Adaptive Management Planning

Abstract

Planning should be a continuous, iterative and developmental process. Adaptive management can be applied to any site, regardless of size. It is, in its more complex form, an approach to experimental management that enables changes to be linked to cause and to management operations. This section briefly considers the main versions of adaptive management and introduces a minimal version: a basic approach, but with some significant differences. It is not experimentation but a simpler system based on monitoring and then, if necessary, modifying management. The cyclical, adaptable management process allows site management to: respond to natural dynamic processes; accommodate the legitimate interests of others; adapt to the ever-changing political and socio-economic climate; and, in the long term, succeed, despite uncertain and variable resources. There is a continuum, from trial and error to full scale active adaptive management, and somewhere within this range there lies a version of adaptive which is appropriate for any given place and time. Management reviews are an integral and essential component of the adaptive management process.