- The Nature Conservancy’s Coastal Resilience project provides approaches and case studies that incorporate conservation for climate adaptation into policies and planning efforts.
- Read “Understanding an Audience’s Social Values” for helpful information on communicating with different groups about climate change.
Engage - Conserving Coastal Wetlands for Sea Level Rise Adaptation
Engaging Stakeholders
Coastal wetlands provide ecosystem services that are important to a diverse group of stakeholders and meet many community, organization, and agency objectives. These stakeholders can lend support in developing strategies to preserve coastal wetlands.
Connect with Other Planning Efforts
Partnering with organizations already involved in wetland conservation activities can leverage resources and avoid duplication of effort. Identify other planning efforts in the community― such as land use, hazards, smart growth, floodplain management, emergency management, wildlife management, and climate adaptation―and work to integrate conservation priorities into existing and future plans to ensure a holistic planning approach.
Resources
Coastal Community Planning and Development – Training that provides information on fostering more sustainable development in coastal communities that can be incorporated into land use or smart growth plans
Introducing Green Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience – Training that helps communities understand the many benefits of conserving ecosystem services for community resilience
Planning for Climate Change – Training that teaches local and state planners about climate change, as well as the planning processes and actions that can help their communities prepare for climate change impacts
Roadmap for Adapting to Coastal Risk – Training that helps communities incorporate coastal risk and vulnerability information into their planning processes
Reach Out to Diverse Groups
Identify appropriate stakeholders and involve them early in the conservation prioritization process. Consider a variety of groups, including those who benefit from wetlands or have expertise in identifying important and vulnerable wetlands. Groups such as local commercial and recreational fishermen, developers, business owners, and other community members can bring to light important local knowledge to help in the prioritization process, can help garner public support for conservation efforts, and can provide additional resources.
Resources
Introduction to Stakeholder Participation – Publication that offers guidance and techniques for identifying and engaging stakeholders
Negotiating for Coastal Resources – Training that teaches skills used when negotiating actions intended to bring about the conservation of ecosystem services
Public Issues and Conflict Management – Training that equips conservation professionals with the ability to design, conduct, and manage meetings and other collaborative efforts in public forums
Communicate with Visualizations
Working with diverse groups can be challenging, but using spatial techniques and visualizations to work through and communicate key issues can make the stakeholder engagement process more objective and productive. Photo-realistic visualizations depicting “what-if” scenarios of sea level rise and other impacts can be powerful tools to communicate a conservation message. Combining these images with easy-to-understand information on the benefits of protecting coastal wetlands can make your message even stronger.
GIS maps can help stakeholders see where sea level rise impacts to wetlands may occur within their community. Using a participatory mapping approach to build this type of GIS map through a group consensus effort allows stakeholders to interactively participate in the conservation planning process. Input from stakeholders can be analyzed in real time, making the planning process and resulting decision more transparent to all. View a recorded webinar on engaging stakeholders in coastal management through participatory mapping.
Resources
CanVis – Software that allows users to input a picture from their locale and illustrate scenarios, such as potential sea level rise or development, to better communicate with stakeholders
Coastal County Snapshots - Wetland Benefits – Tool that demonstrates the benefits of wetlands for a county using easy-to-understand charts and maps
Habitat Priority Planner – GIS-based tool that allows stakeholders to interactively participate in building a map of priority conservation areas by incorporating input on the fly
Stakeholder Engagement Strategies for Participatory Mapping – Publication that provides techniques and information on how to engage stakeholders using a participatory mapping approach
Using Photorealistic Visualizations – Document that focuses primarily on the particularly powerful photorealistic visualization and that introduces key concepts surrounding visualization
View additional publications and websites to learn more about these concepts.