The North American Waterfowl Management Plan: The Action Plan and Recommendations

1. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan: The Action Plan and Recommendations HMWG - Nov 27-29, 2012 Buda, TX

2. HMWG – 27-29 November, Buda, TX • Overview of Action Plan recommendations • Strategy for IIC, NSST, Plan Committee, HMWG, Joint Ventures, HDWG, etc. • Next steps moving ahead with implementation

3. Recent Developments • 2012 Revision signed by all three Ministers/ Secretaries • Action Plan drafted for Plan Committee review in August • Final sent to PC Co-Chairs in September • Action Plan (AP) is a living document • (2004 Strategic Guidance & Implementation Framework) • NAWMPrevision.org

4. Recent Developments • “Under construction” • Interim Integration Committee (IIC) • Human Dimension Working Group (HDWG) • “Approval pending” • Action Plan (September 30) • IIC (meets 3-4 December) • Additional committee assignments

5. NAWMP Revision - 2012 Goal 1: Abundant and resilient waterfowl populations to support hunting and other uses without imperiling habitat. Goal 2: Wetlands and related habitats sufficient to sustain waterfowl populations at desired levels, while providing places to recreate and ecological services that benefit society. Goal 3: Growing numbers of waterfowl hunters, other conservationists and citizens who enjoy and actively support waterfowl and wetlands conservation.

6. NAWMP Recommendations • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives • Integrate waterfowl management • Focus resources on important landscapes • Build support for waterfowl conservation • Adapt harvest management strategies • Establish a Human Dimensions Working Group • Increase adaptive capacity

7. NAWMP Recommendations • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives so that all facets of North American waterfowl management share a common benchmark. • Develop numeric population abundance objectives for species and populations • Formulate habitat objectives in the context of consumptive and non-consumptive public use objectives • Develop quantified and realistic objectives for waterfowl hunting participation, waterfowl viewing participation, and support for conservation.

8. NAWMP Recommendations • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives so that all facets of North American waterfowl management share a common benchmark. • Objectives for Populations - Key Actions: • Develop numeric population abundance objectives • Population demographics well understood • Metrics are measureable through monitoring • Objectives are consistent with those for habitat and public use/supporters. • Establish model-based objectives based on current understanding of limiting and regulating mechanisms. • Develop conceptual population models for less understood species • Prioritize information needs

9. Candidate Harvest Management Objectives (1993): • Maintain relevant duck populations above some minimum level • Maximize hunter numbers • Maximize bag limits • Maximize season length • Minimize regulatory changes • Minimize regulations complexity • Maintain regulation flexibility to achieve harvest objectives • Improve understanding of duck population dynamics • Gain knowledge about how regulations affect hunter activity • Understand how hunter activity affects harvest rates • Maximize equity in hunting opportunity • Improve public support and understanding of the regulations process • Examine and realize the full potential for flyway-specific harvest regulations.

10. NAWMP Recommendations • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives so that all facets of North American waterfowl management share a common benchmark. • Objectives for Habitat - Key Actions: • Formulate habitat objectives in the context of consumptive and non-consumptive use • Develop objectives for JV regions linked to continental objectives and coordinated across JVs • Derive habitat objectives for JVs from population models linking habitats with factors regulating populations.  • Design habitat programs that provide values to waterfowl hunters as well as for public use and support.

11. NAWMP Recommendations • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives so that all facets of North American waterfowl management share a common benchmark. • Objectives for People - Key Actions: • Assess current trends in waterfowl hunting, viewing, and other waterfowl-associated recreation. • Develop quantified and realistic objectives for waterfowl hunting, viewing participation, and support • Develop a framework to achieve objectives for waterfowl hunting, viewing participation, and support • Create the institutional capacity necessary to implement and evaluate strategies

13. NAWMP Recommendations • Integrate waterfowl management to ensure programs are complementary, inform resource investments, & allow managers to understand & weigh tradeoffs among potential actions. • Key Actions: Decision Process: • Develop the stakeholder process (identify stakeholders) to establish multiple objectives (social process) •  Identify who will be “responsible” for an expanded set of integrated objectives (institutional process) • Identify who will make management decisions at various spatial and temporal scales • Identify how decisions at smaller scales will be integrated (rolled up or, stepped down from larger scales)  

14. NAWMP Recommendations • Integrate waterfowl management to ensure programs are complementary, inform resource investments, & allow managers to understand & weigh tradeoffs among potential actions. • Key Actions: Technical Process: • Confirm / revise population, habitat and social objectives •  Identify means objectives to achieve fundamental objectives •  Explicitly consider weights and tradeoffs among objectives •  Develop models to predict the consequences of alternative management actions and means to link these •  Target monitoring programs to track progress

15. NAWMP Recommendations • Focus resources on important landscapes that have the greatest influence on waterfowl populations and those who hunt and view waterfowl. • Key Actions: • Identify primary issues that must be considered when targeting waterfowl habitat conservation while achieving the three fundamental NAWMP goals. • Develop scalable decision support tools for targeting management actions based on prioritization of issues • Identify the most important areas to deliver waterfowl habitat conservation at multiple spatial scales (continental, flyway, JV region).

16. NAWMP Recommendations • Build support for waterfowl conservation by reconnecting people with nature through waterfowl, and by highlighting the environmental benefits associated with waterfowl habitat conservation. • Key Actions: • Compile a comprehensive review of the environmental and societal benefits of managing, restoring and protecting waterfowl habitat. • Employ human dimensions research to inform communication and marketing strategies for financial and political support of waterfowl conservation. • Develop and implement strategies to engage the public in support of conservation

17. NAWMP Recommendations • Adapt harvest management strategies to support attainment of NAWMP objectives. • Key Actions: • Revisit harvest strategies to accommodate multiple , explicit objectives. • Clarify the interpretation of waterfowl population objectives & the role of harvest management in attaining them • Develop modeling frameworks that describe as well as social system dynamics • Assess trends and tradeoffs related to regulatory alternatives (e.g., rule simplicity, harvest opportunity, etc.) • Develop an integrated decision framework (e.g., JTG “Shoulder Strategy

18. NAWMP Recommendations Establish a Human Dimensions Working Group to support development of objectives for people and ensure those actions are informed by science. • Key Actions: • Provide a forum (the HDWG) to provide the scientific and technical foundations to define objectives, develop conceptual frameworks, and evaluate outcomes of NAWMP management actions focused on people. • Define objectives for hunters, birders, supporters. • Coordinate the planning, design, delivery, and evaluation of public engagement actions.

19. NAWMP Recommendations • Increase adaptive capacity so structured learning expands as part of the culture of waterfowl management and program effectiveness increases. • Key Actions: • Embrace adaptive management as the standard approach for making management decisions & improving performance. • Invest resources in monitoring and assessment integral to an adaptive management approach. • Establish a process for institutional review and change that would facilitate adaptive management

20. Looking back, I clearly erred by not forcing a …. knock- down drag out debate over the loose assumptions, unmasked questions, and thin analyses underlying our military strategy in Vietnam. I had spent 20 years as a manager identifying problems and forcing organizations – often against their will – to think deeply and realistically about alternative courses of action and their consequences. I doubt I will fully understand why I did not do so here. Robert McNamara. 1995. In retrospect: the tragedy and lessons of Vietnam.

25. Plan Committee’s federal co-chairs appoint an Interim Integration Committee (IIC) • Ensure progress and engagement of the major sectors of waterfowl management • Advance the integrated management of North American waterfowl populations, harvest, habitat conservation, and associated user and conservation supporters. • Pursue related technical work with established harvest, habitat and human-dimension working groups • HMWG • NSST • HDWG

26. By December 2014 the IIC will: • Prepare a work plan, budget, and resourcing strategy to advance the technical aspects of integration (Jan. 2013) • Gather, vet, and synthesize ideas and advise on the evolution of integrated management. • Develop and help implement a process to set explicit, measurable objectives • Waterfowl populations, • Habitat conservation • Users and supporters

27. And … IIC will plan to: • Support development of decision-support tools • Link suites of objectives at varying spatial and temporal scales, and consider how these tools can be implemented and the administered • Develop scale-specific monitoring and assessment approaches In collaboration with the NSST, HDWG, and HMWG to support adaptive implementation of the linked decision frameworks • Ultimately, coordinate a review of the institutional structures and processes in place to conduct waterfowl management.

28. Next 2-3 Months: • Approval & release of the AP by the PC Co-Chairs • Initial meeting of the IIC and supporting technical teams • Develop a draft work plan • Identification of other required resources. • Meeting of the PC and JV Coordinators in January • Formalization of a HDWG by Plan Committee and the National Flyway Council • Identify and act on resource requirements (people and funding) for IIC, HDWG, and NSST • ECNAW (January 27-28) – NAWMP Special Session

31. JV Engagement at the Onset Participate in setting measurable objectives and tradeoffs. Mechanisms still TBD. • JV will be asked again to translate new population objectives into habitat goals. • Consider what human user/supporter people objectives you wish to embrace, how you might measure these and how you will incorporate them into strategies and programming. Hook up with the Leadership, Funding and Communications working group to ensure appropriate Canadian content. Help all of us “get this right” in pursuit of Plan Goals.

32. NAWMP Recommendations • Integrate waterfowl management to ensure programs are complementary, inform resource investments, and allow managers to understand and weigh tradeoffs among potential actions. • Develop, revise or reaffirm NAWMP objectives so that all facets of North American waterfowl management share a common benchmark. • Focus resources on important landscapes that have the greatest influence on waterfowl populations and those who hunt and view waterfowl. • Build support for waterfowl conservation by reconnecting people with nature through waterfowl, and by highlighting the environmental benefits associated with waterfowl habitat conservation. • Establish a Human Dimensions Working Group to support development of objectives for people and ensure those actions are informed by science. • Adapt harvest management strategies to support attainment of NAWMP objectives. • Increase adaptive capacity so structured learning expands as part of the culture of waterfowl management and program effectiveness increases;

33. HDWG: the importance of Canadian Leadership and Engagement To help ensure that Canadian partners’ interests are included, for example: To ensure attention is paid to EGS concepts, and to opportunities to enlist public support for conservation-friendly public policies and conservation funding. To ensure inclusion of Canadian waterfowl hunters and other recreational users. To help support and build in Canada a community of social scientists, economists, behaviorists etc. with interests in providing decision support on conservation matters.