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 chapter 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. Audit is not strictly a component of the management planning process but a complementary activity that sits alongside management planning. Audit is the procedure for assessing whether a site is being managed to the standard required by an organisation and ensuring that the status of the site features is accurately reported.
Adaptive management is not really much more than common sense. But common sense is not always in common use. (Holling 1978)
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- 1.
It is important that managing ecological systems in this context is not confused with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ‘ecosystem approach’. See Chapter 7 which deals with the CBD approach in some detail.
- 2.
Maritime dry heath is generally dominated by dwarf shrubs: varying proportions of heather, bell heather and, in some areas, western gorse Ulex gallii.
- 3.
The most fundamental problem in conservation management is how to obtain and maintain the condition defined by the objectives.
- 4.
The difference between status and condition, and the full implications of status, are described in Chapter 14.
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Alexander, M. (2013). Adaptive Management, Adaptive Planning, Review and Audit. In: Management Planning for Nature Conservation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5116-3_6
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