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Adaptive management: Promises and pitfalls. Environmental Management, 20, 437-488
Abstract
Proponents of the scientific adaptive management approach argue that it increases knowledge acquisition rates, enhances information flow among policy actors, and provides opportunities for creating shared understandings. However, evidence from efforts to implement the approach in New Brunswick, British Columbia, Canada, and the Columbia River Basin indicates that these promises have not been met. The data show that scientific adaptive management relies excessively on the use of linear systems models, discounts nonscientific forms of knowledge, and pays inadequate attention to policy processes that promote the development of shared understandings among diverse stakeholders. To be effective, new adaptive management efforts will need to incorporate knowledge from multiple sources, make use of multiple systems models, and support new forms of cooperation among stakeholders.
... AM refers to the governance and treatment of large-scale ecosystems that can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (McLain & Lee, 1996). It has been widely used in environmental management because it relates past mistakes and successes to policy and management and can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (Stankey et al., 2005). ...
... It has been widely used in environmental management because it relates past mistakes and successes to policy and management and can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (Stankey et al., 2005). The core of AM is social learning theory, which encompasses the process of knowledge acquisition and the creation of shared understanding (McLain & Lee, 1996). As stakeholders with different responsibilities form partnerships and work together to overcome conflict or disparity, the capacity for knowledge generation is increased (Berkes, 2009). ...
With the rapid growth of whale-watching tourism, the importance of its management has become evident. Higham and colleagues indicated that adaptive management is the key to a sustainable whale-watching industry and proposed an integrated and adaptive management model, combining stakeholder perspectives and operating in a dynamic two-phase environment. This study applies the model to whale-watching tourism management in Port Philip Bay (Australia) examining the extent of its fit in this case study, and what management measures could be adopted to achieve sustainable development of whale-watching tourism. This study obtained secondary data to analyse the responses of target species to tourism activities and management strategies adopted since the inception of whale-watching tourism. A key outcome is the development of sustainable management for whale-watching tourism. As the tourism industry waits to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, such a rethink has implications for the shift towards more holistic sustainability and resilience of whale-watching tourism post-COVID-19.
KeywordsSustainable ManagementWhale-Watching TourismPort Phillip Bay
... AM refers to the governance and treatment of large-scale ecosystems that can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (McLain & Lee, 1996). It has been widely used in environmental management because it relates past mistakes and successes to policy and management and can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (Stankey et al., 2005). ...
... It has been widely used in environmental management because it relates past mistakes and successes to policy and management and can accommodate uncertainties arising from complex interactions (Stankey et al., 2005). The core of AM is social learning theory, which encompasses the process of knowledge acquisition and the creation of shared understanding (McLain & Lee, 1996). As stakeholders with different responsibilities form partnerships and work together to overcome conflict or disparity, the capacity for knowledge generation is increased (Berkes, 2009). ...
Scholars show the interdependent relationship between the quality-of-service delivery and the capacity acquired by tourism practitioners from tourism education. Extant literature shows that the content in tourism education material fails to reflect the skills and knowledge to handle disabled people in the tourism industry. Yet there is a symbiotic relationship between teaching methods and tourism education's extent of preparing learners to handled disabled people in tourism. The chapter investigates if learners are equipped to serve disabled people in tourism. In-depth-face-to-face interviews with tourism education and key informant interviews with gatekeepers of disabled people in South Africa were conducted. Creswell's qualitative analysis framework guided the data analysis carried out with Atlas.ti.8. Findings show the absence of competencies among educators to development of content for learners to manage disabled people in tourism. The study identified success factors for the co-creation of accessible tourism education that produces sustainable and resilient education products.
... To further develop the scale-sensitive governance concept , we present a framework of governance arrangements that facilitate cross-scale fit and cross-level alignment ( Figure 5.1). We do so by building on four different bodies of governance literature: collaborative (Ansell and Gash, 2007;Emerson et al., 2011;Gray and Purdy, 2018), adaptive (Cumming et al., 2013;Folke et al., 2005;McLain and Lee, 1996), multi-level (Hooghe and Marks, 2003;Marks and Hooghe, 2004;Stephenson, 2013) and polycentric governance (Carlisle and Gruby, 2019;Cash, 2000;Ostrom, 2010). We identified nine scale-sensitive governance arrangements, which are divided into a cross-scale (A,B,C,D) and a cross-level (D,E,F,G,H,I) category: ...
... This can subsequently give way to shared understandings and integrated solutions that depend on the concerted action of multiple actors (Gonzales-Iwanciw et al., 2019). A structured learning process can be facilitated with experimentation and monitoring to produce experience through trial and error, and by exchanging the knowledge obtained (Cumming et al., 2013;McLain and Lee, 1996). Knowledge exchange and the deliberation between actors that follows determines their adaptive capacity to govern natural resources (Carlisle and Gruby, 2019). ...
This dissertation focuses on understanding the cross-scale, cross-level and cross-sector characteristics of Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) governance, the challenges that emerge when national restoration targets are implemented, and the governance arrangements and strategies that have supported actors to overcome these challenges. The following general research question has guided the research: What scale challenges emerge when implementing policies to meet national restoration targets, and what scale-sensitive governance arrangements and strategies do actors use in dealing with these challenges? The dissertation consists of four empirical chapters and one systematic literature review. The national FLR governance contexts of Ecuador and Ethiopia were studied to understand the cross-scale and cross-level, as well as cross-sector challenges that arise when national restoration targets are translated into local action. The results are based on a policy and project document review, 54 interviews in Ecuador, 56 interviews and 14 focus group discussions in Ethiopia, and participatory observation. To understand how restoration-related actors have overcome cross-scale and cross-level challenges focus was placed on scale-sensitive governance arrangements and strategies. The results related to scale-sensitive arrangements are based on a review of 84 peer-reviewed FLR governance case studies, while the results related to scale-sensitive strategies build on a project document review, 48 interviews in Ecuador, and participatory observation.
... To further develop the scale-sensitive governance concept ), we present a framework of governance arrangements that facilitate cross-scale fit and cross-level alignment. We do so by building on four different bodies of governance literature: collaborative (Ansell and Gash 2007;Emerson et al. 2011;Gray andPurdy 2018), adaptive (McLain andLee 1996;Folke et al. 2005;Cumming et al. 2013), multilevel (Hooghe and Marks 2003;Marks and Hooghe 2004;Stephenson 2013) and polycentric governance (Cash 2000;Ostrom 2010;Carlisle and Gruby 2019). We identified nine scale-sensitive governance arrangements, which are divided into a cross-scale (A,B,C,D) and a crosslevel (D,E,F,G,H,I) category ( Fig. 1): ...
... This can subsequently give way to shared understandings and integrated solutions that depend on the concerted action of multiple actors (Gonzales-Iwanciw et al. 2019). A structured learning process can be facilitated with experimentation and monitoring to produce experience through trial and error, and by exchanging the knowledge obtained (McLain and Lee 1996;Cumming et al. 2013). Knowledge exchange and the deliberation between actors that follows determine their adaptive capacity to govern natural resources (Carlisle and Gruby 2019). ...
Building on different bodies of the governance literature, we propose a conceptual framework specifying nine scale-sensitive governance arrangements that aim to (1) create cross-scale fit between the governance and ecological scales, and/or (2) foster cross-level alignment between different governance levels. To understand how scale-sensitive governance has played out in practice, our systematic review builds on 84 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles, which represent 84 cases of forest and landscape restoration governance. In the case studies, we identified eight out of nine scale-sensitive governance arrangements: moving tasks to other governance levels; task-specific organisations; polycentric governance; multilevel coordination; multilevel collaboration; multilevel learning; bridging organisations; and multilevel networks. These arrangements constitute important elements of the multilevel environmental governance landscape, and we analysed their role in promoting forest and landscape restoration. By using the proposed conceptual framework, a better understanding is created of how different scale-sensitive governance arrangements can support existing and future restoration efforts that are implemented as part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
... AM uses results from long-term monitoring to inform land management practices, by incorporating uncertainty into decision-making processes (Porzecanski et al., 2012;Williams, 2011). This management approach promotes stakeholder collaboration, draws on data from multiple sources, and uses a variety of models to increase effectiveness (McLain & Lee, 1996). AM has been adopted by many natural resource management agencies, and via emerging collaborative governance systems has been used to manage complex social and ecological systems (Brownson & Fowler, 2020). ...
... Our analysis suggests that continuous stakeholder engagement among partners monitoring the same indicator is helpful in gaining agreement on data collection format, frequency, and metrics. This finding aligns with McLain and Lee (1996) who note that while AM promotes stakeholder collaboration, data reconciliation challenges may arise when drawing from multiple sources. ...
Climate change, population growth, and declining federal budgets are threatening the health of ecosystems, and the services they provide. Under these changing conditions, managing landscapes and resources assumes new and unprecedented challenges. Adaptive management has been identified as a natural resource management approach that allows practitioners to incorporate change and uncertainty into decision-making through an iterative process that involves long-term monitoring and continued review and adjustment of management actions. However, the success of these efforts in watershed health relies on the collective and sustained monitoring of indicators, which is seldom studied. The purpose of this analysis is to examine (1) the practical challenge of choosing a list of indicators for long-term monitoring, (2) the negotiation process among stakeholders around the selection and interpretation of indicators, and (3) the communication tools that can be used to convey the assessment’s results and findings. To do this, we analyze our ongoing work in the Cienega Watershed in southern Arizona. Our analysis shows that the selective use of indicators, regular assessment and review, and establishment of partnerships among stakeholders are all important elements in establishing effective adaptive management efforts. The selection of indicators and data sources is a moving target that requires regular consensus and review among stakeholders. The assessment itself is also a powerful engagement tool with the public at large, providing legitimacy and support to land management decision-making. Here, we outline some lessons learned that can be transferred to other cases and identify potential barriers for engagement, decision-making, and project success.
... However, previously documented experience from other types of adaptive environmental governance have evinced that the crucial implementation and monitoring phases pose a serious challenge, or even potential stumbling block, for adaptive environmental governance methodologies, if not properly attended to (see e.g. McLain & Lee, 1996;Moser & Ekstrom, 2010). McLain and Lee (1996) show that in their in-depth case studies of adaptive governance arrangements in natural resource management, monitoring generally turns out to be a main point of controversy and organizational risk that can jeopardize the long-term viability of the arrangements. ...
... McLain & Lee, 1996;Moser & Ekstrom, 2010). McLain and Lee (1996) show that in their in-depth case studies of adaptive governance arrangements in natural resource management, monitoring generally turns out to be a main point of controversy and organizational risk that can jeopardize the long-term viability of the arrangements. The lack of attention to the implementation and monitoring activities in the literature is hardly surprising however, considering Jones et al.'s (2014) conclusion that overall most work on CCA governance has focused exclusively on the scoping and analysis phases of such policymaking while interest in implementation and follow-up 'has been minimal'. ...
Adaptive and flexible approaches based on implementing different measures as new information emerges have been proposed as a way of enabling robustness towards uncertain future climate change. However, the success of flexible approaches in practice depends on the stability of the relevant organizational landscapes. In this paper, we draw upon key insights from the institutional theories of organizations and research on public administration and climate adaptation in Sweden. We argue that potential organizational instabilities pose a substantial challenge for the mainstreaming of flexible approaches to climate adaptation. Given the unstable character of the relevant organizational landscape in a very stable country such as Sweden, it seems reasonable to also seriously doubt the capacity of the relevant authorities in less stable countries to carry out a great number of monitoring-intensive, and hence attention-demanding, adaptive governance processes over time. Based on our results we argue that it is perilous to simply assume that flexible approaches to climate adaptation will lead to greater robustness.
... Thus, in an increasingly unpredictable and dynamic world, AM may not always be the appropriate means to achieve normative dynamism. Indeed, concerns have been raised around AM's excessive reliance on linear system models (McLain and Lee, 1996), and the "tendency among scientists to overstate their capability to measure complex functional relationships through experimentation." (Allen and Gunderson, 2011). ...
Area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs) are often static and fail to reflect the dynamic realities of marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are characterized by their embodiment of constant change, which is further amplified by anthropogenic stressors, particularly climate change. ABMTs and MPAs are, however, premised on an implicit assumption of environmental equilibrium as their boundaries and management framework are often fixed and difficult to adjust. This article seeks to lay bare the tension between static conservation strategies and the deeply and inherently dynamic nature of marine ecosystems. It further seeks to advance the notion of dynamic ABMTs, proposing an integrated conceptualization of ABMT governance, one that is more apt to respond to the type of challenges that the dynamism of complex marine ecosystems presents. Dynamism, in this context, is broadly construed as encompassing three dimensions: spatial, with fluid and adjustable conservation measures; normative, denoting a volatile and adaptive management framework that utilizes ecological and management thresholds as an initiator for adaptive, timely, and prospective approaches to enhance management outcomes; and institutional, i.e., sufficiently flexible and dynamic institutional machinery overseeing ABMT implementation. Following a comprehensive conceptualization of dynamic ABMTs, the article addresses the question whether the legal frameworks governing the ocean can sustain such a dynamic mode of ocean governance.
... the following key concepts, according to studies (e.g. Berkes et al., 2003;Folke et al., 2010;Gunderson & holling, 2002;Mclain & lee, 1996;Norberg & cumming, 2008;Walker et al., 2004), make up the SeS theory: ...
Floods have become a persistent phenomenon in Kogi State, transforming into a humanitarian tragedy over time. However, the experiences of victims have not only been insufficiently examined but also not approached from the perspective of the Social Ecological System (SES) theory. Relying on the SES theory, this study explored the experiences of flood victims in Kogi State. Data was elicited from 15 participants and analyzed thematically. The findings reveal recurring themes, including the annual occurrence of floods, heightened susceptibility to malaria and water-related illnesses, and devastated livelihoods. The participants also conveyed feelings of government neglect and insufficient support, a sense of pessimistic fatalism, a shift toward self-reliance due to non-dependence on the government, and a reliance on prayer and hope for a better tomorrow. Analyzed through the lens of the SES theory, these identified themes shed light on the multifaceted challenges faced by flood victims in Kogi State and emphasize the need for adaptive flood governance involving comprehensive and participatory approaches to decision-making and management that involve multiple stakeholders locally, regionally and globally in addressing the flood challenge.
... A growing body of evidence suggests future productivity rates and natural disturbance dynamics are shifting away from historical baselines (McLain and Lee 1996;Taylor et al. 2020b). Establishing successful silvicultural strategies that guide forest conditions that are resilient to these changing dynamics requires large scale collaboration and intensive monitoring systems (Noulèkoun et al. 2021). ...
Climate change is altering the dynamics of New Brunswick’s forests. To mitigate the effects of climate change, it is crucial to account for future uncertainties in climate projections and natural disturbance trajectories when designing forestry practices. This paper presents the projected changes in key climatic drivers for New Brunswick’s forests, examines the impacts of climate change on forest stand dynamics, and reviews adaptive silviculture tools for climate change adaptation. By 2071–2100, a projected 4–6 °C increase in mean annual temperature will lead to a 39%–77% rise in growing degree-days and a reduction in summer atmospheric water balance by 48–79 mm across New Brunswick. Foresters should anticipate a doubling of annual area burned, the northward migration of spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens)), and the introduction of novel insects and diseases. Forest simulation models project a severe decline in boreal tree species abundance, including a 50% decline in balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill) and black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) Britton et al.), offset by an increase in temperate species, notably red maple (Acer rubrum L.; +200%) and American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh; +135%). Forests in the highlands and lowlands ecoregions, with 40%–50% and 15%–30% spruce and balsam fir composition, respectively, are particularly vulnerable. To limit climate change effects on forest values, foresters must prioritize climate resiliency in their management plans. Strategies should ensure the steady provision of forest goods and services under changing climatic conditions. Forest thinning enhances stand productivity and resilience, while shelterwood and two-age harvest balances timber production with diversity. Clearcutting, despite drawbacks, establishes younger, more vigorous forests with higher carbon sequestration potential. Assisted migration offers promise in helping threatened tree species adapt. Climate change will have a significant impact on New Brunswick’s forests, leading to changes in key climatic drivers, increased risks of disturbances, and a shift toward more temperate tree species. However, there are existing adaptation strategies available. It is crucial to consider future uncertainties when designing and evaluating forestry practices, as this is essential for mitigating the effects of climate change on forest values and ensuring the continued provision of forest goods and services over time.
... Since the coining of the term adaptive management in the 1970s [6], attempts to apply the paradigm of 'learning while doing' have proliferated across the environmental domain [7,8]. But the theoretical underpinnings of adaptive management-reducing uncertainty around a discrete set of autonomous models (systems that do not explicitly depend on independent variables) or model parameter values over time to take actions that maximize a notion of expected utility-have proven to be difficult in application [9,10], buckling under the problem complexity and sociopolitical nuance within which real environmental decisions are made [11,12]. Notably, the decision-theoretic methods commonly used to solve adaptive management problems (e.g. ...
From out-competing grandmasters in chess to informing high-stakes healthcare decisions, emerging methods from artificial intelligence are increasingly capable of making complex and strategic decisions in diverse, high-dimensional and uncertain situations. But can these methods help us devise robust strategies for managing environmental systems under great uncertainty? Here we explore how reinforcement learning (RL), a subfield of artificial intelligence, approaches decision problems through a lens similar to adaptive environmental management: learning through experience to gradually improve decisions with updated knowledge. We review where RL holds promise for improving evidence-informed adaptive management decisions even when classical optimization methods are intractable and discuss technical and social issues that arise when applying RL to adaptive management problems in the environmental domain. Our synthesis suggests that environmental management and computer science can learn from one another about the practices, promises and perils of experience-based decision-making.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions’.
... There is an implicit and simplistic assumption that if poaching data and trend graphs are available to managers, then better decisions will naturally arise. Yet research has shown that diverse social, political and psychological factors may influence the decisions of environmental managers, quite apart from trends in monitoring data (Adams & Sandbrook, 2013;McLain & Lee, 1996;Nuno et al., 2014). How do managers in Mana-Chewore currently make anti-poaching decisions? ...
Adaptive management, whereby monitoring is used to evaluate management interventions with uncertain outcomes, is theoretically well‐developed but poorly implemented. Previous work has identified several reasons for this, but there has been little direct investigation into the perceptions of on‐the‐ground managers (those ultimately responsible for adopting adaptive management).
We conducted interviews with nine protected area managers in the Mana–Sapi–Chewore World Heritage Site in Zimbabwe to understand their perspectives on, and extent of adoption of, adaptive management. We focused on how managers use ranger‐collected data on elephant poaching to inform their anti‐poaching strategies. To better understand drivers of adoption, we also interviewed 18 key informants either working with these managers or familiar with their work.
We found that while managers used ranger‐collected to guide patrol deployments, data use was basic, short term and reactive. We found little evidence of managers systematically analysing and learning from trends in data to inform anti‐poaching. Lack of buy‐in and ownership was a significant barrier to adoption of data‐based adaptive management. Managers did not see how the approach would help their work, felt that the costs of adoption outweighed the benefits, and were resistant to change from management based on intuition and experience (which they saw as more familiar and dependable).
We find strong parallels between drivers of adoption in our study and prominent theories of what affects technology and innovation adoption within organisations more generally. Looking beyond our case study, we contend that the ‘human’ dimension of adaptive management (manager buy‐in and organisational culture) has been under‐emphasised compared to technical fixes (like providing more resources and training). Our results highlight the difficulties of implementing adaptive management, rather than critiquing the concept itself.
Finally, we generalise our findings to develop a theory of change to promote greater manager buy‐in to adaptive management, drawing on principles from human‐centred design to ensure that solutions are sensitive to the priorities and decision‐making context of protected area managers.
... Incorporating a diversity of perspectives into management may lead to outcomes that are enduring, because it makes knowledge structures less rigid and more adaptive to change [20,[60][61][62]. However, including diverse perspectives can introduce some challenges. ...
Managing social–ecological systems that benefit both humans and nature is the central challenge of natural resource management. Integrating multiple perspectives into decision-making adds flexibility to social–ecological systems by reducing rigidity and promoting adaptability. Our objective was to assess expert perceptions of the structure, content, and function of the Puget Sound stormwater social–ecological system. We interviewed Puget Sound stormwater experts to document their mental models of the system and compared the network structure of expert maps. We also assessed differences among experts in the components of the social–ecological system which were included in mental models. Our analyses revealed differences between genders, as well as between managers, in how experts characterized the system. Notably, female participants tended to characterize the social–ecological system as one in which there were many system drivers generating multiple impacts across the system. The mental models of the scientists tended to include more resource units than those of the managers, which focused more on governance compared to those of the scientists. Finally, we incorporated the diverse input from mangers and scientists to create a single mental model to represent a consensus on the Puget Sound stormwater social–ecological system. This work highlights the fact that addressing the stormwater problem requires that we embrace the varied perspectives of scientists, managers, and stakeholders. We contend that incorporating the diverse perspectives of experts within the context of social–ecological systems provides a promising path towards a lasting and durable recovery for the ecosystem.
... Адаптивният подход предполага постоянен процес на моделиране, приложение на моделите, получаване на нови знания и промяна (усъвършенстване) на моделите и концепциите. След, което цикълът се повтаря [13]. ...
This work investigates adaptive approaches to the management of the oak forests in Bulgaria under climate change conditions. The key elements of adaptive management and various forestry approaches of transformation of coppice forests are presented. On this basis, the results of the transformations of the coppice oak forests, the structure of the assortments of industrial roundwood, sawlogs and fuelwood of the thinnings and regenerative fellings and the dynamics of the stock and the mean annual increment (MAI) for the period 1960–2015 in coppice oak stands for conversion to high forest are analyzed. Based on the data from the analysis, it is proposed to plan and perform the activities in the coppice oak forests of "commonwealth" individually according to the state of the individual stands or parts of them. It is recommended that future forestry concepts be developed regionally for the following groups of coppice oak forests: stands for restoration; stands for conversion into high forest; stands for mixed coppice-high forest management.
... The frequency with which participation was discussed in the papers reviewed demonstrates the importance of active and ongoing participation throughout the adaptive management process [5,6,17,23,33,68]. Participation allows for the biological, economic, social, political and cultural values and perspectives held by those involved in the process to inform objective setting [69]. ...
Adaptive management acknowledges uncertainty and complexity in socio–ecological systems, providing a structured approach for learning and for making the needed management adjustments. Despite its utility, there are few examples of how adaptive management has been applied. To identify the extent to which implementation aligns with theory, we conducted a systematic literature review of adaptive management in a fisheries management context to compare how adaptive management was defined, applied and what was deemed important for implementation. Following the PRISMA approach for meta-synthesis, 20 papers were identified and reviewed against the eight key components of adaptive management. Across the case studies, we found ambiguity in the definitions of adaptive management, a varying emphasis on the different components of adaptive management and barriers to adaptive management that stemmed from both outside the process and as part of the iterative cycle. Our analysis suggests that for adaptive management to be implemented in other natural resource management situations, consideration should be given to the active and ongoing participation of those outside management, integrating socio–economic values into decision-making, and ensuring a monitoring plan is implemented. Additionally, attention should be paid to having the time and ability to detect the effects of management actions against a broader background of change. This analysis offers insights into how management support can lead to more effective objective-based decisions, thereby improving management over time.
... Rather, practices such as adaptive management can support the combined knowledge of management and science to optimize interventions in lake conservation (Abdel-Fattah & Krantzberg, 2014;Yasarer & Sturm, 2016). Practical implementation of these combined approaches have been observed around the globe (Brown et al., 2011;Li et al., 2020;Olsson & Folke, 2001), but there is still room for growth and identification of new approaches to sustainable intersectoral partnerships (McLain & Lee, 1996). Overall, more decisive actions towards increasing the degree of integration of lake science and management sectors into more cohesive collaborations are needed to address lake challenges (Creed et al., 2016;Roux et al., 2006). ...
... Given that conservation biology is a "crisis discipline", this sort of uncertainty is not unusual, and as with other areas of conservation it will be essential to incorporate adaptive management into urban efforts (McCarthy & Possingham, 2007). Adaptive management is a long-standing but difficult to implement approach that encourages active learning and adjustment through monitoring and evaluation, with managers needing to assess what is working and what is not, adjusting approaches based on feedback and experience (McLain & Lee, 1996). Expectations will also need to be adjusted because, although urban ecosystems will look different to 'ideal' ecosystem states, consideration of species composition as well as structure, function, and integrity of landscapes will still be important (Taylor & Liu, 2002). ...
... This broader interpretation of AM is relevant even where key decisions about the system are made centrally by an overarching government. There are many other stakeholders who do, in fact, influence decision-making through less formal mechanisms, for better or for worse [79][80][81][82]. ...
Anticipated water-related impacts of climate change heighten the need for tools supporting proactive efforts to address current and future conflicts involving water. Analysing a regulatory framework for a water resource using Ostrom’s (1990) Common Pool Resource (CPR) theory can assist in identifying regulatory weaknesses that may contribute to deterioration of the resource and conflicts between resource users. Equally, adopting adaptive management to transform the regulatory context can also have positive effects. However, if incentives drive resource extractor behaviours, a tool to communicate these initiatives with stakeholders, including state actors, could assist. This article presents the ‘CPR heat map’ to assist with efforts to drive changes in water governance. An example of the CPR heatmap is presented involving the governance of groundwater in the Surat Cumulative Management Area, Queensland, Australia. This example shows how perceived weaknesses and strengths of the governance framework can be illustrated. It also shows how initiatives that are transforming water governance can be presented to drive social learning. The CPR heat map illustrates the collective nature of the resource system and how to potentially resolve and manage water-related conflict. This research has implications for how we approach conflict involving water and may be also relevant for managing other CPRs.
... Reference [24] has highlighted the need for climate-smart agricultural initiatives to move beyond current incremental approaches toward prioritizing adaptive management, as well as building the capacity for transformational change in the agricultural sector. To enhance success in the application of these principles in the agricultural sector, it is essential to recognize barriers that have been identified in the implementation of adaptive management in other contexts, including inadequate stakeholder engagement, lack of political will on the part of resource managers and decision makers, lack of prioritization of active experimentation, failure to apply new knowledge in decision making, lack of appropriate monitoring protocols, as well as limited funding and personnel [51,63,64,70,71]. The vulnerability of agricultural landscapes could also present challenges for the implementation of active adaptive management that entails using the management process as an experiment to test policy hypotheses. ...
Although the transition to industrial agriculture in the 20th century resulted in increased agricultural productivity and efficiency, the attainment of global food security continues to be elusive. Current and anticipated impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector are likely to exacerbate the incidence of food insecurity. In recent years, climate-smart agriculture has gained recognition as a mechanism that has the potential to contribute to the attainment of food security and also enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, several conceptual and implementation shortfalls have limited the widespread adoption of this innovative agricultural system at the landscape scale. This manuscript argues for the use of ecosystem management as an overarching framework for the conceptualization and implementation of climate-smart agriculture. The manuscript focuses on clarifying the foundational assumptions and management goals, as well as the knowledge and institutional requirements of climate-smart agriculture using the principles of ecosystem management. Potential challenges that may be faced by the application of an ecosystem management approach to climate-smart agriculture are also discussed. Furthermore, the manuscript calls for a heightened focus on social equity in the transition toward an ecosystem-based approach to climate-smart agriculture. The US farm bill is used as an illustrative case study along with other examples drawn mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.
... This is a delicate balance that can only be achieved through continual review of methodologies and collaboration across systems. Careful development of integrated creel surveys could provide fisheries management with rich data (social and ecological in form) that are an important key to adaptive management (McLain and Lee 1996). Further, incentives must be put in place that encourage the development and collaboration of angler interview data at a large scale. ...
Recreational fisheries are social-ecological systems (SES), and knowledge of human dimensions coupled with ecology are critically needed to understand their system dynamics. Creel surveys, which typically occur in-person and on-site, serve as an important tool for informing fisheries management. Recreational fisheries creel data have the potential to inform large-scale understanding of social and ecological dynamics, but applications are currently limited by a disconnect between the questions posed by social-ecological researchers and the methods in which surveys are conducted. Although innovative use of existing data can increase understanding of recreational fisheries as SES, creel surveys should also adapt to changing information needs. These opportunities include using the specific temporal and spatial scope of creel survey data, integrating these data with alternative data sources, and increasing human dimensions understanding. This review provides recommendations for adapting survey design, implementation, and analysis for SES-focused fisheries management. These recommendations are: (1) increasing human dimensions knowledge; (2) standardization of surveys and data; (3) increasing tools and training available to fisheries scientists; and (4) increasing accessibility and availability of data. Incorporation of human dimensions information into creel surveys will increase the ability of fisheries management to regulate these important systems from an integrated SES standpoint.
... In active adaptive management, resource management actions are implemented as experiments to test competing policy hypotheses with the aim of generating knowledge about the system [91][92][93][94]. However, because adaptive management has largely been implemented as a technical resource management approach that fails to adequately recognize social and institutional considerations [74,[95][96][97], adaptive governance provides an appropriate institutional context for the successful implementation of adaptive management [80,94,98]. Given the reluctance of policymakers in embracing the complexity and uncertainties that characterize human-environment interactions [94,96], combining the scientific insights from the resilience and adaptive governance literature with the metaphysical assumptions of deep ecology could offer a more compelling argument for a rethinking of human-nature interactions. ...
Since the late 1980s, the idea of sustainable development has been gaining widespread recognition as a guiding framework for policies on development and the environment. However, the concept of sustainable development has received a number of criticisms, including its over-emphasis on meeting human needs through economic growth, as well as its failure to recognize dynamic human–environment interactions. In response to these shortfalls, the concepts of resilience and adaptive governance have emerged as alternative perspectives for pursuing sustainable development. Resilience in social-ecological systems emphasizes the capacity of coupled human–environment systems to deal with change, while continuing to develop. Adaptive governance relies on diverse and nested institutional mechanisms for connecting actors across multiple scales to manage conflicts and uncertainties in ecosystem management processes. However, the ethical dimensions of resilience and adaptive governance have not received enough attention. A promising ethical perspective for guiding policies on human–environment interactions is the philosophy of deep ecology, which highlights the need for recognition of the intrinsic values of all living things, as well as the nurturing of ecological and cultural diversity. In this paper, I argue that an integration of the principles of deep ecology and adaptive governance provides a complementary set of ethical principles and institutional attributes that offers better prospects for pursuing sustainable development in the era of the Anthropocene. The implications of this integrative agenda include: the adoption of a holistic conception of dynamic human–environment interactions; the recognition of diverse knowledge systems through an anti-reductionist approach to knowledge; the promotion of long term sustainability through respect for ecological and cultural diversity; and embracing decentralization and local autonomy. I further illustrate this integrative agenda using the management of protected areas as a case study.
... Dewey (1927) put forth an argument that policies be treated as experiments, with the aim of promoting continual learning and adaptation in response to experience over time (Busenberg, 2001). 7 Early applications of adaptive policies can be found in the field of environmental management (Holling, 1978;McLain & Lee, 1996), where policies are designed from the outset to test clearly formulated hypotheses about the behavior of an ecosystem being changed by human use (Lee, 1993). A similar attitude is also advocated by Collingridge (1980) with respect to the development of new technologies. ...
Governing risks is not only a technical matter, but also a matter of ethical and societal considerations. In this article, we argue that in addition to scientific and technical uncertainties, we need to also address normative uncertainties of risk decisions. We define normative uncertainties as situations where there are different partially morally defensible ‐‐ but incompatible ‐‐ options or courses of action, or ones in which there is no fully morally defensible option. We conceptualize normative uncertainties, distinguishing between the four categories of evolutionary, theoretical, conceptual, and epistemic normative uncertainties. We will show different instances of normative uncertainties in climate adaptation strategies. We finally present two methods for identifying and dealing with normative uncertainties, namely, the Wide Reflective Equilibrium and adaptive planning. Situations of normative uncertainties have always been and will continue to be present in risk decisions and they have often been dealt with in an implicit manner. In this article, we make them explicit, which could lead to better morally informed and justified decisions about climate risks.
This article is categorized under:
• Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change.
Abstract
When governing climate adaptation risks, we need to identify and address normative uncertainties. This paper proposes a method for this.
Local perspectives provide different insights into disaster planning and response as compared to those of experts. Eliciting them, however, can be challenging, particularly for marginalised groups whose viewpoints have historically been excluded from planning processes. Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) provides a semi‐quantitative approach to representing the collective understanding or ‘mental models’ of diverse individuals and communities. This study involved 23 FCM interviews across three neighbourhoods of Saint Martin to comprehend: (i) how individuals' mental models of Hurricane Irma (2017) differ based on their context; (ii) how aligned mental models are with policy and planning documents; and (iii) the implications for the inclusiveness and representativeness of disaster response policies. It found that the residents of different neighbourhoods provided unique insights into the factors driving the social‐ecological system, and that official policies aligned closely with priorities. The paper argues that the inclusion of the perspectives of different groups in disaster recovery is essential for an equitable process.
River ecosystems face growing threats from human‐induced stressors, resulting in habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. Crucial to these ecosystems, macroinvertebrates maintain river health and functioning. In this review, we examine the challenges confronting macroinvertebrates, explore restoration strategies and management approaches, and shed light on knowledge gaps and future research directions. Habitat degradation, water pollution, climate change, and invasive species are discussed as key challenges. Various restoration strategies, such as in‐stream habitat restoration, flow regime restoration, riparian zone restoration, and connectivity restoration, are evaluated for macroinvertebrate conservation. Integrated catchment management, adaptive management, community‐based management, monitoring, and policy integration are highlighted as essential management approaches, and knowledge gaps in long‐term monitoring, innovative restoration techniques, climate change resilience, and policy incorporation are identified as areas calling for further research. Ultimately, a proactive, adaptable, and cooperative approach to river management will ensure macroinvertebrate conservation and sustainable river ecosystems.
Environmental management is the management of our impact on the environment, and the environment's impact on us. It is usually performed to address environmental legislation or policies, and mainly refers to the methods and processes used to predict, measure and mitigate impacts. Environmental management has emerged in recent decades in response to increasing environmental awareness and usually involves stages of assessment, planning, action, and monitoring. These stages are often informed by international standards. Historically, management efforts have been limited by reductionist approaches to environmental systems that focus on components or processes in isolation and fail to recognize system complexity. More recently, systems thinking that acknowledges the dynamism and complexity of environmental systems has fed into management efforts, including consideration of adaptive cycles, resilience, interdisciplinarity, postnormal science, adaptive management, and sustainability. These are important for the management of many modern and complex environmental issues.
Dreissenid mussels are one of the most problematic aquatic invasive species (AIS) in North America, causing substantial ecological and economic effects. To date, dreissenid mussel control efforts in open water have included physical, biological, and chemical methods. The feasibility of successful dreissenid mussel management or eradication in lakes is relatively undocumented in the freshwater management literature. This review presents information on 33 open water dreissenid mussel control projects in 23 North America lakes. We reviewed data from past dreissenid mussel control projects and identified patterns and knowledge gaps to help inform adaptive management strategies. The three key lessons learned include (1) pre- and post-treatment survey methods that are designed to meet management objectives are beneficial, e.g., by sampling for all life stages and taking into account that no survey method is completely comprehensive; (2) defining the treatment area—particularly ensuring it is sufficiently large to capture all life stages present—is critical to meeting management objectives; and (3) control projects provide an opportunity to collect water chemistry, effects on non-target organisms, and other efficacy-related data that can inform safe and effective adaptive management.
The trend in environmental management toward more adaptive, community-based, and holistic approaches will require new approaches to environmental valuation. In this paper, we offer a new valuation approach, one that embodies the core principles of adaptive management, which is experimental, multi-scalar, and place-based. In addition, we use hierarchy theory to incorporate spatial and temporal variability of natural systems into a multi-scalar management model. Our approach results in the consideration of multiple values within community-based ecosystem management, rather than an attempt to maximise a single variable such as economic efficiency. We then offer two heuristics – one procedural and one evaluative – to guide a community toward shared goals, and to develop indicators to measure progress toward these goals. We illustrate our approach by application to environmental and developmental decisions in the Southern Appalachians.
Resilience research is central to confront the sustainability challenges to ecosystems and human societies in a rapidly changing world. Given that social-ecological problems span entire Earth system, there is a critical need for resilience models that account for the connectivity across intricately linked ecosystems (i.e., freshwater, marine, terrestrial, atmosphere). We present a resilience perspective of meta-ecosystems that are connected through the flow of biota, matter and energy within and across aquatic and terrestrial realms, and the atmosphere. We demonstrate ecological resilience sensu Holling using aquatic-terrestrial linkages and riparian ecosystems more generally. A discussion of applications in riparian ecology and meta-ecosystem research (e.g., resilience quantification, panarchy, meta-ecosystem boundary delineations, spatial regime migration and early warning indications) concludes the paper. Understanding meta-ecosystem resilience may have potential to support decision making for natural resource management (scenario planning, risk and vulnerability assessments).
New Zealand (NZ) has a diversity of large river ecosystems that provide essential ecosystem services but are impaired by multiple ecological impacts. River restoration is an active field worldwide and there is good potential for river restoration practitioners in NZ to draw on lessons from elsewhere, although there is also a need to tailor approaches to national and local contexts. Here, we provide a critical review of large floodplain river restoration to guide environmental management in NZ and inform research and management priorities. The review is structured using a driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework, with a focus on responses, i.e. large river restoration methods. Thirty-one river restoration methods aligned with 14 broad restoration goals were evaluated collaboratively and semi-quantitatively. Evaluation outcomes are presented to inform regional and national scale restoration planning. Recommendations were identified to address eight key knowledge or policy gaps: (1) understanding cumulative impacts facing large river systems, (2) prioritising restoration measures at the landscape-scale, (3) promoting lateral connectivity in large river floodplains, (4) incorporating knowledge of geomorphology into river management, (5) enhancing understanding of cultural priorities and community aspirations, (6) assessing how costs and benefits of river restoration vary among timescales, (7) understanding the feasibility of restoration methods that have received limited application in NZ and (8) improving protection of threatened native fish species.
Foresight science is a systematic approach to generate future predictions for planning and management by drawing upon analytical and predictive tools to understand the past and present, while providing insights about the future. To illustrate the application of foresight science in conservation, we present three case studies: identification of emerging risks to conservation, conservation of at-risk species, and aid in the development of management strategies for multiple stressors. We highlight barriers to mainstreaming foresight science in conservation including knowledge accessibility/organization, communication across diverse stakeholders/decision makers, and organizational capacity. Finally, we investigate opportunities for mainstreaming foresight science including continued advocacy to showcase its application, incorporating emerging technologies (i.e., artificial intelligence) to increase capacity/decrease costs, and increasing education/training in foresight science via specialized courses and curricula for trainees and practicing professionals. We argue that failure to mainstream foresight science will hinder the ability to achieve future conservation objectives in the Anthropocene.
In this article, we examine best practices and future opportunities for the design of coastal web atlases (CWAs) supporting adaptive management. Coastal zones face significant challenges, and CWAs have emerged as a resource to organize maps and geospatial data in support of education, exploration, and decision-making about coastal issues. Our research is motivated by the Wisconsin Coastal Atlas (https://www.wicoastalatlas.net/)—one of several U.S. state-based CWAs that are members of the broader International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN: https://ican.iode.org/). Specifically, we conducted a needs assessment that bridges adaptive coastal management user needs with three tenets of interactive cartographic design relevant to CWAs: map representation, interaction, and usability. The needs assessment included two stages: a competitive analysis of 10 state CWAs and a user survey with stakeholders from those states about their experiences with and opinions on CWA design. In addition to characterizing design patterns and values, the needs assessment identified important gaps informing future CWAs, such as: inclusion of a wider range of thematic maps; provision of hybrid basemaps providing context about the land and water sides of the coastline; implementation of spatial calculations and temporal sequencing for analysis and exploration; use of story maps to support CWA learnability; improved responsiveness between mobile and non-mobile devices; and customization of advanced analytical tools that support decision making about the most pressing issues facing our coasts. This research serves coastal managers, planners, researchers, educators, outreach specialists, and related stakeholders who benefit from findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data and effective decision tools to guide management of coastal resources.
Environmental policies are often chosen according to physical characteristics that disregard the complex interactions between decision-makers, society, and nature. Environmental policy resistance has been identified as stemming from such complexities, yet we lack an understanding of how social and physical factors interrelate to inform policy design. The identification of synergies and trade-offs among various management strategies is necessary to generate optimal results from limited institutional resources. Participatory modeling has been used within the environmental community to aid decision-making by bringing together diverse stakeholders and defining their shared understanding of complex systems, which are commonly depicted by causal feedbacks. While such approaches have increased awareness of system complexity, causal diagrams often result in numerous feedback loops that are difficult to disentangle without further, data-intensive modeling. When investigating the complexities of human decision-making, we often lack robust empirical datasets to quantify human behavior and environmental feedbacks. Fuzzy logic may be used to convert qualitative relationships into semi-quantitative representations for numerical simulation. However, sole reliance upon computer-simulated outputs may obscure our understanding of the underlying system dynamics. Therefore, the aim of this study is to present and demonstrate a mixed-methods approach for better understanding: 1) how the system will respond to unique management strategies, in terms of policy synergies and conflicts, and 2) why the system behaves as such, according to causal feedbacks embedded within the system dynamics. This framework is demonstrated through a case study of nature-based solutions and policymaking in Houston, Texas, USA.
Approaches based on adaptive management are an opportunity to improve the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) follow-up, considering the conceptual affinities between their structures. Some cases demonstrate an increase in adaptive capacity, based on experiential learning, despite a lack of governance arrangements able to guarantee the effective involvement of different parts of society in the decision-making process. Finally, adaptive management is a promising approach for EIA follow-up, which does not mean abrogating the principles of precaution and prevention that underlie EIA processes, serving as a mere palliative for situations whose environmental impacts might have been predicted and prevented.
Invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) populations in the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin have been suppressed for over 60 years primarily by migration barriers and lamprey-specific pesticides. Improving control outcomes by supplementing barriers and pesticides with additional control strategies has been a long-standing objective of managers and stakeholders, but progress towards this objective has been limited. We developed an adaptive management implementation framework and applied it to this objective. The framework consists of a set of adaptive management implementation goals (develop effective monitoring practices, develop effective participatory process, and conduct management experiments), a set of aspirational targets hypothesized to be related to Sea Lamprey Control Program adaptive capacity (multi-level political and social organization, creation of safe-to-fail decision making arenas, and effective use of multi-criteria decision analysis), and a feedback loop linking adaptive capacity and progress towards adaptive management implementation goals. Progress towards improving sea lamprey control outcomes by integrating supplemental control strategy into the Sea Lamprey Control Program may be possible through adaptive management implementation.
Context
Evidence-based knowledge is crucial for place-based knowledge production and learning towards sustainable landscapes through stewardship and integrated spatial planning.
Objectives
We focus on the landscape service concept as a tool, and three fundamental challenges for its use: (1) how to monitor benefits provided by different landscapes; (2) to demonstrate trade-offs and synergies among benefits in a landscape; and (3) to discuss how to incorporate results from analyses into landscape stewardship and planning.
Methods
As a case study we chose the Iranian Qazvin province with diverse natural and anthropogenic landscapes, and top-down societal steering. Five landscape services (water yield, water regulation, pollination, actual net primary production (NPPact) and social-cultural connectivity) were assessed and compared.
Results
All landscape services were significantly correlated. Major trade-offs and synergies among services were between NPPact and water yield and regulation. Trade-off and synergy clusters showed that landscape functions depend on both natural and anthropogenic landscape patterns and processes.
Conclusions
Providing transparent data about trade-offs and synergies among landscape services can facilitate learning about which services are important among landscapes. For each of six settings we suggest action plans. We discuss the role of Iranian landscape stewardship and planning, and integrative research needs.
Weather forecasts, climate change projections, and epidemiological predictions all represent domains that are using forecast data to take early action for risk management. However, the methods and applications of the modeling efforts in each of these three fields have been developed and applied with little cross-fertilization. This perspective identifies best practices in each domain that can be adopted by the others, which can be used to inform each field separately as well as to facilitate a more effective combined use for the management of compound and evolving risks. In light of increased attention to predictive modeling during the COVID-19 pandemic, we identify three major areas that all three of these modeling fields should prioritize for future investment and improvement: (1) decision support, (2) conveying uncertainty, and (3) capturing vulnerability.
The study of land change within social-ecological systems (SES) is of great interest and increasingly makes uses of remote sensing (RS) imagery to scale inferences up through space and time. However, spatial analysis using dense time series of RS data poses technical hurdles for non-expert users. To broaden the community of SES researchers using RS, we present a simple tool for mapping land change at local to regional scales. The Python implementation of the Noise Insensitive Trajectory Algorithm (pyNITA) is accessed through a streamlined graphical user interface and requires minimal user parameterization to generate long-term trends and identify key dates of significant change (i.e., disturbance events) based on time series of Landsat or Sentinel-2 data. In this paper, we introduce the pyNITA software, explain the underlying algorithm, analyze key parameter sensitivities, and summarize methods and results from three SES case studies of land change.
We develop a perspective on steering in governance which understands steering as intended path creation. Inspired by evolutionary governance theory, critical management studies and social systems theory, we argue that steering is shaped and limited by co-evolutions, disallowing for any formulaic approach. In order to illuminate the space for steering in governance, we analyze the interplay between different dependencies. Those dependencies are not just obstacles to path creation, they can also be pointers and assets. The steering discussion is further complicated by always unique sets of couplings between a governance system and its environment. After introducing the ideas of reality effects and governance strategy, we further develop our concept of steering and present it as the management of dependencies (in governance) and reality effects (outside governance) towards path creation. This management is ideally strategic in nature and requires leadership in a new role.
On the Ground
•As “co-produced” research becomes more popular, there is a need to evaluate the processes and outcomes of successful cases.
•The Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management project is a case of a ranch-scale, 10-year grazing experiment ongoing in Colorado. We used social science to evaluate group learning.
•We describe the complex, challenging aspects of the collaborative process, and how those challenges helped inspire learning as the team grappled with new problems and knowledge.
•Respect, trust, and shared understanding are essential to success.
•Social science can help collaborative research teams better design and implement complex co-production methods to engage stakeholders.
Background
This paper critically discusses the use and merits of global indices, in particular, the Global Health Security Index (GHSI; Cameron et al. https://www.ghsindex.org/#l-section--map ) in times of an imminent crisis, such as the current pandemic. This index ranked 195 countries according to their expected preparedness in the case of a pandemic or other biological threat. The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic provides the background to compare each country's predicted performance from the GHSI with the actual performance. In general, there is an inverted relation between predicted versus actual performance, i.e. the predicted top performers are among those that are the worst hit. Obviously, this reflects poorly on the potential policy uses of this index in imminent crisis management.
Methods
The paper analyses the GHSI and identifies why it may have struggled to predict actual pandemic preparedness as evidenced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper also uses two different data sets, one from the Worldmeter on the spread of the Covid-19 pandemics, and the other from the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) Evidence-to-Policy Tracker, to draw comparisons between the actual introduction of pandemic response policies and the corresponding death rate in 29 selected countries.
Results
This paper analyses the reasons for the poor match between prediction and reality in the index, and mentions six general observations applying to global indices in this respect. These observations are based on methodological and conceptual analyses. The level of abstraction in these global indices builds uncertainties upon uncertainties and hides implicit value assumptions, which potentially removes them from the policy needs on the ground.
Conclusions
From the analysis, the question is raised if the policy community might have better tools for decision-making in a pandemic. On the basis of data from the INGSA Evidence-to-Policy Tracker, and with backing in studies from social psychology and philosophy of science, some simple heuristics are suggested, which may be more useful than a global index.
This chapter introduces the book and reviews the concept of adaptive management. The rationale for and benefits of adaptive management are summarized. So are the difficulties in carrying out adaptive management. Chino Basin is a large groundwater basin in Southern California, relied upon heavily by a large population and economy. The effective and sustainable management of Chino Basin is a high stakes endeavor. In this location, adaptive management of the groundwater resource (and interrelated other resources) emerged and has been institutionalized, through significant effort and with considerable difficulty but also considerable success.
Understanding abrupt change in social-ecological systems (SES), such as following major disasters, is key for restoration, adaptation, and sustainability. We describe an approach and case study using fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) and mental models to collectively represent local perceptions of Hurricane Irma in Key West, Florida. Using in-person FCM interviews, we sought to answer three overarching questions: 1) how did residents perceive SES relationships post-disaster, 2) how did these perceptions vary across three stakeholder groups consisting of those working in ocean recreation, resorts and inns, and non-tourism sectors, and 3) how did the aggregation of diverse opinions and perceptions affect the understanding of SES trade-offs regarding the coastal region’s resilience? Across all respondents, housing was the most commonly mentioned concept occurring in 39% of all models. Coral reefs were included in 71% of ocean recreation models, whereas tourism was included in 50% of resorts and inns models. While mangroves, seawalls, and beaches were rarely to never mentioned until prompted by the interviewer, scenario analyses revealed that shorelines play an important role in residents’ perceptions of how Hurricane Irma collectively impacted people and the environment. Sensitivity analyses revealed that the community, composed of a diverse representation of stakeholders, viewed core SES components similarly and trade-offs were acknowledged. Yet, different stakeholder groups perceived the SES in which they live in different ways, with each group perceiving greater damage to specific system components based on direct experience and knowledge. Our study demonstrates an approach for representing the collective perceptions of communities in post-disaster research, rebuilding, and restoration efforts.
This book examines from a multidisciplinary viewpoint the question of what we mean - what we should mean - by setting sustainability as a goal for environmental management. The author, trained as a philosopher of science and language, explores ways to break down the disciplinary barriers to communication and deliberation about environment policy, and to integrate science and evaluations into a more comprehensive environmental policy. Choosing sustainability as the keystone concept of environmental policy, the author explores what we can learn about sustainable living from the philosophy of pragmatism, from ecology, from economics, from planning, from conservation biology and from related disciplines. The idea of adaptive, or experimental, management provides the context, while insights from various disciplines are integrated into a comprehensive philosophy of environmental management. The book will appeal to students and professionals in the fields of environmental policy and ethics, conservation biology, and philosophy of science.
A wide variety of tools and approaches for supporting the making of decisions under deep uncertainty have been put forward, but we lack a comparative overview.
September 11, 2001 or 9/11 has put extra pressures on public officials and their agencies in the United States to prepare for new terrorist threats (Rosenthal, 2003). After 9/11 the idea of homeland security became a part of American thinking and behavior (Beresford, 2004). In this relatively new environment that governments must contend with, it is important to be aware of some issues associated with homeland security preparedness. The traditional distinction among the major sectors of the government has blurred, since the war on terrorism is no longer just the purview of military agencies (Wise and Nader, 2002). In this new environment both civilian and military agencies share the responsibility in protecting the homeland. This chapter attempts to address homeland security preparedness by focusing on city governments examining organizational, collaboration, and management elements of homeland security. The main purpose of this chapter is to set the context of homeland security preparedness. It is vital to know some of the issues that governments face in homeland security in order to understand how Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS) might be used to address these issues. In order to accomplish this task this chapter first provides background information and an overview of some of the existing homeland security literature in public administration. There is a discussion of the research methods of this article and the results of a homeland security preparedness survey are presented. A conclusion demonstrates the significance of the key findings found in this chapter.
Since the late-1980s, ecotourism has been attracting many tourists as awareness about the environment has increased. Much debate has occurred about whether ecotourism can be a new tool for environmental protection or just another type of community development. Although many publications examine the potential benefits of ecotourism, little attention has been given to the management of ecotourism. This paper discusses the importance of ecotourism management from the theoretical perspective by examining recent ecotourism publications and debates. From this survey, it becomes clear that the management of ecotourism could be developed into regional ecosystem management by following three steps. First, it is important for persons in the scientific and lay communities to share their different types of knowledge about the ecosystem. Second, ways should be created for ecotourists from outside the region to collaborate with local managers at the planning and monitoring stage of ecosystem management. Finally, ecotourism should be managed in a way that can encourage the creation of regional ecosystem management strategies by utilizing the shared knowledge. If these steps are followed, local communities can play a role in creating their own regional ecosystem management, and the "design process" will contribute to sustainable use of the ecosystem.
In Taiwan, the idea of ecotourism emerged in the 1980s when Taiwan's national parks began to provide educational tours and interpretation services for visitors. Since then, ecotourism has been a popular term for marketing tourism in national parks, forest stations, natural reserves and rural areas in Taiwan. The "Ecotourism White Paper" for Taiwan was completed by the National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD) in 2004, in an attempt to provide more environmentally sound guidelines for ecotourism management. One of its key management strategies is to determine a "tourism carrying capacity" for each destination to prevent its environment from degradation. Therefore, it brings up the question of how the manager of an ecotourism destination can properly determine a carrying-capacity limit that would stand the test. To examine this issue, this paper briefly reviews some applications of tourism carrying capacity for forest recreation management in Taiwan, and then explores the inherent features of management problems in ecosystems as well as some strategies to deal with them. Lastly, the implications for the future applications of tourism carrying capacity in Taiwan's forests are discussed, and it ends in the conclusion that tourism carrying capacity should be tackled as a decision-making issue in ecosystem management. That is, tourism carrying capacity is a management action that should be evaluated over time, and it is not a fixed number to be determined.
An analysis of the types of uncertainties faced by resource managers is presented. Uncertainties are classified by the frequency of occurrence. Managers develop ways for dealing with frequently occurring uncertainties that do not commonly present extraordinary problems. Uncertainties that occur infrequently require an adaptive learning approach to management where we must learn about the true states of nature by careful monitoring, evaluation, and experimentation. In an undesirable situation, the ability to respond rapidly is most important. Uncertainties that occur rarely, called surprise, are very difficult to deal with. Suggested responses include holding some resources in reserve to cope with the unexpected and developing broadly based monitoring systems to detect surprises as early as possible.
This paper describes four attempts to get systems analysis methods used by real institutions such as the Canadian Fisheries Service, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and private consulting companies. Following the four examples, some conclusions are drawn about the requirements for successful implementation of systems analysis within ecological management institutions and these conclusions are compared with those reached by workers in other fields. The author stresses that the successful implementation of systems analysis into decision making requires a substantial reorientation of the systems analysts. Applying systems analysis techniques to applied problems involves a very strong commitment to communication, simplicity, clarity, and a long term interest in working with decision making bodies. The management of ecosystems desperately needs the tools that systems analysts have to offer; the systems analysts must show that they have the ability and desire to apply those tools.
The interaction between a modelling team, the technical staff of a government agency, and public advisory groups is described for the analysis of a major recreational and commercial fishery. A computer simulation model was used as the major policy analysis tool over a period of 4 years, and the problems and potential of this approach are discussed. Of particular interest was the high degree of turnover among technical staff within the government agency and the major role the model played in providing continuity.
An analysis of the types of uncertainties faced by resource managers is presented. Uncertainties are classified by the frequency of occurrence. Managers develop ways for dealing with frequently occurring uncertainties that do not commonly present extraordinary problems. Uncertainties that occur infrequently require an adaptive learning approach to management where we must learn about the true states of nature by careful monitoring, evaluation, and experimentation. In an undesirable situation, the ability to respond rapidly is most important. Uncertainties that occur rarely, called surprise, are very difficult to deal with. Suggested responses include holding some resources in reserve to cope with the unexpected and developing broadly based monitoring systems to detect surprises as early as possible.
Technological innovation is emerging as the single most important factor to influence business success in today's intensely competitive and dynamic environment. Accordingly, scholars as well as practitioners are contributing to a rapidly growing body of knowledge for the effective management of innovation. However, surprisingly, very little attention is being paid to the organizational and managerial issues pertaining to creativity, which is the most basic and the most critical element in the process of innovation. This paper highlights creativity as the central issue in management of innovation, and presents two models to further our understanding of the dynamics of creativity in organizational settings, and the place of creativity in the innovation process.For a comprehensive understanding of creative behavior and performance in organizations this paper develops a Multiple Perspective Model. This model includes three perspectives, the Individual, the Technical, and the Organizational, which focus respectively on the distinctive individual characteristics associated with creativity, the needed technical resources—material as well as human—for creativity, and the organizational practices and manegerial actions that aid or stifle creativity. The exposition of this model is followed by an analysis of its implications for the management of creativity. Next, a model of the innovation process is proposed, in which innovation is shown as being contingent on a cascade of creative efforts in various functional areas and across different fields of specialization. These two models are expected to be useful to both researchers and practitioners in ferreting out the issues of primary significance, nurturing creativity and enhancing innovation in organizations.
Acrimony between industry and government managers is commonplace in the management of many Pacific salmon fisheries. A case study of the chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) fisheries in southern British Columbia provides insight into the prevailing distrust between fishermen and managers. A recent attempt to bring planned management into what had often been an irrational and highly political activity is described. A management system called the "clockwork" provides all fishermen an opportunity for greater understanding of the management rationale and greater input into the decision-making process. The results of this attempt and implications for achieving management goals are discussed.
In this paper we describe the use of a specific decision analysis tool, multiattribute utility analysis, to investigate conflicting goals in the management of salmon on the Skeena River. We used this technique to determine the preferences of 10 individuals representing several interest groups and different management agencies. It is shown how individuals differ in their preferences, how conflicts can be identified, and how decision analysis can be used to refine an individual's understanding of his preferences. Individuals assessed possible outcomes of different alternative enhancement proposals using two techniques, the decision analysis technique and an intuitive approach. These two methods produced different results. The use of these techniques in the management process is discussed.
The interests of many groups, some with multiple objectives, are important to include in evaluating strategies affecting salmon in the Skeena River. A multiattribute utility model is proposed for addressing these issues. Two first-cut utility functions are assessed using the preferences of two individuals familiar with the problem. These utility functions provide a basis for constructive discussion to arrive at a reasonable utility function for examining alternative policies. Two unique features of this study are the explicit focus on value tradeoffs and equity considerations among interest groups, and a comparative examination of the two first-cut multiattribute utility models. This examination indicates the range of fundamental preferences which can be captured using multiattribute utility functions and illustrates the potential of the theory for conflict illumination and resolution.
The resistance to the use of analysis has traditionally been explained in terms of “implementation”: managers do not understand analysis or are not sold on it; analysis lacks the support or participation of top management; analytic solutions are blocked by managerial attitudes, organizational climates, politics. This paper finds these explanations superficial, arguing that we must look beyond implementation - to formulation — for the reasons why analysis, especially policy analysis, is resisted. Analysis denies the importance of dynamic factors characteristic of policy making; it fails to handle the critical soft data; despite claims of objectivity, it drives the organization towards a narrow economic morality which sometimes amounts to a social immorality; it tends to encourage bureaucratization and centralization; and it disregards another, fundamentally different mode of thinking — generally called intuition — which better suits many of the needs of policy making. There is, however, a role to be played by “soft analysis,” carried out in interdisciplinary teams, as in the earliest days of operations research.Résumé La résistance à l’utilisation de l’analyse fut traditionnellement expliquée en terme de la mise oeuvre: les gestionnaires ne comprennent pas l’analyse ou ne l’acceptent pas; l’analyse n’a pas le support ou la participation de la haute direction; les solutions analytiques sont bloquées par les attitudes des gestionnaires, les climats organisationnels et les politiques. Cette étude trouve ces explications superficielles, en argumentant que l’on doit viser au delà de la mise en oeuvre - é la formulation - afin de trouver les raisons pour lesquelles on résiste l’analyse, surtout l’analyse des politiques. L’analyse dement l’importance des facteurs dynamiques, caractéristiques de la formulation des politiques; elle ne considére pas des données informelles, qui sont critiques; malgre les arguments d’objectivite, elle conduit 1’organisation vers une systéme des valeurs économique qui conduit souvent vers l’immoralité sociale; elle tend à encourager la bureaucratie et la centralisation; et elle ignore une autre maniére de penser fondamentalement différente, qu’on appelle l’intuition, qui satisfait mieux certaines besoins nécessaires pour établir des politiques. Il y a toutefois un rô1e pour l’analyse informelle, tel qu’utilisé dans des équipes interdisciplinaires comme durant ies premiers jours de la recherche opérationnelle.
This paper contains an introduction to the essential features of Operational Research and Management in relation to any organisation. It is intended also to show how the special requirement of the UK fishing industry affects the emphasis on the roles and resources which concern the decision makers and advisers. The relationship of the individual studies require a larger framework to illustrate their importance.
The social sciences can make significant contributions to solving watershed management problems. Sustainable watershed management requires knowledge about ecologically effective forms of social organization. Including humans as a component of the ecosystem permits scientists and policy makers to consider how resource management activities affect biophysical processes regulating ecosystems. A major reason for the failure of human societies to develop sustainable resource management activities has been the limitations on their ability to acquire and process ecological information. Difficulty in maintaining adequate information on the state of ecological systems originates in the inability of people to develop an effective cognitive map of their environment. Institutional structure has a major influence on cognitive learning of environments, and institutional arrangements determine the scale of human social organization and the incentives for people to learn and adopt ecologically sustainable practices. Institutionalization of sustainable resource and ecosystem management practices will require better information about the appropriate scale and form of social organization. Small, flexible institutional units may be best suited for the adaptive learning necessary to achieve sustainable resource management.
Four of 13 existing models have been applied to forest protection/management strategy evaluation in New Brunswick, Canada. Each successful model was built in association with the user. It may be possible to apply models built independently of a user but it will require a search for an appropriate niche.
Adaptive management uses well-defined feedback loops to design actions and track the effects resulting from actions. The adaptive process maximizes the managers' learning about the system, and is consequently a safe approach to initiating management in complex systems. By its nature adaptive management requires quantitatively explicit hypothesis about system function and structure. This requirement is both the greatest limitation to its use and the greatest benefit. The emerging application of the adaptive approach in the control of wood availability is discussed and comparison is drawn to the control of wildlife habitat availability. Key words: Renewable Resource Management. Management Planning Forest Management Methods.
Opportunities for sustaining humans and their environmental systems can be enhanced by examining how socioeconomic and ecological processes are integrated at the landscape level. Landscape properties—such as fragmentation, connectivity, spatial dynamics, and the degree of dominance by habitat types—are influenced by market processes, human institutions, and landowner knowledge as well as by ecological processes. These same landscape properties affect ecological processes that influence species abundance and distribution, as well as the production of goods and services valued by human society. An approach for understanding these complex interactions includes models that simulate (1) land use changes that alter landscape pattern, (2) effects of landscape pattern on species persistence, invasion of exotics, and resource supplies, and (3) dynamic interactions involving possible feedback processes that can alter land uses or landscape patterns. Adaptive management is recommended for using this approach to attain sustainable development where ecological processes operating at micro, meso, and macro scales are integrated.
Social and economic considerations are among the most important drivers of landscape change, yet few studies have addressed economic and environmental influences on landscape structure, and how land ownership may affect landscape dynamics. Watersheds in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, and the southern Appalachian highlands of western North Carolina were studied to address two questions: (1) Does landscape pattern vary among federal, state, and private lands? (2) Do land-cover changes differ among owners, and if so, what variables explain the propensity of land to undergo change on federal, state, and private lands? Landscape changes were studied between 1975 and 1991 by using spatial databases and a time series of remotely sensed imagery. Differences in landscape pattern were observed between the two study regions and between different categories of land ownership. The proportion of the landscape in forest cover was greatest in the southern Appalachians for both U.S. National Forest and private lands, compared to any land-ownership category on the Olympic Peninsula. Greater variability in landscape structure through time and between ownership categories was observed on the Olympic Peninsula. On the Olympic Peninsula, landscape patterns did not differ substantially between commercial forest and state Department of Natural Resources lands, both of which are managed for timber, but differed between U.S. National Forest and noncommercial private land ownerships. In both regions, private lands contained less forest cover but a greater number of small forest patches than did public lands. Analyses of land-cover change based on multinomial logit models revealed differences in land-cover transitions through time, between ownerships, and between the two study regions. Differences in land-cover transitions between time intervals suggested that additional factors (e.g., changes in wood products or agricultural prices, or changes in laws or policies) cause individuals or institutions to change land management. The importance of independent variables (slope, elevation, distance to roads and markets, and population density) in explaining land-cover change varied between ownerships. This methodology for analyzing land-cover dynamics across land units that encompass multiple owner types should be widely applicable to other landscapes.
Certain systematic methods of scientific thinking may produce much more rapid progress than others.
Bayesian decision theory provides concepts that seem ideally suited to many renewable resource management problems. A procedure for applying the concepts to salmon management in real time is illustrated with an example from the Skeena River fishery in Northern British Columbia, Canada. The decision in question is the escapement to allow for spawning purposes in a particular year. The procedure involves determining a probabilistic relationship between the escapement in one year and the number of adults returning in the cycle year 4 years later, defining a utility curve for the catch, forecasting the number of salmon expected to return in the current year, and computing the escapement with the maximum expected utility. Discussion indicates areas where further work is needed and also other possible applications of the procedure.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze contraints to the effective implementation of adaptive management from a sociological and institutional perspective. Although formal adoption and institutionalization of adaptive management is critical, it is however insufficient to ensure successful implementation. Successful implementation of adaptive management requires management to take risk‐prone actions while providing institutional patience and stability. The experimental nature of adaptive management requires that managers and politicians redefine success so that learning from error becomes an acceptable part of the learning process. In addition, information must be collected and analyzed over time frames that often exceed the typical tenure of politicians. Adaptive management also needs to be predicated on clearly established goals and decision criteria that will allow for accountability and evaluation of how goals are being met. Furthermore, the goals must be compatible with natural processes, existing or achievable technology, and social norms.One of the fundamental problems to the effective implementation of adaptive management is an agreed‐upon definition of that term and how and if it should be implemented. Its application would have far greater success in resolving natural resource management conflicts if it were universally defined as both (1) linking science with management and (2) implementing management itself as an experiment.
Between ca. 790 and 1000 AD, Scandinavian settlers occupied the islands of the North Atlantic: Shetland, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. These offshore islands initially supported stands of willow, alder, and birch, and a range of non-arboreal species suitable for pasture for the imported Norse domestic animals. Overstocking of domestic animals, fuel collection, ironworking, and construction activity seems to have rapidly depleted the dwarf trees, and several scholars argue that soil erosion and other forms of environmental degradation also resulted from Norse landuse practices in the region. Such degradation of pasture communities may have played a significant role in changing social relationships and late medieval economic decline in the western tier colonies of Iceland and Greenland. This paper presents simple quantified models for Scandinavian environmental impact in the region, and suggests some sociopolitical causes for ultimately maladaptive floral degradation.
A graphical technique is demonstrated which, when combined with any resource simulation model, permits the resource manager to explore the effects of different management options. Also, this technique (nomogram or response surface) permits derivation of “optimal solutions” given particular objectives. Examples of the methodology are given for the spruce budworm—forest system in eastern Canada. Effects of several kinds of uncertainties are dicussed, including uncertainties in model assumptions, management precision, future objectives and system evolution. The graphical nature of nomograms helps managers and analysts to grasp more easily the complicated behavior of ecological systems models. Finally, the role of computer models in decision-making is discussed.
On 15 October 1987, the Northwest Power Planning Council approved a master plan for the Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project. The purpose of this unique experimental project was to increase both natural production and harvest of anadromous salmonids in the Yakima and Klickitat rivers, major tributaries of the Columbia River system, through supplementation and habitat protection. The Bonneville Power Administration provides general management of the project, and funds construction and operation with revenues from Pacific Northwest electric rate payers. Studies indicate that egg incubation, rearing, and out-planting facilities in the Yakima and Klickitat subbasins will supplement natural production and increase harvest benefits. We summarize predesign studies requested by the Council as necessary to precede construction and discuss the uncertainties and concerns associated with the project. This experimental approach to supplementation may provide information useful for rebuilding salmonid stocks in other river basins.
Though many national and international agencies claim commitment to participative approaches to helping the rural poor, little progress has been made in translating ambitious plans into effective action. The record of earlier community development and cooperatives efforts is largely a history of failure, resulting more often in strengthening the position of traditional elites than in integrating poorer elements into the national development process. Many current calls for involvement of the rural poor are little more than wishful thinking, inadequately informed by past experience as to the investments in institutional innovation required to give reality to an important idea. The prevailing blueprint approach to development programming with its emphasis on detailed pre-planning and time bounded projects is itself cited as an important impediment. Examination of a number of Asian programs suggests that the more successful grew out of village experience. Consequently they were able to achieve an unusual degree of fit between beneficiary needs, program outputs, and the competence of the assisting organization. The key was not preplanning, but an organization with a capacity for embracing error, learning with the people, and building new knowledge and institutional capacity through action. A model of the learning process approach to building program strategies and appropriate organizational competence suggests a new program should progress through three developmental stages in which the focal concern is successively on learning to be effective, learning to be efficient, and learning to expand. Implications for the role of the social scientist and for action by funding agencies are discussed.
This book is about ways of dealing with uncertainty in the management of renewable resources, such as fisheries and wildlife. The author's basic theme is that management should be viewed as an adaptive process: one learns about the potentials of natural populations to sustain harvesting mainly through experience with management itself, rather than through basic research or the development of general ecological theory. The need for an adaptive view of management has become increasingly obvious over the last two decades, as management has turned more often to quantitative model building as a tool for prediction of responses to alternative harvesting policies. The model building has not been particularly successful, and it keeps drawing attention to key uncertainties that are not being resolved through normal techniques of scientific investigation. The author's major conclusion is that actively adaptive, probing, deliberately experimental policies should indeed be a basic part of renewable resource management.
Environmental disputes, in many countries, have taken on a ritualistic character. Their persistence, even after prolonged analysis and debate, suggests that they result from ideological rather than factual differences. Since no single ideological position holds a monopoly on the truth, effective environmental management would seem to require an integration of views, the problem being how to achieve this. One approach to this problem is illustrated in this article. Two factions in the spruce budworm dispute in New Brunswick, Canada, were engaged in a mediation exercise using the Delphi method. Details of the design and execution of this form of mediation are provided, together with an evaluation of the Delphi's effectiveness in this context.
Cultural theory utilizes concepts drawn from social anthropology, sociology, and organization theory to explain the social and cultural biases of policy actors and interest groups. Certain ideas of nature are associated with each cultural bias; these ideas of nature are in turn associated with types of resource management institutions. By identifying an actor or group's culture bias, analysts can explain the success or failure of different management activities. This paper explains the evolution of cultural theory from its anthropological roots to its applications in ecological management. It then applies cultural theory to a typology of common property resources and illustrates its usefulness by examining grazing subsidies in the American southwest.
An increased role for citizen participation in natural resource decision-making has been advocated by, amongst others, the United Nations (Brundtland Commission) as a means of initiating fundamental changes in the way we exploit natural resources. However, attempts at meaningful participation by the public are met with resistance, commonly by the dominant elites who control environmental and economic policies. Citizen groups press for involvement, only to be dismissed by local establishments as ill-informed amateurs. The resulting conflicts seldom lead to innovations in policy or to constructive cooperation in the face of new environmental problems. This leads the author to feelings of pessimism about prospects for genuine public participation in the absence of political change. In arguing in support of such change, a case study is offered which illustrates the unfortunate consequences that ensue when participation is sought and rejected. The paper closes with recommendations for the way in which citizen groups could contribute in a meaningful way to natural resource decision-making, were they to be given the opportunity.
There is a continuing debate about the proper role of analytical (positivist) science in natural resource decision making.
Two diametrically opposed views are evident, arguing for and against a more extended role for scientific information. The
debate takes on a different complexion if one recognizes that certain kinds of problem, referred to here as “wicked” or “trans-science”
problems, may not be amenable to the analytical process. Indeed, the mistaken application of analytical methods to trans-science
problems may not only be a waste of time and money but also serve to hinder policy development. Since many environmental issues
are trans-science in nature, then it follows that alternatives to analytical science need to be developed. In this article,
the issues involved in the debate are clarified by examining the impact of the use of analytical methods in a particular case,
the spruce budworm controversy in New Brunswick. The article ends with some suggestions about a “holistic” approach to the
problem.
The classical model of a paradigm shift is used to explore changes that are occurring in public lands and water resources
management. Recent policy developments suggest that the traditional paradigm, which is characterized by sustained yield, is
in the process of being invalidated. While no new paradigm has been fully accepted, the emerging paradigm does appear to be
based on two principles: ecosystem management and collaborative decision making. Implementation of these two principles is
likely to require extensive revision of traditional management practices and institutions. Failure to address these issues
could result in adoption of the rhetoric of change without any lasting shift in management practices or professional attitudes.
Current research on environmental decision-makers at the professional and nonprofessional levels is reviewed. The potential utility of this research for achieving more adaptive man-environment relations in modern industrial societies is examined. A broader framework of research is suggested for viewing the antecedents and consequences of environmental decision-making from an ecological perspective. Mechanisms for promoting research on man-environment relations are considered. In particular, issues in the training of scientific man-power in this interdisciplinary field are discussed.
This paper explores the prospects for combining elements of the ecological and policy sciences to form a substantive and effective science of ecological policy design. This exploration is made through a case study whose specific focus is the management problem posed by competition between man and an insect (the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana) for utilization of coniferous forests in the Canadian Province of New Brunswick. We used this case study as a practical testing ground in which we examined the relative strengths, weaknesses, and complementarities of various aspects of the policy design process. Where existing approaches proved wanting, we sought to develop alternatives and to test them in turn. In particular, we used a combination of simulation modeling and topological approaches to analyze the space-time dynamics of this ecosystem under a variety of natural and managed conditions. Explicit consideration was given to the development of invalidation tests for establishing the limits of model credibility. An array of economic, social, and environmental indicators was generated by the model, enabling managers and policy makers to evaluate meaningfully the performance of the system under a variety of management proposals. Simplified versions of the models were constructed to accomodate several optimization procedures, including dynamic programming, which produced trial policies for a range of possible objectives. These trial policies were tested in the more complex model versions and heuristically modified in dialogue with New Brunswick's forest managers. We explored the role of utility functions for simplifying and contrasting policy performance measures, paying special attention to questions of time preferences and discounting. Finally, the study was shaped by a commitment to transfer the various models and policy design capabilities from their original academic setting to the desks and minds of the practicing managers and politicians. An array of workshops, model gaming sessions, and nontraditional communication formats was developed and tested in pursuit of this goal.This paper reports some specific management policies developed, and some general lessons for ecological policy design learned in the course of the study.
The achievement of consensus on strategies of pest control continues to be an elusive goal, one that is hindered by continuing, and often acrimonious, conflict. Psychosocial factors, such as personal biases, play an important, often hidden role, in maintaining mutual misunderstanding and hostility. One result of personal biases, such as intellectual preferences or styles, is that radically different perceptions of the “problem” are held by antagonists. As a consequence, there is little chance of developing common ground upon which to discuss solutions. In this paper, the role of intellectual style in the spruce budworm controversy is outlined, together with a discussion of the more general problems that personal biases create in the development of integrated pest management strategies.
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