ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT IN BC: LEARNING FROM OUR FORESTS
by Jim Snetsinger

Dr. Fred Bunnell, honourary professor in UBC’s Department of Forest Sciences, is often quoted as saying, “Forestry isn’t rocket science - it’s much more complex.” This statement has special relevance in BC, Canada’s most ecologically and biologically diverse province. BC’s forests are economically important and support countless values treasured by people at home and around the world. The complexity and importance of our forests has led us to invest a great deal of time into studying and understanding them. 
We welcome valid processes and tools that help us deal with this complexity and the uncertainty that accompanies it. That’s why the BC Forest Service has been involved in adaptive management for more than 10 years, and has taken a lead role in developing adaptive management capacity in the forest sector. 
Today, we’re exploring possible new applications as we prepare for a changing climate and life after the mountain pine beetle (MPB) infestation.

What is Adaptive Management?
In 2001, stakeholders in central BC were concerned that timber harvesting was modifying or damaging terrestrial lichen communities that northern caribou need for survival. A project team of foresters, biologists, and statisticians from government and industry developed an adaptive management project aimed at maintaining lichen cover, and began by measuring the impact of harvesting on lichen.

Before the project started, a retrospective study found that lichen communities on blocks harvested at various points in time had recovered 20 years after harvest. Unfortunately, this information had limited value because researchers did not know what treatments had been done on the sites.

hrough the adaptive management project, forest harvesting treatments and follow-up silviculture treatments were applied on three sites over different seasons. As is often the case, conceptual models were used to test a theory about likely outcomes and to ensure everyone in the project team had a common understanding of how the managed system works.

The monitoring is still underway but interim findings have already led to changes in the local ungulate winter range policy. As time goes on, there will be more data to support future decisions related to the management of terrestrial lichen and ungulate winter ranges.

As this example shows, adaptive management applies scientific rigour as we create and maintain sustainable resource systems through partnerships of managers, scientists, and other stakeholders. The term “adaptive management” can be understood from a range of vernacular and technical perspectives, and at multiple scales. It has been described as learning by doing, building on common sense, encouraging flexible decision-making, responding positively to change, a process of change management, a tool to both change the system and learn more about it, and a systematic process for continually improving management practices over time.

In the 1990s, the BC Forest Service created a standard working definition:
“Adaptive management is a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of operational programs. Its most effective form – ‘active’ adaptive management - employs management programs that are designed to experimentally compare selected policies or practices, by evaluating alternative hypotheses about the system being managed.”
There are several consistent basic principles of adaptive management. It is a structured, collaborative scientific approach - it is not trial and error. True adaptive management requires more planning, more documentation, more scientific rigour, more careful measurements and analysis, and more comfort with change than most of us bring into our daily responsibilities.

Applying adaptive management offers many benefits. It is flexible, it provides an opportunity to experiment, it allows us to accept change and uncertainty, and it encourages creativity. There are also challenges. These include the need for a long-term commitment by participants at all levels and by those providing funds. The problem must be clearly defined, the scope must be appropriate, and decision-makers must be willing and able to take the recommendations and implement change. 

The BC Forest Service has identified six critical steps in the adaptive management process. It begins with a thorough analysis of the problem, setting management objectives, and predicting outcomes. Next it involves designing a rigorous plan to test alternatives, implementing one or more of these alternatives, monitoring key response indicators, evaluating the outcomes, and sharing results to update knowledge and adjust management actions. 

Six Steps of the Adaptive Management Cycle
Adaptive management can be an important supplement to forest research programs, especially where demands for change do not allow the luxury of intensive, process-level research before new approaches are implemented. It is an approach that enables resource professionals to proceed systematically and responsibly with preliminary information.

Mountain Pine Beetle
Adaptive management is being applied to BC’s MPB infestation - the largest ever recorded. The infestation has led to uncertainty about how to best manage impacted forests to provide economic benefits now and in the future, while considering forest values such as biodiversity, wildlife, and water. 

BC’s Forests for Tomorrow is a long-term silviculture program designed to improve the future timber supply in areas outside of industry’s obligation. It will plan and pilot an adaptive management project this year to identify the best strategies to reforest unharvested beetle-killed stands so commercially viable forests are re-established within a reasonable time frame.

The adaptive management approach will address silviculture uncertainties, such as how different light levels affect the survival and growth of the planted understory trees, the impacts of small mammal population cycles on the timing of planting, and the viability of protecting natural advanced regeneration. The results will guide the way silviculture is carried out in these stands.

Forest and Range Evaluation Program
BC is one of the first jurisdictions to move to results-based forest legislation. The Forest and Range Practices Act recognizes that forestry requires innovation and flexibility, and sets out to achieve this through a results-based approach that maintains high environmental standards.

To ensure that the Act is working as it was intended, in 2003 the government initiated the Forest and Range Evaluation Program (FREP), a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation program built on the principles of continuous improvement. FREP integrates ecological knowledge into policy development by using science-based indicators and statistically valid sampling techniques. The goal is to assess how well the legislation achieves stewardship of the 11 key values identified in the Act, such as biodiversity, timber, water, wildlife, cultural heritage, and soils.

FREP provides the information needed for decision-making and continuous improvement of forest practices, policies and legislation. The information and data is widely available so it can be used to improve guidance, policies, and legislation as well as local, regional, and provincial forest practices. 

Although FREP may not meet the strict definition of adaptive management, the results can be used to identify and test alternative practices. FREP shares many of the same principles with adaptive management, such as feeding results of analysis to decision-makers and “closing the loop”.

Ecosystem-based Management
Adaptive management is also part of the North and Central Coast land and resource management planning processes, which recently generated international headlines. 

It took 10 years of dedicated work by many stakeholders and partners to achieve the consensus that led to discussions between BC and First Nations with interests in this globally significant region, part of which is also known as the Great Bear Rainforest. In February 2006, the province and First Nations announced a shared vision for public lands along the north and central Pacific coast, followed by the signing of government-to-government agreements. This was a clear affirmation of the commitment to sustainable environmental management.

The agreements protect more than one quarter of the two coast regions. Where resource extraction is allowed, it will be in accordance with ecosystem-based management (EBM), which seeks to ensure the well-being of natural ecosystems and human communities. 

The land use decision included a commitment to implement EBM by the end of March 2009, and called for an EBM Working Group, co-chaired by the province and First Nations. This working group will oversee technical and scientific work, and make recommendations related to the further development and implementation of EBM along the central and north coast.

An independent, multidisciplinary scientific body that facilitated the coast land use planning process developed an approach to EBM and defined it as “an adaptive approach to managing human activities that seeks to ensure the coexistence of healthy, fully functioning ecosystems and communities”. 

A key component of EBM is adaptive management that addresses both ecosystem integrity and human well-being. The EBM Working Group has established an adaptive management sub-committee in support of this objective. There are also plans in place to conduct a workshop to plan the design of an adaptive management framework that is tailored to EBM for the coast regions, and to build a common understanding of the approach. What EBM ultimately looks like will come from this on-the-ground learning through adaptive management.

Changing climate
As stewards of BC’s crown forests and rangelands, we need to make sure our forest management approaches anticipate a changing climate. Our management practices should be designed to help ecosystems adapt, and to the greatest extent possible, remain resilient to stress and disturbance.
BC has already experienced challenges typical of those we expect in a changing climate, including the MPB infestation, more intense fires and water shortages, and flooding. There is also potential for maladaptation of tree species to their environment that may reduce productivity and increase susceptibility to insects and disease. The climate in many of today’s ecosystems is likely to become quite different within this century. We will need to develop strategies for managing forests under changing environmental conditions. One way we are doing this is through the Future Forest Ecosystems Initiative (FFEI), which is examining how we can adapt our forest and range management policy framework so that plans and practices will be effective well into the future.

FFEI had its start in 2005 when representatives from government agencies, universities, First Nations, forest and range industries, and environmental organizations came together in a symposium to explore environmental and ecological changes and their implications for forest management. We brainstormed ways to adapt our approach to forest management, which resulted in a collection of strategies for building ecological resilience in BC’s forest management policy. 

A team of specialists then developed FFEI, and they are working on a three-year implementation plan that will identify priority projects. One of the objectives under FFEI is to evaluate a range of existing and new approaches to forest and range management for their ability to maintain and enhance ecological resilience and ecosystem services, products, and benefits under changing ecological conditions. The projects implemented under FFEI to achieve this objective will include adaptive management trials that combine monitoring of ecosystem changes with evaluation of various policy options.

Ultimately, managing for climate change will be directly incorporated into a wide range of everyday business activities for the BC Forest Service.

Summary
If ecological and social systems were stable and predicable, there would be no need for new policies and practices - and no need for improvement processes and tools like adaptive management. 
The reality is that our work is becoming even more complex. Government needs science that is practical, collaborative, and can be readily applied, science that pulls together knowledge to address important issues clearly and thoroughly. 

An adaptive management approach can be a strong tool for forest resource managers as long as it is not viewed as the solution for everything. If the scope is too wide, it becomes difficult to analyze all the information and initiate changes that can be firmly linked to the results of the adaptive management trials.
The full benefits of adaptive management require a commitment to a long-term process - there are seldom quick fixes when it comes to forestry. There also must be appropriate support at all levels. This includes leaders who are committed to the approach and provide adequate resources as well as operational staff who are willing to learn new techniques, invest extra time and effort, and work with partners. 

In BC, we will continue to watch for opportunities to apply adaptive management techniques and increase our understanding of how it can strengthen resource management. 

Jim Snetsinger is BC’s chief forester with leadership responsibilities for the Forest Stewardship Division, BC Ministry of Forests and Range.