Adaptive Management, Adaptive Planning, Review and Audit

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 signi fi cant 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 comple-mentary 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) 70 6 Adaptive Management, Adaptive Planning, Review and Audit 6.1 Introduction Fig. 6.1 Hafod Garegog There are very few certainties in life, but we can be sure that our natural environment and the wildlife that it supports will change. It has always changed. The values that we apply to our environment and its components will change, as will the condition of habitats and populations. The management actions that we take will also change. As a generality, we must learn to accept, and even welcome, change. People usually talk about writing a management plan when, in fact, they should talk about a planning process. We need to abandon the production of static manage-ment plans and adopt a dynamic, iterative and adaptive planning process. While it is obvious that management activities will change with time, so planning – the