Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
COLLEGE OF FORESTRY AND CONSERVATION
MISSOULA,MT 59812
Performing Department
College of Forestry and Conservation
Non Technical Summary
Adaptive management is being advanced as a way to deal with uncertainty and the inherent problems of rational comprehensive planning. The U.S. Forest Service has tried to embrace this "paradigm shift" in planning as well. Though widely embraced, the implementation of adaptive management is complicated because of NEPA and other statutory/regulatory mandates. Some interests are also skeptical of giving agencies more discretion so that they can plan and manage more adaptively (especially if it means the removal of legally enforceable standards and binding commitments). There is also a challenge at a broader level: how to resolve the pervasive search for more certainty in forest management among multiple actors with the need to plan and manage adaptively The question, then, is how can agencies like the USFS plan and manage more adaptively while ensuring accountability (legal and otherwise), transparency, inclusiveness, and other democratic principles and processes (many of which are core to NEPA as well) And how might NEPA be used as a way to reconcile these sometimes competing demands This project will investigate this dilemma by focusing on ways in which adaptive management and NEPA might be reconciled. To begin, the project will particularly focus on one possible approach to this problem: using some type of pre-negotiated commitments in an adaptive management framework. These enforceable commitments would specify what actions will be taken by the agency if monitoring information shows X or Y. In other words, some predetermined decisions, or more general courses of action, are built into the adaptive framework from the beginning (i.e., if this, then what). Not every possible scenario can be prefigured of course, but having some "trigger" mechanisms built into an adaptive framework might alleviate concerns about the amount of discretion ostensibly needed by agencies to plan and manage adaptively.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
1. To situate adaptive management on NFS lands in its political, planning, and regulatory context. 2. To assess the needs, problems, opportunities, and social acceptability of practicing adaptive management on NFS lands in the context of NEPA. 3. To identify examples/cases of using prenegotiated commitments ("triggers") in adaptive resource management (to include all four federal land agencies and topic areas including range, oil and gas, fish and wildlife, recreation, and national forest restoration, etc.). 4. To analyze the problems and opportunities of using prenegotiated commitments in an adaptive management framework focused on NFS lands. 5. To describe how these commitments could be worked into the NEPA framework.
Project Methods
P.I. will take initial lead in investigating relationship between NEPA and adaptive management, with particular focus on use of triggers. P.I. will write initial report/article. Once completed, student will investigate additional issues related to NEPA and adaptive management not addressed in detail by P.I. This includes the possibility of extended case study(ies), focus on landscape-scale restoration from NEPA perspective. At this point, the study may also pursue research related to the use of ecological/biological thresholds in adaptive management. Methods A. Literature/case law/case study review: focused on adaptive management, adaptive management case law, NEPA, resources planning, the use of standards and guidelines, and cases whereby trigger mechanisms have been used in natural resources management. B. Examples/Case Studies: The project will describe and analyze a number of examples/cases whereby triggers have been used in adaptive management. i. If possible, at least one of these examples/cases will be focused on landscape-scale restoration on NFS lands. C. Conversations with informants: As necessary, P.I. and M.S. student will ask those involved in various cases/examples (see B. above) policy-oriented questions focused on NEPA and adaptive management.