What is Adaptive Management?
Adaptive management has been gaining popularity in the mainstream conservation community in recent years. But what exactly is it? Some people may ask, “Isn’t adaptive management simply good management? Doesn’t it merely involve trying something and then if it doesn’t work, using your common sense to adapt and try something else?” We believe that adaptive management is good management, but that not all good management is adaptive management. We also believe that adaptive management requires common sense, but it is not a license to just try whatever you want. Instead, adaptive management requires an explicitly experimental or “scientific” approach to managing conservation projects as outlined in the following definition: Adaptive management incorporates research into conservation action. Specifically, it is the integration of design, management, and monitoring to systematically test assumptions in order to adapt and learn.