Decision Making Traditional Approach

To determine how adaptive management might fit into agency operations, we need to consider the ways in which agencies
make management decisions. I have defined five decision-making approaches, each of which builds on and adds to the previous approach. The first four are
traditional approaches and the fifth is adaptive management.

The first decision approach is the political/social approach, in which the main concerns are public and political response to a decision. All agency decisions involve political and social considerations to some degree. The political/social approach sometimes dictates a specific course of action to appease a powerful interest or to keep options open for the future. However, a decision to do nothing or to delay action until more data are available is often a political/social decision. Second is the conventional-wisdom approach, in which managers use an historical method or rule-of-thumb that has been applied to similar situations in the past. In this approach, managers typically rely on historical knowledge of the situation and the resource involved, and assume that the response to management will be similar to that experienced previously. Many of an agency's recurring decisions, such as how many fish to stock, how many board feet to cut, or what level of a pollutant to allow, are probably made using this approach. Third is the best-current-data approach, which uses current data collected through new or existing sampling programs. Managers analyze these data using the latest techniques, assess their management options, and then choose the one best option to implement. This approach is appealing because it uses the best available knowledge and techniques. Examples of this approach include many habitat enhancement projects and management for various forms of optimal sustained yield. The fourth is the monitor-and-modify approach. With this approach, a policy decision is typically made using the conventional wisdom or best-current-data methods, and then the policy is implemented along with a monitoring plan. Monitoring data are used to evaluate and periodically modify the policy relative to a specific goal, such as total allowable harvest, production of habitat units, or concentration of some pollutant. The purpose of periodic modifications is to "hone" the management policy and maintain the system in an optimal state. Most management that involves annual resource assessments and policy updating is conducted using this approach, including management of many marine fish stocks. Fifth is the adaptive management approach. Typically, adaptive management begins by bringing together interested parties (stakeholders) in workshops to discuss the management problem and the available data, and then to develop computer models that express participants' collective understanding of how the system operates. The models are used to assess the significance of data gaps and uncertainties and to predict the effects of alternative management actions. The stakeholders develop a management plan that will help to meet management goals and will also generate new information to reduce critical data gaps and uncertainties. The management plan is then implemented along with a monitoring plan. As monitoring proceeds, new data are analyzed and management plans are revised as we improve our understanding of how the system works.
These five decision-making approaches constitute a progression of increasing complexity. Each successive approach adds features that focus more agency resources on the problem; thus, the costs of implementation and evaluation increase as one moves up the list. For example, implementing the conventional-wisdom approach is quick and cheap, and evaluation is usually conducted informally using personal observations and feedback from field personnel or resource users. Adaptive management, in contrast, requires considerable time and money to organize workshops for stakeholders, develop models and policy assessments, and monitor the effects of management. However, if more complex decision-making approaches lead to more effective management, they may be cheaper in the long run. Most natural resource managers have responsibilities that cover an extensive array of resources and require many decisions, often made under limited budgets and short time frames. Efficiency in decision making is always desirable, which leads to an Occam's razor approach: never use a more complex decision process than is necessary. Thus, I would argue that managers use the simplest approach that seems appropriate for the problem, and move to more complicated approaches only if the simpler approach fails.

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To determine how adaptive management might fit into agency operations, we need to consider the ways in which agencies

traditional approaches and the fifth is adaptive management.

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