Risk tradeoffs in adaptive ecosystem management: the case of the U.S. Forest Service

Natural resource planning processes on public lands in the United States are driven in large part by the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which dictates general processes for analyzing and disclosing the likely impacts of proposed actions. The outcomes of these processes are the result of multiple factors, many related to the manifold smaller incremental decisions made by agency personnel directing the processes. Through interviews with decision makers, team leaders, and team members on five NEPA processes within the U.S. Forest Service, this study examines those incremental decisions. Risk, in particular external relationship risk, emerged as a dominant lens through which agency personnel weigh and make process-related decisions. We discuss the tradeoffs associated with agency actors' emphasis on this form of risk and their potential implications for adaptive ecosystem management and organizational performance.