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The European Union’s Landscapes for Our Future programme supports 22 integrated landscape management projects across 19 countries and 3 sub-regions across the Global South.

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Home › The ILM Playbook › Stakeholders
ILM PLAYBOOKConcept mapStakeholdersRead full chapter
GLIMPSEGRASPEXPLOREDEEP DIVE
Glimpse · From lists to actors

Stakeholders

A stakeholder list tells you who has an interest. ILM asks a harder question: who is doing what, to whom, with what effect?

Stakeholders are actorsTheir practices constitute the that produce system .
Stakes are more than interestsMeanings, materials and competencies reveal what may be existential, material or place-specific.
Target groups are strategicInclude actors likely to support a heading shift and those likely to resist it.
CommunitiesPublic bodiesProducersBusinessesLandscapedirectionDifferent actors have different kinds and degrees of influence.
Move from “who is here?” to “what are they doing?”Actor analysis produces a , not merely a list of names and interests.
Grasp · What is actually at stake?

Read stakes through the practice lens.

Financial and political interests are only the obvious layer. Meanings, materials and competencies reveal attachments that may be much harder to trade or relocate.

Meanings as stakes

Homeland, identity, ancestry, status, belonging or symbolic value. A rangeland may be an existential stake, not merely an economic asset.

Materials as stakes

Land, paths, water points, markets, infrastructure and the physical scaffolding through which daily practice is possible.

Competencies as stakes

Place-specific knowledge learned through practice over time. Some competencies are portable; others cannot simply move with compensation.

Power question: whose stakes are place-specific and existential, and whose are portable or instrumental?
Explore · Build the actor read

Do not confuse visibility with importance.

Who acts?Identify actor groups whose practices produce, reproduce or could shift the pattern of concern.
Who regulates?Include actors beyond the geographic boundary whose law, finance, markets, infrastructure or narratives shape local practice.
Who carries rights?Distinguish rights-holders from actors who simply have an interest. Legal and ethical obligations are not negotiable preferences.
Who is missing?Look for mobile groups, women, youth, minorities, informal actors and others absent from formal institutions or meetings.
Who might support change?Find actors whose existing practices, authority or legitimacy could amplify a heading shift.
Who might resist?Include actors who benefit from the present arrangement. Resistance is information for design, not a reason to omit them.
Trust is infrastructure. Collaboration depends on consistency of conduct and an honest-broker reputation that treats actors with neither fear nor favour.
Deep dive · Target groups

Prioritize for heading, not convenience.

Target groups are the strategic subset of actors most likely to influence the system’s direction. They may be local or distant, supportive or resistant, formally powerful or easy to overlook.

Read the strand

What practice does this actor carry, how heavily does it shape heading and what other strands regulate it?

Read the stake

What would this actor gain, lose or have to give up if the became more real?

Read the relationship

What form of engagement is possible now: bilateral sensing, brokering, deliberation, negotiation or simply close monitoring?

Continue through connected concepts

Sensing

Keep the actor read alive as relationships and practices change.

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Power

Map regulatory reach and the asymmetries behind stakeholder influence.

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Practices

Unpack what is at stake through meanings, materials and competencies.

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Compromise

Navigate conflict and trade-offs without assuming consensus.

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Full reading

Read the full Stakeholders chapter.

The full reading provides the conceptual foundations, examples, sources and methodological detail behind this page.

Open full chapter PDF →

Return to concept map →

Terms used on this page
Strand
An actor group and the practices through which it shapes the landscape over time.
Heading
The direction in which the landscape is currently moving, produced by many actors and their interactions.
Alternative Heading
A better direction an intervention seeks to support, revised as it learns. It is not a fixed blueprint for a final state.
Regulation
Any way actors shape what others can or cannot do, including rules, money, prices, custom and persuasion. It is broader than government regulation.
Power Vista and strand map
A map of who influences whom, through which practices and with what weight. The full reading treats the Power Vista as a strand map read through power relations.