Community Participation
What does it mean?
Community Participation is a very broad term that means many
things to many people. To some, it may simply mean
informing a community of your plans. To others, it may
mean handing over responsibility for decision-making to the
community. To be truly participative, the process must
involve active engagement, where members of a community in a
peatland area can play a genuine part in discussing, delivering
and reviewing work.
Aid to decision making
Peatlands are fragile environments that require sensitive management. Often it can seem easiest to make decisions purely on the grounds of scientific or ecological expertise. But your site will be important to many people and decisions made about its management will often cut across social and cultural issues as well as scientific ones. For effective decision making, it is good practice to involve everyone in the process who has an interest in the site or who may be influenced by changes there.
There is not one single right way to involve people in peatlands. Different sites and issues mean that different people or groups of people need to be involved and different techniques employed.
Planning for participation
Decide whom to involve
When deciding whom you should involve in the decision-making process, it's important to start with the general public, and then identify stakeholders and communities. It is not practical to involve everyone, but by starting at the outside and working in, you will identify those most interested and most affected by the decision.
It is likely that you already have a good idea of who needs to be involved. But it's easy to miss someone or some group out. Brainstorm with colleagues to identify all your stakeholders. A mind map can be a good way to do this.
Plan how and when to involve them
You need to prioritise the key stakeholders and plan how and when to involve them. A public involvement planning chart is a useful tool (illustration). Many different participation tools are available. The Toolbox for Involving People in Forestry includes tools that are useful for a peatland site.
You can explore some ideas about community involvement through further pages in this website:
- Why involve communities?
- Case studies
- Library - full report on Flanders Moss consultation
There are also other resources that you might find useful, including the publications and external links shown here:
Forestry Commission Scotland Toolbox for Community Participation (www.forestry.gov.uk/toolbox)
Management for People (SNH 2004, Module 2) (need link)
Practical Approaches to Participation, SERP Policy Brief (1), Richards, C, Sherlock, K & Carter, C, The MacAulay Institute, Aberdeen, 2004