Giving stakeholders a voice in governance: Biodiversity priorities for New Zealand's agriculture

Abstract

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Behavioural insights for improved uptake of agricultural sustainability assessment tools

“…Third, helping stakeholders with diverse values to better appreciate and understand each other's position can pave the way for a more constructive dialogue (Midgley, 2016; Travers et al., 2021). Our tool development started to address this challenge by inviting stakeholders to decide which biodiversity components should be included in the tool, with priorities being adjusted by consensus to accommodate a diverse range of needs and interests (MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2021). Stakeholders signalled they are open to agile data sharing models if their perspectives are appropriately represented (Strategy 1; Figure 2).…”

“…In broad terms, our tool development initiated a collective governance approach by (a) bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders to agree on the biodiversity priorities included in the tool (MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2021); (b) facilitating independent evaluations of actions based on expert judgement (Brandt et al., 2018); and (c) inviting stakeholders to share their perspectives on how to progress the tool development. All this information is publicly available.…”

“…The biodiversity assessment tool provided a live evaluation of their biodiversity performance as they completed a checklist of management actions (MacLeod et al., 2018). It was a locally adapted evidence‐based tool (informed by the Cool Farm Biodiversity Metric design; Cool Farm Alliance, n.d.), which incorporated management actions and biodiversity groups identified as priorities by stakeholders (MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2021). The underlying biodiversity performance scores for each action were derived from a structured judgement process completed by an independent panel of 10 local biodiversity experts (Brandt et al., 2018).…”

“…Stakeholders were initially invited to participate in online surveys (Supporting Information S1) to provide their perspectives on the governance of biodiversity‐related data gathered from farms, with a view to informing the tool's data management strategy. To involve a diverse range of stakeholders engaged in managing biodiversity within New Zealand's production landscapes (MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2021), the online survey (managed via the SurveyMonkey platform; Table S1.1) was undertaken in two phases: (a) a pilot survey advertised among an industry's networks in August 2017 (via email sent by Beef + Lamb New Zealand); and (b) a national survey launched in November 2018, which was open to any interested party, where participants were recruited using snowball sampling (Goodman, 1961), initiated via email advertisements sent to 93 stakeholders (including industry, government, and non‐government organisation (NGO) contacts; MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2021). Of the 133 respondents to the data governance survey (57% collected via the national survey), 60% were farmers or growers (Table S1.2), and most worked within the livestock sectors (Table S1.3).…”

Facilitating the wise use of experts and evidence to inform local environmental decisions

“…Here we conduct such an assessment for a case study aiming to identify biodiversity priorities for New Zealand's agricultural landscape. Specifically, we assess the performance of (a) giving local stakeholders from a diverse range of roles and interests a voice in setting biodiversity priorities (MacLeod, Brandt, Collins, & Dicks, 2022), (b) systematically tailoring global evidence to meet local needs and (c) making wise use of local biodiversity specialists (i.e. applying the evidence on how advisors make assessments and predictions to mitigate the risk of cognitive weaknesses) to enhance the accuracy and reliability of their judgements in overcoming both 'evidence disparity' and 'evidence complacency' to improve the knowledge base made available to inform local environmental decision-making.…”