RR-38. Implement a process of adaptive management to identify and address resource impacts and social conflicts associated with anticipated increases in intensive use from motorized and non-motorized recreation. Implement adaptive management to achieve Land Health Standards.
Within two years of plan approval, BLM will form a collaborative partnership with universities, external agencies, and interested communities and citizens to list and prioritize areas of concern. The effort will then focus on developing a Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) framework to determine suitable and acceptable use levels for recreation uses, considering natural resource, socio-political, and managerial factors. This process consists of four major components:
specifying acceptable and achievable resource and social conditions, defined by a series of measurable indicators,
analyzing the relationship between existing conditions and those judged acceptable,
selecting management actions to best achieve these desired conditions, and
implementing a monitoring and evaluation process to determine if management goals and objectives are being met. Monitoring strategies may include measurements, rapid site assessments, photography, or other suitable techniques.
During this process, inventories, surveys, and studies of existing resource and social conditions will be conducted to obtain and establish baseline data from which standards can be set and measured. Indicators would include both resource and social impacts such as the following:
campsite proliferation or expansion,
social trailing,
soil compaction and erosion, and
the number of social encounters.
RR-39. Management actions for adaptive management may include the following:
providing public information and education,
setting use and party-size limits,
increasing visitor contacts and enforcement, and
closing areas seasonally or shifting use to other areas.
RR-40. Thresholds may be adjusted as needed to ensure resource protection, manage recreation use, minimize user conflicts, or react to new information or research, if warranted, due to changing circumstances or changes in management objectives.