Navigating Climate Adaptation on Public Lands: How Views on Ecosystem Change and Scale Interact with Management...

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Management
• Climate Science

Background:

• Public land managers face increasing demands to incorporate climate change adaptation into their practices.
• Existing adaptation literature offers approaches like resistance, resilience, and transformation, yet widespread testing remains limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how public land managers in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, perceive future ecosystem changes due to climate change.
• To understand the adaptation strategies managers plan to employ within their operational context.

Main Methods:

• In-depth interviews were conducted with public land managers.
• Scenario-based focus groups were utilized to explore future possibilities and management responses.

Main Results:

• Most managers recognized the likelihood of ecosystem regime shifts driven by climate change.
• Managers diverged on intervention strategies: some favored guiding ecosystems toward future states, others resisted transformation, and some proposed resilience as a balanced approach.
• Scalar challenges and institutional constraints significantly influenced adaptation planning, with resistance deemed impractical at most scales.

Conclusions:

• Managers are adapting their strategies, often embracing resilience as a flexible approach to ecosystem change.
• Nesting different adaptation strategies spatially and temporally is a key method for overcoming scalar and institutional limitations.
• Effective climate adaptation on public lands requires navigating complex ecological predictions and socio-institutional realities.