Applying Decision Frameworks for Climate Change Planning in Protected Areas:
Sharing Experiences with the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework
The Americas, Asia and Oceania - Webinar 2
IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas’ Climate Change Specialist Group is convening a webinar series to promote learning and dialogue among protected area practitioners on the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework.
Background:
Traditionally, conservation management assumes that natural systems fluctuate within a consistent range of variability over time. This assumption underlies the goals of protected and conserved areas, but is being upended by climate and other global changes. Intensifying climate change - including accelerated warming, changing disturbance regimes, and more frequent and intense extreme events - combined with effects of more longstanding stressors, is making restoration of past conditions or even ‘holding the line’ in the face of inexorable human-caused change ever more difficult and costly. In response to these profound practical and philosophical challenges, managers are increasingly expanding their toolkit to include explicitly and strategically accepting or even directing human-caused ecological trajectories. The resist–accept–direct (RAD) framework, the culmination of years of collaboration among the U.S. National Park Service and a diverse set of conservation partners, helps protected and conserved area managers make informed, purposeful choices about how to respond to the trajectory of change.
This interactive webinar series will (1) describe the challenge of climate-driven ecological transformation; (2) introduce the RAD framework; (3) share practical examples and lessons learned from its application and similar approaches; (4) discuss how RAD-based decisions raise key social science questions; and (5) feature lively discussions among speakers and the audience.
Purpose:
- Share information about the RAD framework as a tool for protected and conserved areas
- Share experiences across countries and regions in the application of RAD and similar approaches
- Build dialogue and community among protected and conserved area practitioners on climate adaptation and the RAD framework
- Explore opportunities for future collaboration
Webinar Series Structure:
The series is made up of three 90-minute webinars to reach audiences across time zones. Practitioners within a region are encouraged to attend two of the meetings to meet and learn from others.
- Webinar 1: The Americas/Europe/Africa
- Webinar 2: The Americas/Oceania/Asia (this one)
- Webinar 3: Europe/Africa/Oceania/Asia
Invited Speakers:
- Gregor Schuuman and Wylie Carr (US National Park Service)
- Liz Nelson (Parks Canada)
- Mark Norman (Parks Victoria)
- Cathy Alexander and Steffan Howe (Parks Australia)
- Drew Bingham (Department of Conservation, New Zealand)