“Decision Making in the Face of Scientific Uncertainty: Adaptive Management for Climate Change” An Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies Workshop at the 2010 North American Wildlife & Natural Resources Conference Milwaukee, WI 8am-12pm March 22nd

Resource managers are often required to make tough decisions, especially when the science is uncertain. However, these decisions must be defensible if called into question. It is often unclear what the full impact of an environmental problem will be and what kind of impacts (both intended and unintended) the solution may have. There is growing scientific consensus that a major shift in climate is underway worldwide, with profound implications for natural resource management. Adaptation to climate change will be an especially challenging issue for management agencies because decisions will be made, in many cases, based on an incomplete understanding of climate change impacts, particularly at the local level. Adaptive management and structured decision making are critical tools for making management decisions with incomplete information and high levels of uncertainty. Structured decision making is a decision analysis process that can help overcome challenges by breaking down difficult decisions such that a decision can be acceptable to a broad range of stakeholders. Adaptive management allows decision making to proceed even in the face of profound uncertainty about outcomes by treating management decisions as testable hypotheses.

Recognizing the importance of adaptive management and structured decision making, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Science & Research Committee is developing a series of workshops for state fish and wildlife agencies to provide them with the tools for making decisions in a scientifically defensible manner. The first workshop at the 2009 North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference focused on using adaptive management and structured decision making for invasive species management. For the second workshop the Science & Research Committee, in collaboration with the Associations Climate Change Committee, will present how adaptive management and the structured decision making process can be used to address climate change adaptation issues and can also be built into State Wildlife Action Plans revisions, as well as revisions for other plans.

The workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, March 22^nd from 8am-12pm during the 2010 North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Milwaukee, WI.

For more information please contact Dr. Arpita Choudhury at achoudhury@fishwildlife.org