CNH2-S: Species conservation and collaborative governance in an era of global change

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Plants and animals present moving targets for natural resource managers. Species ranges are constantly changing, but this is expected to accelerate in the future with ongoing climate and land use changes. Some species may decline in status in the future presenting emerging management priorities while others, which are currently priorities, may improve. These dynamic conditions present challenges for federal and state agencies and other actors like non-governmental organizations, charged with managing species. Often these organizations operate according to very place-based management strategies. They also often are pursuing overlapping but distinct management goals. Outcomes for species will be determined by interactions among management agencies and other actors and how effectively they are able to coordinate with one another. This project examines future changes that will affect species and how organizations tasked with managing species can best respond. When considering responses by natural resource management agencies and other actors, the project will focus in particular on collaborative governance – that is, the steps organizations can take to work together more effectively, to complement one another’s efforts and to reduce redundancies. The project will develop these methods through an examination of biodiversity in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, a key climate refuge and corridor for species and one that spans the jurisdictions of many different management agencies. Project results will have direct societal benefit by guiding policy decisions to manage biodiversity in the region. In addition, the project will contribute to the interdisciplinary training of post-doctoral scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, preparing the next generation of scientists and decision makers.Institutional arrangements to safeguard biodiversity involve many actors working over different scales with overlapping responsibilities. Institutional change can be slow due to the complexity of governance arrangements, inhibiting flexibility in policy making and management in practice. Yet rates of change in ecological systems are increasing. Suitable climatic conditions for species are shifting and species must navigate mosaics of dynamic land use to follow. Moving forward, governance systems have to adapt with a newfound speed and dexterity to protect biodiversity in an era where global change is upending existing management responsibilities. New collaborations must be forged, responsibilities for particular species traded, limited resources reallocated, and management actions future-proofed against uncertainty. This project will predict future biodiversity change, evaluate how governance systems can most effectively respond, and provide new methodologies to help do so. The project will combine models of the biophysical system, including climate change, land use change and species responses, with workshops and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in biodiversity governance to evaluate how they currently integrate future change into planning and to explore opportunities for promoting more collaborative approaches. The project will result in the development of optimization approaches to help guide management decision making that examines biodiversity conservation as a multi-actor problem, one that internalizes dynamics within the relevant multi-level governance system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.