ABSTRACT. We distill complex frameworks for stakeholder engagement into five main principles that scientists and natural resource managers can use in planning stakeholder engagement efforts. Many natural resource management professionals, including practitioners and scholars, increasingly recognize the need for, and potential benefits of, engaging stakeholders in complex decision-making processes, yet the implementation of these efforts varies wildly, reflecting great methodological and conceptual diversity. Given the dynamic and diverse natural resource management contexts in which engagement occurs and the often significant stakes involved in making decisions about natural resources, we argue that stakeholder engagement would benefit from a theoretical framework that is both agile and robust. To this end, five essential elements of stakeholder engagement are evaluated and organized to form the Five-Feature Framework, thereby providing a functional and approachable platform with which to consider engagement processes. Aside from introducing and developing the Five-Feature Framework, we apply the framework as a measure to evaluate the empirical case study literature involving stakeholder engagement in natural resource management in an effort to better understand the obstacles facing robust and genuine engagement in natural resource management. Our results suggest that the most basic principles of engagement are often absent from stakeholder engagement projects, which confirms the need for a functional framework. The Five-Feature Framework can be used to plan flexible, adaptable, and rigorous engagement projects in a variety of contexts and with teams that have varying backgrounds and experience. By virtue of its simplicity and functionality, the framework demystifies stakeholder engagement in order to help natural resource professionals build opportunities for collaborative decision-making and integrate citizen values and knowledge into complex management issues.

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The human imagination is puzzling. Barring extreme cases, every person has an intimate relationship with their own imagination, and although the constitution of that relationship may itself be obscure, we should not assume that it is thus inconsequential. This raises the salient question of this essay: How is imagination consequential? I develop an account of the imagination that helps to evaluate the impact of digital manipulation through Computer Generated Media on our imaginations, especially as it occurs in media-saturated societies. This essay proceeds in four parts. First, I briefly develop an account of the imagination that serves this evaluation. Second, I describe how digital technology is able to impact our imaginations. Third, I explore the impacts that this has on our imaginations—what I label the horizontal and vertical stretching of our imaginations. Lastly, I consider plausible consequences of stretching our imaginations with digital technologies.