This indicator measures the extent to which laws, regulations, guidelines, institutions, and organizations provide opportunities for public access to information and public participation in policy and decision-making processes relating to rangelands. Public participation ensures that policy and programs are vetted by a cross section of the people who are affected. Public participation can foster political support for sustainable management. All steps in the management decision process – problem identification, data collection, analysis, alternative formulation, and choice – must be open to public participation. Public involvement is thus a complex, dynamic, interactive process of bargaining, negotiating, and mediation among and between constituents and managers. Engaging the public does not ensure sustainability in itself. It does, however, inform participants about the issues involved, conflicting laws, resource limitations, and what other people and groups want.