefore be regarded as a stakeholder.
During the project the role of the stakeholders in the New Forest took many forms
(Lamers et al. 2010) and varied between meetings. According to the IAP2 Spectrum
developed by the International Association for Public Participation (Ritzema et al.
2010) the role of the stakeholders evolved during the project from being informed to
full decision making. At the start of the project the choice for the tools was made by
the scientists and the managers and the stakeholders were informed. The stakeholders
were consulted when conflicts between recreation, e.g., walking and cycling, and
biodiversity, e.g., protected bird species, might occur and on how they could be solved.
This consultation resulted in proposals for the locations of pilot actions the managers
could implement like closing car parks, closing car parks only during breeding season,
improving habitats of wader species, increasing awareness of visitors by signs of
the sensitive areas, and rerouting the path network. The proposals combined the stakeholders’ local knowledge of the area with scientific knowledge in such a way that
site specific solutions could be found. The scientific tools were used to predict the
effects of the proposed pilot actions on recreational values and biodiversity values.
Predictions of the impact of pilot actions were shown on maps and discussed at public 5 engagement events. During these events inhabitants of the area sometimes backed up
the results and sometimes they disagreed. Finally the stakeholders decided to agree with four of the proposed pilot actions and disagree with one.
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