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has raised interesting challenges for conservation decision-making, because traditional
approaches to conservation as either wilderness preservation or natural resource manage-
ment (utilization) are both based on the idea of maintaining stability (see Chapter 1) (Pickett
et al. 1997, Weddell 2002, Ladle and Gillson 2008). With flux and variability increasingly seen
as the norm rather than the exception, conservation had to reinvent goals that took account
of natural variability, disturbance, and the possibility of rapid reorganization if ecological
thresholds were exceeded (Pickett et al. 1997, Rogers 2003, Folke et al. 2004).
Ecosystem management arose in response to the need for a flexible approach to conser-
vation that allowed decision making in times of high uncertainty and variability (Grumbine
1994, 1997). The key goals of ecosystem management are to maintain ecological viability,
integrity, and processes while accommodating human use (see Chapter 1). It is an approach
to conservation that recognizes the dynamic, complex, and uncertain nature of ecosystems,
as well as the limits of their resilience. Furthermore, unlike preservation/wilderness conser-
vation that sought to separate humans and nature, or utilization which only saw nature's
value in relation to its commodity value, ecosystem management recognized the inextric-
able links between nature and society, and the role of human values, cultural adaptation
and politics in conservation decision making. Conservation was thus repositioned as an
interconnected system of ecological and social components (Kay et al. 1999, Gunderson and
Holling 2001).
A key component of the ecosystem management approach is adaptive management,
whereby management goals are treated as hypotheses, which are tested by monitoring the
outcomes of experimental conservation interventions. The results are fed back into the adap-
tive management cycle, leading the reassessment and adjustment of management goals. The
adaptive approach to management recognizes that uncertainty and surprise are usual in eco-
logical systems, scientific knowledge is limited, and conservation decisions are value-laden
(Biggs and Rogers 2003, Gaylard and Ferreira 2011, Rist et al. 2012, Westgate et al. 2013). South
African National Parks (SANParks) Scientific Services and other scientists worked with stake-
holders to pioneer strategic adaptive management (SAM), reinventing the nature and prac-
tice of nature conservation in South Africa, which had for too long been mired in the command
and control approach (du Toit et al. 2003, van Wilgen and Biggs 2011). This bold reinvention
capitalized on a critical nexus of scientific innovation and political and social transformation,
and captured the mood of optimism and innovation embodied in South Africa's emerging
democracy (Fabricius et al. 2001). The new ethos is encapsulated in the SANParks mission
statement:
to maintain biodiversity in all its natural facets and fluxes, to provide human benefits
and build a strong constituency and preserve as far as possible the wilderness qualities
and cultural resources associated with the Park.
SAM aims to conserve biodiversity, heterogeneity, and ecological processes across a range
of spatial and temporal scales while taking into account the uncertainty of scientific know-
ledge and the importance of social context (Rogers 2003). SAM has a strong emphasis on
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