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Carl Folke - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as Adaptive Management
Ecological Applications, 2000Co-Authors: Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding, Carl FolkeAbstract:Indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. We surveyed the international literature to focus on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Case studies revealed that there exists a diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem Management. These include multiple species Management, resource rotation, succession Management, landscape patchiness Management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices include a number of adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the development of appropriate world views and cultural values. Some traditional knowledge and Management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to interpret and respond to feedbacks from the environment to guide the direction of resource Management. These traditional systems had certain similarities to Adaptive Management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems.
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Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management
Ecological Applications, 2000Co-Authors: Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding, Carl FolkeAbstract:Indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. We surveyed the international lit- erature to focus on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Case studies revealed that there exists a diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem Management. These include multiple species Management, resource rotation, succession Management, landscape patchiness Management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices include a number of adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the devel- opment of appropriate world views and cultural values. Some traditional knowledge and Management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to in- terpret and respond to feedbacks from the environment to guide the direction of resource Management. These traditional systems had certain similarities to Adaptive Management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems.
Ronald M. Thom - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Adaptive Management of coastal ecosystem restoration projects
Ecological Engineering, 2000Co-Authors: Ronald M. ThomAbstract:Abstract There is a clear need to apply better and more effective Management schemes to coastal ecosystem restoration projects. It is very common for aquatic ecosystem restoration projects not to meet their goals. Poor performance has led to a high degree of uncertainty about the potential success of any restoration effort. Under Adaptive Management, the knowledge gained through monitoring of the project and social policies is translated into restoration policy and program redesign. Planners and managers can utilize the information from the monitoring programs in an effective way to assure that project goals are met or that informed and objective decisions are made to address both ecological and societal needs. The three main ingredients of an effective Adaptive Management plan in a restoration project are: (1) a clear goal statement; (2) a conceptual model; and (3) a decision framework. The goal ‘drives’ the design of the project and helps guide the development of performance criteria. The goal statement and performance criteria provide the means by which the system can be judged. With the conceptual model, the knowledge base from the field of ecological science plays an active and critical role in designing the project to meet the goal. A system-development matrix provides a simple decision framework to view the alternative states for the system during development, incorporate knowledge gained through the monitoring program, and formulate a decision on actions to take if the system is not meeting its goal.
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System-development matrix for Adaptive Management of coastal ecosystem restoration projects
Ecological Engineering, 1997Co-Authors: Ronald M. ThomAbstract:Abstract Ecological performance of coastal habitat and ecosystem restoration projects is not yet predictable with great certainty. The simple method developed in this paper applies the principles of Adaptive Management to coastal ecosystem restoration to improve the ability to assess performance and make informed decisions on how to improve performance. The method uses a system-development matrix to assist in identifying the state of the system for which restorative actions were applied. The matrix defines development in terms of structure and function, but can accommodate other performance and development characteristics. Monitoring of the system provides input on the state of the system. Phrases in the matrix provide plausible explanations for the condition of the system and point toward possible actions to be taken. The matrix is applied using examples from community development on dredged material, a seagrass system and tidal marsh system. It is recommended that the matrix be developed by all interested parties during the planning phase. This group can then utilize the matrix for managing the project.
Byron K Williams - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a proposal for amending administrative law to facilitate Adaptive Management
Environmental Research Letters, 2017Co-Authors: Robin Kundis Craig, J B Ruhl, Eleanor D Brown, Byron K WilliamsAbstract:In this article we examine how federal agencies use Adaptive Management. In order for federal agencies to implement Adaptive Management more successfully, administrative law must adapt to Adaptive Management, and we propose changes in administrative law that will help to steer the current process out of a dead end. Adaptive Management is a form of structured decision making that is widely used in natural resources Management. It involves specific steps integrated in an iterative process for adjusting Management actions as new information becomes available. Theoretical requirements for Adaptive Management notwithstanding, federal agency decision making is subject to the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act, and state agencies are subject to the states' parallel statutes. We argue that conventional administrative law has unnecessarily shackled effective use of Adaptive Management. We show that through a specialized 'Adaptive Management track' of administrative procedures, the core values of administrative law—especially public participation, judicial review, and finality— can be implemented in ways that allow for more effective Adaptive Management. We present and explain draft model legislation (the Model Adaptive Management Procedure Act) that would create such a track for the specific types of agency decision making that could benefit from Adaptive Management.
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technical challenges in the application of Adaptive Management
Biological Conservation, 2016Co-Authors: Byron K Williams, Eleanor D BrownAbstract:Abstract Adaptive Management is an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources, by acknowledging uncertainty and seeking to reduce it through the process of Management itself. Adaptive decision making can be applied to pressing issues in conservation biology such as species reintroduction, disease and invasive species control, and habitat restoration, as well as to Management of natural resources in general. After briefly outlining a framework and process for Adaptive Management, we focus on an overview of the key technical issues related to problem framing and the ability of resource managers to learn from their experience. These technical issues include the treatment of uncertainty and its propagation over time; nonstationarity in long-term environmental trends; the applicability of Adaptive Management across scales; requirements for models and Management alternatives that promote learning; the value of the information produced with Adaptive Management; the challenge to Management of uncertainty and surprise; and institutional (social) learning. To accommodate these and other challenges that are now coming into focus, the learning-based approach of Adaptive Management will need to be adjusted and expanded in the future.
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Adaptive Management from more talk to real action
Environmental Management, 2014Co-Authors: Byron K Williams, Eleanor D BrownAbstract:The challenges currently facing resource managers are large-scale and complex, and demand new approaches to balance development and conservation goals. One approach that shows considerable promise for addressing these challenges is Adaptive Management, which by now is broadly seen as a natural, intuitive, and potentially effective way to address decision-making in the face of uncertainties. Yet the concept of Adaptive Management continues to evolve, and its record of success remains limited. In this article, we present an operational framework for Adaptive decision-making, and describe the challenges and opportunities in applying it to real-world problems. We discuss the key elements required for Adaptive decision-making, and their integration into an iterative process that highlights and distinguishes technical and social learning. We illustrate the elements and processes of the framework with some successful on-the-ground examples of natural resource Management. Finally, we address some of the difficulties in applying learning-based Management, and finish with a discussion of future directions and strategic challenges.
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Adaptive Management of natural resources framework and issues
Journal of Environmental Management, 2011Co-Authors: Byron K WilliamsAbstract:Adaptive Management, an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources, has been around for several decades. Interest in Adaptive decision making has grown steadily over that time, and by now many in natural resources conservation claim that Adaptive Management is the approach they use in meeting their resource Management responsibilities. Yet there remains considerable ambiguity about what Adaptive Management actually is, and how it is to be implemented by practitioners. The objective of this paper is to present a framework and conditions for Adaptive decision making, and discuss some important challenges in its application. Adaptive Management is described as a two-phase process of deliberative and iterative phases, which are implemented sequentially over the timeframe of an application. Key elements, processes, and issues in Adaptive decision making are highlighted in terms of this framework. Special emphasis is given to the question of geographic scale, the difficulties presented by non-stationarity, and organizational challenges in implementing Adaptive Management.
Robin Kundis Craig - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a proposal for amending administrative law to facilitate Adaptive Management
Environmental Research Letters, 2017Co-Authors: Robin Kundis Craig, J B Ruhl, Eleanor D Brown, Byron K WilliamsAbstract:In this article we examine how federal agencies use Adaptive Management. In order for federal agencies to implement Adaptive Management more successfully, administrative law must adapt to Adaptive Management, and we propose changes in administrative law that will help to steer the current process out of a dead end. Adaptive Management is a form of structured decision making that is widely used in natural resources Management. It involves specific steps integrated in an iterative process for adjusting Management actions as new information becomes available. Theoretical requirements for Adaptive Management notwithstanding, federal agency decision making is subject to the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act, and state agencies are subject to the states' parallel statutes. We argue that conventional administrative law has unnecessarily shackled effective use of Adaptive Management. We show that through a specialized 'Adaptive Management track' of administrative procedures, the core values of administrative law—especially public participation, judicial review, and finality— can be implemented in ways that allow for more effective Adaptive Management. We present and explain draft model legislation (the Model Adaptive Management Procedure Act) that would create such a track for the specific types of agency decision making that could benefit from Adaptive Management.
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designing administrative law for Adaptive Management
Social Science Research Network, 2014Co-Authors: Robin Kundis Craig, J B RuhlAbstract:Administrative law needs to adapt to Adaptive Management. Adaptive Management is a structured decision-making method the core of which is a multi-step iterative process for adjusting Management measures to changing circumstances or new information about the effectiveness of prior measures or the system being managed. It has been identified as a necessary or best practices component of regulation in a broad range of fields, including drug and medical device warnings, financial system regulation, social welfare programs, and natural resources Management. Nevertheless, many of the agency decisions advancing these policies remain subject to the requirements of either the federal Administrative Procedure Act or the states’ parallel statutes. Adaptive Management theorists have identified several features of such administrative law requirements — especially public participation, judicial review, and finality — as posing barriers to true Adaptive Management, but they have put forward no reform proposals. This Article represents the first effort in Adaptive Management theory to go beyond complaining about the handcuffs administrative law puts on Adaptive Management and to suggest a solution. The Article begins by explaining the theory and limits of Adaptive Management to emphasize that it is not appropriate for all or even most agency decision making. For its appropriate applications, however, we argue that conventional administrative law has unnecessarily shackled effective use of Adaptive Management. We show that the core values of administrative law can be implemented in ways that much better allow for Adaptive Management through a specialized “Adaptive Management track” of administrative procedures. Going further, we propose and explain draft model legislation that would create such a track for the specific types of agency decision making that could benefit from Adaptive Management.
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designing administrative law for Adaptive Management
Vanderbilt Law Review, 2014Co-Authors: J B Ruhl, Robin Kundis CraigAbstract:Administrative law needs to adapt to Adaptive Management. Adaptive Management is a structured decisionmaking method, the core of which is a multistep, iterative process for adjusting Management measures to changing circumstances or new information about the effectiveness of prior measures or the system being managed. It has been identified as a necessary or best- practices component of regulation in a broad range of fields, including drug and medical-device warnings, financial system regulation, social welfare programs, and natural resources Management. Nevertheless, many of the agency decisions advancing these policies remain subject to the requirements of either the federal Administrative Procedure Act or the states' parallel statutes. Adaptive Management theorists have identified several features of such administrative law requirements-especially public participation, judicial review, and finality-as posing barriers to true Adaptive Management, but they have put forward no proposals for reform.This Article represents the first effort in Adaptive Management theory to go beyond complaining about the handcuffs administrative law puts on Adaptive Management and to suggest a solution. The Article begins by explaining the theory and limits of Adaptive Management to emphasize that it is not appropriate for all, or even most, agency decisionmaking. For appropriate applications, however, we argue that conventional administrative law has unnecessarily shackled effective use of Adaptive Management. We show that through a specialized "Adaptive Management track" of administrative procedures, the core values of administrative law can be implemented in ways that much better allow for Adaptive Management. Going further, we propose and explain draft model legislation that would create such a track for the specific types of agency decisionmaking that could benefit from Adaptive Management.The administrative style that has characterized American public law from the New Deal to the 1980s has been out of favor in recent years.-Charles Sabel and William Simon1I. INTRODUCTIONIn the never-ending project to build a better regulatory state mousetrap, two of the most seductive reinvention models to emerge over the past few decades have been market-based regulation2 and Adaptive Management.3 Representative of two broad and opposing thrusts of regulatory reform, one advocating "minimalism"4 and the other "experimentalism,"5 market-based regulation and Adaptive Management originate from the same premise but move in starkly different directions. This Article examines the path that Adaptive Management has taken and proposes how to steer it out of a dead end by changing the inner workings of administrative law.The starting point for both regulatory reform models is the depiction of administrative agencies as having become boxed into a decisionmaking process that depends heavily on a culture of comprehensive rational planning and prescriptive regulation.6 The dominant decisionmaking method used to implement this regime relies heavily on two related attributes: (1) the use of "front-end" analytical tools comprehensively conducted and concluded prior to finalizing the decision, and (2) the assumption of a robust capacity to predict and assess the market and nonmarket impacts of any proposed action.7 However, this approach constrains agency flexibility by demanding hyperdetailed predecisional impact assessments, intense public participation during the decisionmaking process, and postdecision hard look judicial review.8 The combined effect of this procedural gauntlet, codified in large part through the federal Administrative Procedure Act ("APA")9 and its state counterparts, has been to channel self-preserving agencies into cramming all that could possibly be thought or dreamed about actions they carry out, fund, or authorize into single-shot, all-encompassing decision extravaganzas. Especially in rulemaking, this impetus toward up-front comprehensiveness strongly encourages agencies to steamroll their decisions through public-comment scrutiny and judicial review litigation and then never look back. …
Julien Martin - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Efficient use of information in Adaptive Management with an application to managing recreation near golden eagle nesting sites.
PLOS ONE, 2014Co-Authors: Paul L. Fackler, Krishna Pacifici, Julien Martin, Carol L McintyreAbstract:It is generally the case that a significant degree of uncertainty exists concerning the behavior of ecological systems. Adaptive Management has been developed to address such structural uncertainty, while recognizing that decisions must be made without full knowledge of how a system behaves. This paradigm attempts to use new information that develops during the course of Management to learn how the system works. To date, however, Adaptive Management has used a very limited information set to characterize the learning that is possible. This paper uses an extension of the Partial Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework to expand the information set used to update belief in competing models. This feature can potentially increase the speed of learning through Adaptive Management, and lead to better Management in the future. We apply this framework to a case study wherein interest lies in managing recreational restrictions around golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) nesting sites. The ultimate Management objective is to maintain an abundant eagle population in Denali National Park while minimizing the regulatory burden on park visitors. In order to capture this objective, we developed a utility function that trades off expected breeding success with hiker access. Our work is relevant to the Management of human activities in protected areas, but more generally demonstrates some of the benefits of POMDP in the context of Adaptive Management.
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an Adaptive Management framework for optimal control of hiking near golden eagle nests in denali national park
Conservation Biology, 2011Co-Authors: Carol L Mcintyre, Paul L. Fackler, Julien Martin, James D Nichols, Michael C Runge, Bruce L Lubow, Maggie C Mccluskie, Joel A SchmutzAbstract:Unintended effects of recreational activities in protected areas are of growing concern. We used an Adaptive-Management framework to develop guidelines for optimally managing hiking activities to maintain desired levels of territory occupancy and reproductive success of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in Denali National Park (Alaska, U.S.A.). The Management decision was to restrict human access (hikers) to particular nesting territories to reduce disturbance. The Management objective was to minimize restrictions on hikers while maintaining reproductive performance of eagles above some specified level. We based our decision analysis on predictive models of site occupancy of eagles developed using a combination of expert opinion and data collected from 93 eagle territories over 20 years. The best predictive model showed that restricting human access to eagle territories had little effect on occupancy dynamics. However, when considering important sources of uncertainty in the models, including environmental stochasticity, imperfect detection of hares on which eagles prey, and model uncertainty, restricting access of territories to hikers improved eagle reproduction substantially. An Adaptive Management framework such as ours may help reduce uncertainty of the effects of hiking activities on Golden Eagles.
