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

Kathleen Epstein, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
David J. A. Wood, US Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman, MT; Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Kelli Roemer, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Bryce Currey, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Hannah Duff, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Justin D Gay, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Hannah M Goemann, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Sasha Loewen, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Megan C Milligan, Department of Animal and Range Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
John A. F. Wendt, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
E. N. J. Brookshire, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Bruce D Maxwell, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Lance McNew, Department of Animal and Range Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
David B McWethy, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Paul C Stoy, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Julia H Haggerty, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-12141-260110

Full Text: HTML   
Download Citation

Abstract

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.

Key words

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

Copyright © 2021 by the author(s). Published here under license by The Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.