Adaptive Impact Management: An Integrative Approach to Wildlife Management

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Abstract
Wildlife professionals need better ways to integrate ecological and human dimensions of wildlife management. A focus on impacts, guided by a structured decision process, will orient wildlife management toward rigorous, integrative decision making. Impacts are important socially defined effects of events and interactions related to wildlife that merit management. To manage impacts we propose adaptive impact management (AIM). This approach has seven primary components: situational analysis, objective setting, development of system model(s), identification and selection of management alternatives, actual management interventions, monitoring, and refinement of models and eventually interventions. Adaptive impact management builds upon strengths of systems thinking and conventional adaptive management, yet differs in that fundamental objectives of management are impacts on society, rather than conditions of a wildlife population or habitat. Emphasis is placed on stakeholder involvement in management and shared learning among scientists, managers, and stakeholders. We describe and assess adaptive impact management with respect to black bear management in New York.

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