Landscape Observatory is using the following definition of adaptive management:
‘A process in which management activities are implemented in spite of uncertainties about their effects, the effects of management are measured and evaluated, and the results are applied to future decisions.’
Elzinger et.al. 2001
Protecting our landscapes against the changing climate through Adaptive Management
Landscape Observatory will use Adaptive Management and the Resist, Accept, Direct (RAD) framework at landscape scale.
Change can be accepted and even welcomed. The environment, wildlife, and cultural features that make up our landscapes are always changing. Consequently, the values applied to them are also ever-changing. Additionally, habitat conditions, ecosystems, land use, agricultural practices and population are also subject to changes which impact our landscapes.
But the rapidly warming climate, however, is accelerating the rate of these changes and planning for the management of our landscapes must be flexible.
Management plans that are rigidly based on fixed objectives do not account for the constant changes of landscapes. This is why we will adopt adaptive management methodology when setting objectives, identifying actions, and in the resulting monitoring and evaluation.
Moving beyond static plans
Commonly framed as a six-step process, Adaptive Management sets SMART objectives for each step and identifying actions. Monitoring and review and also used to refine actions over relevant timescales.
There are many uncertainties and factors to consider, but none will be more significant than climate change. Even under the lowest emissions scenarios many of our features (habitats, ecosystems, land use, visitation, cultural) will endure rapid transformations in the coming decades.
As a result, climate change adaptation must be considered in the management planning process. Landscape Observatory is helping to start the conversation around using an emerging informed risk/decision making framework to facilitate this.
RAD Framework
By adding the Resist, Allow or Direct (RAD) framework into the monitoring and review process, we are able to test the feasibility of reaching objectives.
A New Way Forward
The RAD framework must be applied every time the condition of a feature has been monitored and evaluated.
This allows a Resist, Allow or Direct decision to continuously be made. This decision is based on how a particular feature responds to climate change and other landscape changing factors.
Climate change adaptation may appear to undo the work of the past in preserving ‘important’ or ‘characteristic’ things (features) in situ. Due to current climate change trajectories, however, this will no longer be widely achievable.
Moving beyond ‘restoring and protecting existing patterns’ of biodiversity, wildlife and heritage conservation, requires a new approach. Instead, rapid change may be appropriate to accommodate new scenarios and recalibrate the notion of ‘acceptable change’.
More fundamentally it requires a move away from core ‘protected’ values that have defined management work and personal perceptions until now.
References
Alexander, M. (2008) Management planning for nature conservation: a theoretical basis & practical guide. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Elzinga, C.L., Salzer, D.W., Willoughby, J.W. and Gibbs, J.P. (2001) Monitoring plant and animal populations: a handbook for field biologists. John Wiley & Sons.
Lynch, A.J., Thompson, L.M., Morton, J.M., Beever, E.A., Clifford, M., Limpinsel, D., Magill, R.T., Magness, D.R., Melvin, T.A., Newman, R.A. and Porath, M.T. (2022) RAD adaptive management for transforming ecosystems, BioScience, 72(1), pp.45-56.
Stein, B.A., Glick, P. and Edelson, N., A. Staudt (eds.)(2014) Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice. National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC.