The Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series

Dr. Edward A. Parson June 22, 2001

On June 22, 2001, the Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series hosted Professor Edward A. Parson for his presentation entitled "Adaptive management: Can it work? What would it take?" Edward A. Parson is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Faculty Research Associate in Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The following is a précis of Dr. Parson's talk.

There are two main responses to unavoidable uncertainty in environmental and resource decisions: acting without complete confidence (the precautionary principle) and accepting that all action has the inevitable risk of error. Adaptive management involves finding a way to pursue a better understanding of the natural systems we depend on, and adjusting policies and decisions in response to advancing this understanding to achieve sustainability. Risk is an inherent part of the process.

Adaptive management thinking started in the 1970s when C.S. Holling, his colleagues and his students' work on the modeling of ecosystems led them to the concept of adaptive management. Carl Walters pushed the analogy between adaptive management and formal adaptive-control theory to its limits with a major study of the feasibility of adaptive management of a single salmon stock, then in a contribution with Holling in 1990, drew the distinction between active and passive adaptive management. In essence, active adaptive management involves perturbing a system on purpose to see how it responds; passive adaptive management involves doing what you can to infer system dynamics from its responses to management and adjusting accordingly, without perturbing it intentionally. Lee furthered the work in 1993 publishing the book The Compass and Gyroscope where the analogy is made that science is like a compass attempting to orient our understanding on fact, whereas politics are like a gyroscope. Both approaches are needed for successful adaptive management.

There are two fundamental requirements in implementing adaptive management: the capacity to learn, and the capacity to respond to learning. The capacity to learn involves continuing investment in research and monitoring, a clear understanding of the questions to be posed, and the perseverance to wait to observe a response. The capacity to respond involves admitting ignorance, admitting error, and changing behavior based on the learning despite accreted interest in the status quo.

Scientific obstacles to achieving these requirements for adaptive management are often very challenging. Linkages across scales, issues and multiple stresses are often hard to distinguish. Surprise or discontinuity often hinders the process. Threats to validity also include regression to the mean: if management interventions are prompted by extreme bad events, then subsequent events are likely to be less extreme on their own, risking a tendency to over-estimate the efficacy of any intervention.

Social and political obstacles to adaptive management also play an important role. Uncertainty is often difficult to admit due to biases towards completing a goal, and anxious stewards whose rigidity and fear of the unknown leads to finding easy solutions rather than dealing with the real issue. Conservatism, a lack of coordination and a reluctance to take real risks further prevent informative probes from being undertaken. Sometimes action isn't taken because of the uncertainty involved in never having enough information, such as in the American policy towards climate change. Political costs of changing policy in response to learning include being disliked for making an unpopular but necessary change, or being seen to be incompetent by admitting to error. Surprises are also hard to deal with due to the transitional costs of changing course, the need or desire for stability and the problems with reneging on promises in changing rules. Changing rules, however, is necessary to adaptive management.

The precautionary principle is fundamentally about risk taking. It is not a matter of innocent until proven guilty; action must be taken before certainty, with the inherent risk of being wrong.

Biography

Edward A. Parson is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Faculty Research Associate in Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Parson's research interests lie in the fields of environmental policy, particularly its international aspects, and negotiations. His recent environmental research has included projects on scientific and technical assessment in international policy-making; policy implications of carbon-cycle management; design of international market-based policy instruments; and development of policy exercises, simulation-gaming, and related novel methods for assessment and policy analysis. His recent articles have appeared in Science, Climatic Change, Policy Sciences, the Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, and Scientific American. He served as leader of the Environmental Trends Project, and is the editor of the resulting book, Governing the Environment: Persistent Challenges, Uncertain Innovations, forthcoming from University of Toronto Press. His book on the development of international cooperation to protect the ozone layer will appear in 2001. In negotiations, Parson's interests include the use of models and expert assessment bodies to support negotiations; learning and bargaining under uncertainty; and analysis of multi-party negotiations. He is the author of a series of simulated multi-party negotiation exercises that are used for policy research and executive training in ten countries.

Parson has served on the NAS Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change, and on the Synthesis Team for the U.S. National Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change. He has worked and consulted for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Commission of the European Union, The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress (OTA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environment Canada, and the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada.

Parson holds degrees in Physics from the University of Toronto and in Management Science from the University of British Columbia, and a Doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard.

List of articles and reports by Dr. Edward A. Parson

Compiled in support of the Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar.

1. Cash, D.W., Moser, S.C., Parson, E.A. & Easterling, W. Scale Working Group theme paper : Cross-scale interactions in assessment, information systems, and decision-making : draft for comments. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Global Environmental Assessment Project, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, Harvard University, 1998. -- (GEA working paper).
   http://www.environment.harvard.edu/gea/pubs/98wgp_scale.html?
   AUVAL%3Ddc&INDEX%3Dgea/pubsbyauthor.html
2. Haas, P.M., Levy, M.A. & Parson, E.A. Appraising the Earth Summit : how should we judge UNCED's success ? Environment [Washington, D. C.] (1992) 34 (8) : 6-11, 26-33.
   http://www.ciesin.org/docs/008-570/008-570.html
3. Mitchell, R. & Parson, E.A. Implementing the climate change regime's clean development mechanims. Journal of Environment and Development (June 2001) 10 (2)
   Notes: Abstract only : http://www-irps.ucsd.edu/~jed/Mitchell.htm . Seul le résumé est disponible gratuitement.
4. Parson, E.A. & Center for Science and International Affairs. Protecting the ozone layer : the evolution and impact of international institutions. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1992. -- 44 p. -- (CSIA discussion paper ; 92-02).
   
5. Parson, E.A., Haas, P.M. & Levy, M.A. A summary of the major documents signed at the Earth Summit and the Global Forum. Environment [Washington, D. C.] (1992) 34 (8) : 12-15, 34-36.
6. Parson, E.A. Protecting the ozone layer. In Institutions for the earth : sources of effective international environmental protection ( Haas, P.M., Keohane, R.O. & Levy, M.A., eds.). -- Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1993. -- P. 27-73.
   
7. Parson, E.A. & Clark, W.C. Sustainable development as social learning : theoretical perspectives and practical challenges for the design of a research program. In Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions ( Gunderson, C.S. & Light, S.S., eds.). -- New York : Columbia University Press, 1995. -- P. 428-460.
   
8. Parson, E.A. & Greene, O. The complex chemistry of the international ozone agreements. Environment [Washington, D. C.] (1995) 37 (2) : 16-20, 35-43.
9. Parson, E. A., Fisher-Vanden, K., and Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network. In search of integrated assessment : thematic guide to integrated assessment modeling of climatic change. -- [New York] : CIESIN, 1995.
   http://sedac.ciesin.org/mva/iamcc.tg/insearchof.html
10. Parson, E.A. Fossil fuels without CO2 emissions : progress, prospects, and policy implications. Science (1998) 282 (5391) : 1053-1054.
    
11. Parson, E.A. Évolution des tendances et de la protection environnementales au Canada. Canadian Public Policy = Analyse de politiques (août 2000) 26 (Numéro spécial no 2) : S139-S164.
    http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~cpp/french/special/xxvi_2_f.html
    
12. Parson, E.A. Environmental trends and environmental governance in Canada. Canadian Public Policy = Analyse de politiques (August 2000) 26 (Supplement [1]) : S123-S143.
    http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~cpp/english/special/xxvi_2.html
13. Parson, E.A., Dobell, A.R., Fenech, A., Munton, D. & Smith, H. Leading while keeping in step : management of global atmospheric issues in Canada. In Learning to manage global environmental risks (The Social Learning Group, Clark, W.C., Jager, J., Eijndhoven, J. van & Dickson, N.M., eds.). -- Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, July 2001. -- 2 volumes.