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Institutionalising Adaptive Management: Creating a Culture of Learning in New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service
Book chapter   Peer reviewed

Institutionalising Adaptive Management: Creating a Culture of Learning in New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service

P Stathis and Christine L Jacobson
Adaptive Environmental Management: A Practitioner's Guide, Part IV, pp.305-321
Springer Netherlands
2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9632-7_17
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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9632-7_17View
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Abstract

Environmental Science and Management
Learn by doing' is the mantra of adaptive management. Organisations that undertake conservation management are often challenged by high levels of uncertainty and a multiplicity of competing priorities leading to more doing than learning. Adaptive management provides a sound approach for these organisations to effectively manage uncertainty and ambiguity. However, institutional characteristics can impede the development of a learning culture and thus the uptake of adaptive management. Following on from a major review of the organisation's performance, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), responsible for managing over 6,5000,000 ha and over 750 protected areas, embarked on an ambitious program to introduce a performance management program based on adaptive management principles and to institutionalise it so that it became an indelible part of the way NPWS undertakes conservation. Through the combination of an adaptive management framework, a comprehensive performance evaluation program and set of common denominators defining the services provided in the organisation, NPWS has evolved its approach to ensure maximum penetration and uptake of the adaptive management ethos, by actively influencing key institutional facets such as policy, planning regimes, programs, projects and systems to link and align them, and ultimately to help close the adaptive management loop. While adaptive management is becoming normalised in NPWS, future efforts will be geared towards making the institutionalisation of adaptive management more robust and permanent.

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