ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT: WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

摘要

Adaptive management is quite the rage today in the realm of renewable natural resources management. Unfortunately, adaptive management is well on its way to becoming a buzz word that simply acknowledges the inevitability that future adjustments in the course of management will be required and that, somehow, efforts will be made to adjust management in the face of that reality in order to achieve management goals and objectives. Natural resources managers encountering the most difficulty in applying the adaptive management concept are the managers of public lands and water resources. Why? The answer is simple. The public lands are owned by the nation - that is those lands are owned, in common, by all of the citizens; and water resources are owned by the States, in common, by all their citizens. People care about their lands and water resources, some quite passionately. Therefore, the management of those resources with full consideration of the answers to the questions "for whom and for what" is an increasingly contentious and ever changing objective.