This class finished our discussion of "Adaptive Management" and includes material after the midterm that will be on the final.

We discussed Fig. 4.2 and Box 4.3, in a general way to explore mostly the problems and realities that make adaptive management difficult to implement in actuality:

On Fig. 4.2:

1. Our imaginations, and feasible alternative policies, are limited by a set of personal and social constraints.

2. It is easier to identify knowledge gaps than to fill them.

3. rarely can we actually conduct a true "experiment" with true control or reference cases.

4. History of resource management suggest that "measure performance", aka as "monitoring’ is often given short shrift.

But if the key characteristics of adaptive management is the do-assess—re-do process suggested by feedbacks in the figure, then we do have options for learning and modifying our actions within limited realm of choices.

I went thru Box 4.3 mostly casting a skeptical eye on the potential for these conditions to hold:

1. many ecological situations do not include the three ecological conditions.

2. When stakeholders agree on outcomes it is often because they have been watered down to such general goals (e.g., a healthy ecosystem") as to have little operational meaning.

3. Stakeholders most often disagree on the :facts."

4. What dies it mean to include "non-scientific" knowledge into the modeling and choice of decisions.

We did not get to the Institutional Conditions, but they also rarely hold!