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Introduction to Adaptive Management
The Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CB-NRM) Council didn't understand why they were failing to protect the Ifugao terraces. The terraces were a system of rice terraces that were created and sustainably managed by the Ifugao people for centuries in a fragile forest environment. The site had been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was managed by a special commission that even paid the Ifugao community to repair terrace walls and conduct other projects. Yet, the terraces were becoming less productive and the people were clearing more forest for agricultural land. Why wasn't it working? Was there something they were missing?
The council had two choices. They could either continue doing things the same way, and somehow hope to get better results, or they could adopt a new approach, be inquisitive, and search for a better way of managing the terraces. A local non-profit organization-the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM)-suggested they try adaptive management. The Ifugao had traditionally practiced their own variety of adaptive management by communicating regularly through ritual song about changing conditions in their environment, but this practice had fallen away. With PRRM's support, a number of governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and Ifugao representatives came together to design an updated model of their ecosystem.
Combining hand-drawn maps of the area with GIS satellite images and digital elevation models, they came to appreciate each other's views of their environment. The administrators learned that the Ifugao water management units were based on watershed areas that didn't always match the political boundaries that outsiders had set up. When the Ifugao saw the models, they realized how much forest had disappeared during their lifetimes and that maintaining tree coverage above the terraces was essential to prevent erosion. Social factors were very important in the model as well. For example, with the outmigration of many young Ifugao who preferred to work in the city, the traditional source of labor for maintaining the health of the watershed systems was also disappearing. This, of course, was a modern problem, something the Ifugao ancestors never had to deal with and something that required new solutions.
Following this, a team of community leaders set up a monitoring system with record sheets that allowed them to shade problem areas in the terrace and forest system on a regular basis. This information then is shared with the CB-NRM Council who make changes in their work plans according to changing conditions in the terraces and forests. As the process proceeds, they will test new ideas for maximizing their conservation results, and the ongoing monitoring system will give the feedback they need to evaluate those ideas.
This is a process of adaptive management.
Adapted from Rhodora Gonzalez's "GIS-assisted Joint Learning: A Strategy in Adaptive Management of Natural Resources," in Adaptive Management: From Theory to Practice (Oglethorpe 2002)
What is adaptive management? How is it different from normal project management?
The steps of action in any project include at least the following: defining goals-planning-implementation-evaluation. This is the basic project cycle, which, like any cycle, returns to the beginning after it is finished. Adaptive management means using this cycle to test your ideas about what conservation strategies work and why, and to adapt your actions in response to changing circumstances. It's a simple idea.
Adaptive management is, however, more systematic than learning-by-doing or learning from experience. Rather than trial and error, adaptive management means designing a model of the conditions in the area where you work. A model is a simplified version of reality that allows us to see the relationships among factors affecting an ecosystem. Although the example above used GIS, computer technologies are not necessary to create a model. The tools presented here will help you create a model on paper, determine how your project's activities work within the model to affect conservation outcomes, and set things up from the beginning so that you can learn from the process.
Above all, adaptive management requires a commitment to continued learning as the interactions between people and ecosystems evolve and a willingness to alter project directions or modify project investments as you adaptively manage the project.
Who can do adaptive management?
Anyone with the responsibility of managing a project or program can benefit from adaptive management. It can be applied at the community level or the landscape level and is useful for testing the effects of both policy and programmatic initiatives.
Why do adaptive management?
If any of the following are true, then you should adopt adaptive management practices: - I want to improve my project's conservation outcomes;
- I want to make my project a learning experience and my organization a learning center;
- I want to discover what I don't know but need to know to meet my project's goals;
- I want to gain reliable feedback about the effectiveness of alternative policies and practices; and
- I want to strengthen my project's monitoring and evaluation process.
A word about failure: Many times we are afraid to examine our failures, especially with pressure from donors to demonstrate success in the face of competing organizations and declining funds for conservation. But this is exactly the reason why adaptive management is important: It leads us to the most effective approach in a given ecological and social environment. In adaptive management, failures are valued as learning opportunities.
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©2003 Community Conservation Coalition
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