Institutional barriers and opportunities in application of the limits of acceptable change

Abstract

Although the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) process has been in use since the mid-1980’s and has contributed to improved wilderness management, significant barriers and challenges remain. Formal and informal institutional barriers are the principal constraint to more effective implementation. Although grounded in a traditional management-by-objectives model, the LAC is well attuned to collaborative management. However, procedural barriers, such as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, normative beliefs regarding relevant knowledge and power sharing, and structural barriers, such as compartmentalization and institutional capacity, constrain effective application of LAC to wilderness and recreation settings as well as other resource management issues for which it is potentially well suited.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings - Limits of Acceptable Change and related planning processes: Progress and future directions

Citation

Stankey, George H. 1997. Institutional barriers and opportunities in application of the limits of acceptable change. In: McCool, Stephen F.; Cole, David N., comps. Proceedings - limits of acceptable change and related planning processes: progress and future directions: from a workshop held at the University of Montana''s Lubrecht Experimental Forest. Gen. Tech. Rep. INT-GTR-371. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station: 10-15