ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates the different grounds on which stakeholder participation occurs and general issues and considerations arising from relating stakeholder processes to ecosystem service-based decision-making. It is very difficult to imagine the application of an ecosystem services perspective to policy and decision-making processes without recourse to the issue of stakeholder engagement and participation. The concept of ecosystem service has developed alongside a rise in normative appeals to stakeholder participation in policy- and decision-making. A concern to work with, and learn about, the views of stakeholders within environmental decision-making is a well-established feature of agendas for sustainable development. In principle, identifying relevant stakeholders is a formative concern in decision-making though it is often approached in an ad hoc way. A study by Morris et al. seeking to understand and predict the relationship between farmer decision-making and bird populations employed a stakeholder decision analysis methodology to identify individuals and groups with an 'interest' in and 'influence' over farmland bird populations.
