Applying adaptive management to landscape scale management challenges

For the management of large landscapes and many important problems such as mitigation, adaptive management holds great promise as a framework by which we can measurably improve management effectiveness. Adaptive management goes far beyond project management because it explicitly recognizes uncertainty, folds it into the decision process, and reduces uncertainty over time through the use of management itself. For many of our most urgent management problems, such as climate change, this may be the only feasible way to learn enough to manage effectively. The Department of the Interior (DOI) has been deeply invested in this powerful approach for many years. DOI has become a leader in the development of adaptive management methods and their successful application to a wide range of natural resource management issues, and has built the practice of adaptive decision-making into a core DOI competency.  The adaptive approach advocated by DOI provides a framework for the integration of strategic objectives, program management, and monitoring necessary to manage large landscapes and achieve mitigation goals. Producing a better understanding by means of transparent, objective-driven decision making is an important way to promote the conservation of America’s natural resources for future generations.