Climate change, as well as local and regional environmental stressors, are increasing the frequency and future likelihood of ecological transformation, occurring when ecosystems experience significant and irreversible shifts into new states. For example, in some semi-arid forests and sagebrush ecosystems east of the Cascade Range, existing vegetation communities may face difficulty regrowing after fires, instead transitioning to different kinds of vegetation (e.g., from forest or sagebrush to grassland). Resisting transformation has traditionally been the default response by managers and communities, but the pace and scope of change has made this increasingly difficult. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework attempts to respond to this difficulty by presenting other plausible management responses: accepting and directing change. As natural resource managers navigate these changes, trade-offs are likely to emerge and managers will need to navigate the ethical dimensions of land management decisions.

In this project, Caroline aims to design a regional, participatory workshop with land managers, tribal members, and nonprofit partners, including the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula County, City of Missoula and The Nature Conservancy, among others. The workshop will explore how trade-offs emerge and are navigated within the RAD Framework. The results will be used to create an engagement toolkit for federal land managers, providing an important resource of best practices for equitable engagement with local and tribal communities.