Toward an urgent yet deliberate conservation strategy: sustaining social-ecological systems in rangelands of the Northern Great Plains, Montana

Ecology and Society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

article

Kathleen Epstein¹  David J. A. Wood²  Kelli Roemer¹  Bryce Currey³  Hannah Duff³  Justin D. Gay³  Hannah M. Goemann⁴  Sasha Loewen³  Megan C. Milligan⁵  John A. F. Wendt¹  E. N. J. Brookshire³  Bruce D. Maxwell³  Lance McNew⁵  David B. McWethy¹  Paul C. Stoy⁶  Julia H. Haggerty¹ 

[1] Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University;US Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center;Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University;Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Montana State University;Department of Animal and Range Sciences, Montana State University;Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison

关键词: adaptive governance;    grassland conservation;    land use change;    scenario planning;    stakeholder participation;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-12141-260110

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

Urgency and deliberateness are often at odds when executing conservation projects, especially as the scale and complexity of objectives increases. The pace of environmental degradation supports immediate and measurable action. However, best practices for adaptive governance and building resilient social-ecological systems call for more deliberate efforts and participatory processes, which can be slow. We explore conflicts between urgency and deliberateness and the potential for their reconciliation through a case study of the challenges of conserving native rangelands in North America’s Northern Great Plains, an ecoregion targeted for global conservation initiatives. This region is undergoing a significant social-ecological transition, which underscores a need to rethink conservation strategies in light of the social-ecological system dynamics and potential future trajectories. Based on a structured narrative literature review process and iterative engagement with key regional stakeholders, we identify three interrelated factors critical to the system’s future outcomes that illustrate system complexity as well as trade-offs between urgent and deliberate action and unilateral and multilateral approaches to conservation: (1) influences of land management on biodiversity, (2) economic restructuring and shifting land use priorities, and (3) changing climate and disturbance regimes. We identify key gaps in the literature for each factor and across the factors—an effort that informs our call for research and practice agendas that address uncertainty and complexity at regional scales through more inclusive and future-oriented approaches.

【 授权许可】

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