Adaptive management areas: achieving the promise, avoiding the peril.

Abstract

Ten Adaptive Management Areas (AMAs) were created in compliance with the Northwest Forest Plan. Although the essence of adaptive management is to treat management as an experiment and to "learn how to learn," several barriers affect the successful implementation of AMAs. Four propositions are identified that address these potential barriers: (1) area boundaries must hold social meaning for stakeholders, (2) a focus on these 10 areas will highlight limitations in scientific knowledge, (3) management of the AMAs will highlight differences in how the world is perceived, and (4) effective management of these areas will challenge existing institutional arrangements. In response to the challenges contained in these four propositions, nine observations are presented that suggest the kinds of actions managers, researchers, and citizens need to consider to ensure that the promise embodied in the Northwest Forest Plan to more closely link communities and forest management can be achieved.

Citation

Stankey, George H.; Shindler, Bruce. 1997. Adaptive management areas: achieving the promise, avoiding the peril. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-394. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 21 p