Taylor Park
Adaptive Management Group

During agency scoping, the local community expressed a desire to develop an adaptive management group (AMG) specific to the Taylor Park project to amplify and formalize public engagement throughout the life of the project. The Gunnison Ranger District was responsive to the community desire and partnered with Western Colorado University’s Center for Public Lands for the development and facilitation of the AMG.

 

Formation

 

In early 2019 Western hosted several workshops to give the public an opportunity to learn more about the Taylor Park project and initiate a stakeholder engagement process. Collectively, the workshops drew over 100 people, with attendees including Taylor Park area homeowners, wildlife biologists, outfitters, water managers, conservationists, recreationists, Western students, and forestry professionals, among others. View the workshop records here. These sessions included a “distance option” for interested members of the public to join virtually who could not attend the workshops in-person.  Topics included:

  • Introduction silvicultural practices

  • Forest ecology basics

  • History of forest management in Taylor Park area

These events catalyzed an initial group of self-selected, committed citizens to begin looking closely at the details of a stakeholder engagement process. Over summer and fall, this group worked with Western to:

  • Refine stakeholder participation based on a balanced set of community interests

  • Develop an Operations Manual defining their purpose and objectives

  • Sign a Memorandum of Understanding establishing their working relationship as an AMG

Interests represented on the AMG include water resources, local government, forestry processors, state forestry officials, conservation, range, wildlife, area homeowners, outfitters, local business, forestry loggers, recreation, and mining.

The AMG is an inclusive and balanced stakeholder group working to share knowledge of social, economic, and ecological condition and desired conditions within the Taylor Park Vegetation Management Project. The group brings together members of the public, private landowners, local government, businesses, ranchers, water users, conservationists, recreators, and land managers to identify concerns, questions, obstacles, and opportunities raised throughout the life of the project.

Annual SBEADMR and Taylor Park AMG Meeting 2019

 

The Taylor Park AMG is modeled from an ongoing landscape-scale project on the GMUG titled the Spruce Beetle Epidemic and Aspen Decline Management Response (SBEADMR).

SBEADMR also works with an AMG, brought together a Science Team, and takes an adaptive management project approach.

What is Adaptive Management?

 

  • It is based on learning through partnerships and collaboration. Adaptive management acknowledges that conditions can change between project planning and implementation and allows decisions and actions to be re-evaluated based on ground-level conditions.

    An adaptive management approach includes designing and executing actions, then monitoring the efforts to learn and adjust future management actions toward the goal of improving management effectiveness.

    Natural resource management is complex because decisions affect not only ecological systems, but also social, economic, and other values in nearby communities. Collaborative problem-solving processes, such adaptive management, bring together people who understand the issues, have a stake in their outcomes, and gives them an opportunity to weigh in on decisions.