Cross-Park RAD Project (CPRP): A Case Study in Four National Parks Investigating How Institutional Context and Emotions Shape Manager Decisions to Resist, Accept, or Direct Change in Transforming Ecosystems

Natural & cultural resource managers are facing a slew of new challenges for managing public lands stemming from climate change and human-driven stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and new resource uses. In some cases, the very landscapes and species they are managing are changing in significant ways, transforming from one set of conditions to another. As a result, previously successful management strategies may become less effective, or in some cases ineffective. New and transforming conditions leave managers in a bind on how to respond to transforming public lands and natural resources. On the most basic level managers have three choices of how to respond: resist change, accept change, or direct change (RAD). These difficult decisions cannot be fully answered by scientific information. Instead, decisions are influenced by several social factors, both unique to the individual manager and from outside sources.



This research project will examine how key institutional and emotional factors shape management decisions about changing resources. Four national parks that are experiencing significant ecological transformation are the focus of the analysis: Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Acadia, Glacier, and North Cascades. The team will use interviews and focus groups to study how the culture and policy of individual parks, and the psychological and emotional experiences of managers responding to landscape changes, influence decisions.



This project has four main goals: 1) to increase understanding of how institutional and emotional factors influence manager decision making in the National Park Service in the face of ecological transformation, 2) to provide tailored, actionable products to park managers in each case study location to inform unit-level decisions, 3) to develop examples of how to engage Tribal Nations with ties to park lands in decisions about transforming landscapes and establish connections between parks and Tribal partners, and 4) to contribute to emerging theory on the social science of ecological transformation in public land management.