Laurie Yung

Managing the whole landscape: historical, hybrid, and novel ecosystems

The reality confronting ecosystem managers today is one of heterogeneous, rapidly transforming landscapes, particularly in the areas more affected by urban and agricultural development. A landscape management framework that incorporates all systems, across the spectrum of degrees of alteration, provides a fuller set of options for how and when to intervene, uses limited resources more effectively, and increases the chances of achieving management goals. That many ecosystems have departed so substantially from their historical trajectory that they defy conventional restoration is not in dispute. Acknowledging novel ecosystems need not constitute a threat to existing policy and management approaches. Rather, the development of an integrated approach to management interventions can provide options that are in tune with the current reality of rapid ecosystem change.

Guiding concepts for park and wilderness stewardship in an era of global environmental change.

The major challenge to stewardship of protected areas is to decide where, when, and how to intervene in physical and biological processes, to conserve what we value in these places. To make such decisions, planners and managers must articulate more clearly the purposes of parks, what is valued, and what needs to be sustained. A key aim for conservation today is the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity, but a broader range of values are also likely to be considered important, including ecological integrity, resilience, historical fidelity (ie the ecosystem appears and functions much as it did in the past), and autonomy of nature. Until recently, the concept of “naturalness” was the guiding principle when making conservation-related decisions in park and wilderness ecosystems. However, this concept is multifaceted and often means different things to different people, including notions of historical fidelity and autonomy from human influence. Achieving the goal of nature conservation intended for such...

Private Property Rights and Community Goods: Negotiating Landowner Cooperation Amid Changing Ownership on the Rocky Mountain Front

The cooperative practices of private landowners, while critical to cross-boundary conservation, are not well understood. Based on research along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, we document the ways that established customs governing cooperation between ranchers meet both individual and community needs. While ranchers argued for landowner control of private property, in practice, rancher property boundaries were permeable and contingent with regard to livelihood needs and certain community goods, such as hunting access to private lands. But changing landownership was causing conflict between neighbors and tension in local communities, because new landowners either inadvertently or intentionally challenged established boundary practices. Efforts at cross-boundary conservation need to recognize the challenges of changing landownership and the ways that existing customs might provide important foundations for cooperation. At the same time, an increasingly diverse set of private landowners must negotiate mutually beneficial boundary practices that meet both existing and emerging community and conservation needs.

Public engagement on solar radiation management and why it needs to happen now

There have been a number of calls for public engagement in geoengineering in recent years. However, there has been limited discussion of why the public should have a say or what the public can be expected to contribute to geoengineering discussions. We explore how public engagement can contribute to the research, development, and governance of one branch of geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), in three key ways: 1. by fulfilling ethical requirements for the inclusion of affected parties in democratic decision making processes; 2. by contributing to improved dialogue and trust between scientists and the public; and 3. by ensuring that decisions about SRM research and possible deployment are informed by a broad set of societal interests, values, and framings. Finally, we argue that, despite the nascent state of many SRM technologies, the time is right for the public to participate in engagement processes.

Situating adaptation: how governance challenges and perceptions of uncertainty influence adaptation in the Rocky Mountains

Adaptation is situated within multiple, interacting social, political, and economic forces. Adaptation pathways envision adaptation as a continual pathway of change and response embedded within this broader sociopolitical context. Pathways emphasize that current decisions are both informed by past actions and shape the landscape of future options. This research examines how adaptation actors in Grand County, Colorado perceive adaptation in the context of environmental change and uncertainty. Grand County residents drew on experiences of past change to suggest they had a high capacity to respond to future change, in particular a significant outbreak of mountain pine beetle. While residents and land managers characterized adaptation as gradual and incremental, they also recognized the ways that powerful cross-scale processes related to federal land management and water diversions challenged local adaptation. Further, Grand County residents identified multiple uncertainties in addition to those associated with climate projections, suggesting that addressing uncertainty extends beyond developing strategies robust across different climate scenarios. The challenges of uncertainty and cross-scale governance require more than increased adaptive capacity; they demand that we understand how local and extra-local structures shape the adaptation envelope that enables and constrains local decisions and implementation. Within this envelope, local actors pursue particular adaptation pathways and exercise agency to influence the structures shaping their options. Drawing on empirical insights, we argue that the concepts of pathways and envelopes together provide theoretical space for understanding the dynamic interplay between structure and agency in the context of adaptation.

Place Mapping and the Role of Spatial Scale in Understanding Landowner Views of Fire and Fuels Management

Place mapping is emerging as a way to understand the spatial components of peoples relationships with particular locations and how these relate to support for management proposals. But despite the spatial focus of place mapping, scale is rarely explicitly examined in such exercises. This is particularly problematic since scalar definitions and configurations have implications for research results. In this study, we examine the relationship between place meanings and views on fire and fuels management through in-depth interviews and computer-based mapping with forest landowners. While landowners readily described and mapped special places, these places did not influence views on fire and fuels management, views that were situated almost entirely at larger scales and explained by broader worldviews and political ideologies. Because research results may be an artifact of measurement, place-mapping efforts need to carefully consider scale to ensure that public views are appropriately characterized for decision makers.

Rural Community Views on the Role of Local and Extralocal Interests in Public Lands Governance

Based on in-depth interviews with residents on the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, this article examines how disagreements about the appropriate role of local interests influence local conflict over public lands. Residents who advocated that local interests should be privileged framed the conflict in terms of class, social standing, and fairness. While some residents were clearly venue shopping (advocating the level of decision making where they believed they could achieve their goals), others supported the decision-making level they believed to be most democratic. We found that claims for increased local influence were not necessarily tied to support for development of public lands. Antigovernment sentiment was contributing to local resistance of extralocal proposals, and national attention to the area had further entrenched and polarized local views. Disagreement about the decision-making process and the conflation of conflicts over policy process with conflicts over policy outcome made local disputes over public lands particularly intractable.

Effective weed management, collective action, and landownership change in Western Montana.

Rural landscapes are increasingly diverse and heterogeneous, involving a mix of small and large parcels, amenity and agricultural properties, and resident and absentee owners. Managing invasive plants in landscapes with changing ownership requires understanding the views and practices of different landowners. We surveyed landowners in two rural valleys with 26% absentee ownership and a large number of small parcels in Missoula County, Montana. Landowners indicated a high level of awareness and concern about weeds; more than 80% agreed that weeds are a problem in their valley. Seventy-eight percent of landowners managed weeds, but only 63% were effective at weed management. Absentee owners were far less likely to manage weeds on their properties and less likely to utilize herbicides, as compared with resident landowners. Landowners reported that seeds coming from adjacent properties were the most significant barrier to effective weed control. Many landowners manage weeds to be a good neighbor and believe that cooperation between neighbors is critical to weed management. Management Implications: Most rural areas have a diversity of landowners with a range of parcel sizes and management goals. Many of these landscapes are experiencing an influx of amenity migrants and absentee landowners, increasing the number of landowners responsible for weed management. Weed managers and extension agents can benefit from a better understanding of the views and practices of these landowners so that they can develop programs to meet landowner needs. Based on a survey of rural landowners in western Montana, we recommend that in landscapes with a diversity of landowners, practitioners emphasize a range of weed management approaches (from herbicides to biocontrols) and benefits (from wildlife habitat to scenic beauty). In particular, landowners who are concerned about the safety of herbicides might need information on alternative methods. Because absentee landowners are less likely to manage weeds, managers need to find ways to engage these landowners in weed management. Effectively engaging absentee landowners might require innovative communication strategies that involve neighbors, emails, and real estate agents. Further, because seeds coming in from neighboring properties are often seen as a major barrier to effective weed management, engaging a broad range of landowners, including absentee landowners, is critical. Weed managers, extension agents, and community groups can organize landowners and small groups of neighbors to share information, resources, and labor, and build social norms about appropriate weed management.

Key concepts and methods in social vulnerability and adaptive capacity

National forests have been asked to assess how climate change will impact nearby human communities. To assist their thinking on this topic, we examine the concepts of social vulnerability and adaptive capacity with an emphasis on a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. This analysis is designed to help researchers and decision-makers select appropriate research approaches suited to particular planning and management needs. We first explore key conceptual frameworks and theoretical divisions, including different definitions of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. We then focus on the different methods that have been used to assess vulnerability and adaptive capacity and their respective pros and cons. Finally, we present and discuss three case examples and their respective research approaches.

Blackfeet Belong to the Mountains: Hope, Loss, and Blackfeet Claims to Glacier National Park, Montana

While relationships between indigenous groups and protected areas have been extensively documented internationally, research on Native Americans and US National Parks is surprisingly sparse. Based on in-depth interviews with Blackfeet Indians, this article examines the complex contemporary relationship between the Blackfeet and Glacier National Park. According to the Blackfeet, tribal relationships with the park landscape are sustained through on-site practices that provide an interwoven and inseparable set of material, cultural, and spiritual benefits. The prohibition and regulation of many historic practices within park boundaries prevents the realisation of these benefits and fuels tensions between the tribe and the park, especially in the context of past dispossession and longstanding animosity toward the federal government. At the same time, the undeveloped landscape of Glacier National Park is evocative of an ancestral past and has, for many Blackfeet, preserved the potential for cultural reclamation and renewal. To realise this potential, Blackfeet argued for greater integration of their needs and perspectives into park management and policy. We suggest reinstatement of treaty rights, voluntary closure of cultural sites, co-management of parklands, and special legal designations as possible paths forward.