Incorporating stakeholder input into marine research priorities for the Aleutian Islands

Resource management agencies are required to 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. However, gathering stakeholder input and incorporating it into decisions can be difficult. We solicited public input on research needed to improve marine resource management decision-making for the Aleutian Islands region. Stakeholders and an expert panel were asked to use the analytical hierarchy process to rank those research needs. Spearman rank correlation tests were used to search for statistically significant differences in the rank orderings between stakeholders and the expert panel. A high level of association was found between rankings by an expert panel and those by stakeholders. Moreover, the rank orderings were robust to the inclusion or exclusion of interest-group subsets of the stakeholders and expert panel. The expert panel and stakeholders assigned highest priority to new research designed to increase basic knowledge of the Aleutian Islands marine ecosystem. Agreement between stakeholder and expert panel rankings was closest for the most and least important research needs; most substantial differences in the rankings involved research needs identified as moderately important. These results suggest that an expert panel may provide input comparable to that which could be obtained from engaging in a more extensive stakeholder process. Furthermore, these results suggest that the analytical hierarchy process can serve as a useful mechanism for organizing stakeholder input for environmental planning and resource management.