Stakeholder Engagement
It is important to us that our products and services meet the needs of our partners, collaborators, and stakeholders. We strive to produce relevant and accessible information.
Our Commitment
We know that excellence in stakeholder engagement helps deliver value. We are committed to continually implementing and improving our stakeholder engagement processes to ensure our products meet the needs of our stakeholders.
What are Stakeholders?
IAP2 defines stakeholders as “any individual, group of individuals, organizations or political entity with a stake in the outcome of a decision.”
With Whom Do We Engage?
We are committed to working with groups interested in managing Alberta’s living resources. These include the agriculture, energy, and forest industries; the environmental community; and all levels of government.
Our Stakeholders Matter
Read about our engagement objectives, our approach, our engagement in action and our process.
Our Engagement Objectives
We strive to engage early and often to:
1. Better understand how ABMI can support resource management systems.
2. Ensure that our information and products meet the needs of stakeholders and communities, through consistent engagement throughout the development cycle.
3. Ensure that our most recent activities and findings are readily available and broadly understood.
4. Make sure others have a voice in how the ABMI operates and communicates our monitoring information.
Our Approach to Engagement
The ABMI follows the IAP2 approach and guidelines for stakeholder engagement throughout our project development cycles.
Our Engagement in Action
In 2017 we entered our 10th year of formal operations. To mark this milestone and guide our future operations, the ABMI launched a 10-year science and program review.
The process was designed to evaluate:
1. Our success in meeting the needs of our key partners and stakeholders; and
2. Our scientific framework and success in delivering on our initial scientific objectives.
Engaging on Wetlands
Since 2007, we have monitored wetlands in Alberta through our Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program. We have gathered baseline data from nearly 1,400 shallow open water wetland sites across the province, including information on macroinvertebrates, vascular plants, water depth, and water quality. We have also collected information on bryophytes, lichen, soil mites, mammals, birds, amphibians, and vascular plants at peatland sites. In recent years, we have expanded to satellite-based wetland mapping and the creation of a publicly accessible map of Alberta-wide wetlands classes.
We are currently refining our wetland monitoring approach and are committed to engaging with our data users to ensure that the information we collect addresses their needs. Our efforts have included the release of a public survey over the summer of 2024 and also formed a wetland advisory group in early 2024, which continues to offer valuable guidance.
Stay tuned for updates as we continue to enhance our wetland monitoring efforts across Alberta.
Chelsea Beach Wetlands
- Starts early and continues throughout the project life-cycle,
- Is flexibly designed to utilize a variety of engagement techniques most accessible to each group, and
- Demonstrates how the ABMI follows through with commitments made to our stakeholders throughout the engagement process.
During the stakeholder needs assessment portion of the 10-year review, stakeholders identified these needs:
- Knowledge transfer (increased outreach, additional support tools),
- Geospatial information (increased resolution),
- Better alignment between organizations (need for standardization of methodology, language),
- Resources (additional financial and human resource capacity),
- Confidentiality (increased sensitivity around privacy rights), and
- Monitoring information (expanded taxa).
Our Strategic Plan
The results from the stakeholder needs assessment are a driving force behind the ABMI’s updated strategic plan. We have committed to:
- Continued monitoring of Alberta’s landscapes and biodiversity,
- Continued scientific innovating,
- Increased knowledge translation efforts, and
- Increased collaborative efforts.
