摘要：Adaptive management is a growing trend within environment and natural resource management efforts in theUnited States. While many proponents of adaptive management emphasize the need for collaborative, iterative governanceprocesses to facilitate adaptive management, legal scholars note that current legal requirements and processes in the UnitedStates often make it difficult to provide the necessary institutional support and flexibility for successful adaptive managementimplementation. Our research explores this potential disconnect between adaptive management theory and practice byinterviewing practitioners in the field. We conducted a survey of individuals associated with the Collaborative AdaptiveManagement Network (CAMNet), a nongovernmental organization that promotes adaptive management and facilitates in itsimplementation. The survey was sent via email to the 144 participants who attended CAMNet Rendezvous during 2007–2011and yielded 48 responses. We found that practitioners do feel hampered by legal and institutional constraints: > 70% of respondentsnot only believed that constraints exist, they could specifically name one or more examples of a legal constraint on their workimplementing adaptive management. At the same time, we found that practitioners are generally optimistic about the potentialfor institutional reform.
