Adaptive management: good business or good buzzwords?
| Authors: | Sally Duncan |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Type: | Science Findings |
| Station: | Pacific Northwest Research Station |
| Source: | Science Findings. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. September (7): 1-5 |
Abstract
Adaptive management is a fusion of science and managment used to improve and care for natural resources. This issue of "Science Findings" centers on how this type of management is used to tame wildfire incidents in northeastern Oregon's Blue Mountain range.The following article considers how adaptive management is being used by the La Grande, Oregon-based Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute (BMNRI). The institute, with headquaters in the La Grande Ranger District, Wallowa Whitman National Forest, uses adaptive management as part of the Limber Jim project to assess several logging systems and their impact on wildlife. It also demonstrates environmentally sensitive logging and fuel-reduction methods.
The undertaking is noteworthy because the BMNRI, founded in 1990, it itself a fusion of research and management, whose partners include Forest Service managment and Forest Service research along with university, private sector interests, and environmental groups. The institute incompasses a 14-county area of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington and has more than 80 partners who work to enhance the long-term economic and social benefits derived from natural resources in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner.