NR...N?

What is the goal of natural resources management (NRM)? How do you decide what "success" looks like? One of the most heartfelt comments from the Adaptive Management Short course that I ran together with Lance Gunderson two weeks ago was that we should have more positive examples. More success stories. Fewer horror stories from the front lines of trying to help people make difficult decisions in the face of risk and uncertainty. That reminded me of the difficulty my student Jamie McFadden faced when reviewing the literature for examples of adaptive management - how to tell if they are successful?

Today, I'm happy to report, my colleague Sarah Michaels and I found a term to describe success in NRM. Natural Resources Nirvana or NRN for short. Of course, we still don't know what it looks like, but we're pretty sure we'll know it when we get there :)