Final Memo for Development of a SECAS Conservation Decision Guidance Library
Dates
Due
2015-08-30 00:00:00
Acquisition Date
2015-11-19 13:54:00
Summary
We examined the decision making context, decision making process, and management planning associated with the restoration of open pine ecosystems in the Southeast. To better understand the planning practice associated with this system, we assessed the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies. We found that newer plans scored higher than older plans, suggesting agencies may be learning to develop better plans over time and indicating older plans should be prioritized for revision. Plans from federal and state agencies scored higher than plans from nongovernmental agencies, reflecting differences in agency missions and resources. The fact base scored high across most plans, whereas actions and [...]
Summary
We examined the decision making context, decision making process, and management planning associated with the restoration of open pine ecosystems in the Southeast. To better understand the planning practice associated with this system, we assessed the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies. We found that newer plans scored higher than older plans, suggesting agencies may be learning to develop better plans over time and indicating older plans should be prioritized for revision. Plans from federal and state agencies scored higher than plans from nongovernmental agencies, reflecting differences in agency missions and resources. The fact base scored high across most plans, whereas actions and implementation scored lower. Although agencies tended to perform best on fact base, our results suggest having a strong fact base has little influence on other components. To improve actions and implementation, planners should consider incorporating more stakeholder participation to help them develop better actions and implementation indirectly through improved problem and objective statements. We also investigated how decisions were being made and what barriers – if any – faced decision makers. To gain this insight, we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with key decision makers and stakeholders and our findings emphasized the challenge of collaboration between individuals, governmental and non-governmental organizations. We found discrepancies between groups on everything from objectives and goals, to how decisions are made, the barriers groups are facing, information that is used to make those decisions and where information comes from as well as differences in decision making timing and frequency. Agency managers had firm objectives while landowners/private land managers had flexible objectives that changed based on new goals, knowledge and information. In the same vein, agency managers said it was hard to change their management plans but landowners/private land managers said that their management plans were constantly changing to meet their shifting objectives. Agency managers reported that they had access to all of the information they needed to make “good” decisions while landowners/private managers said that they wanted and needed more information, specifically better economic and growth data. And although agency managers said climate change was a factor when making decisions, landowners/private land managers said that climate change was not a decision making factor. To bridge the gap between the two groups and increase information sharing, a library of regulatory requirements, scientific data, personal experiences and fiscal information may be a way to align management objectives and goals. Lastly, we developed a questionnaire that may be used in future research projects to evaluate how socio-structural drivers and the personas of decision makers influence their decision making
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Final Report.pdf
1.15 MB
application/pdf
Purpose
The objectives of this project were to (1) develop a better understanding of the management
decision context for important SECAS resource management themes using restoration of open
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pine ecosystems as a case study; (2) describe and synthesize management objectives related to
this resource management theme; (3) improve understanding of how management decisions are
being made and how this decision making process can be improved; and (4) design a
questionnaire to evaluate socio-structural drivers of decision making associated with SECAS...
To achieve objective 1, we assessed the quality of management plans, and as part of this effort,
we identified whether management objectives were included in the plans. We synthesized the
management objectives from 15 plans, sampled from the plans used in the evaluation, and
identified common themes to achieve objective 2.We conducted interviews with decision makers
in the region to achieve objective 3. We used information gained in these efforts to inform the
development of the questionnaire.
Communities
National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers
