Adaptive management: making it happen through participatory systems analysis

Participatory systems analysis was used to construct system models of the operating environment for fire management in conservation reserves in north Queensland, Australia. The aim of the study was to identify stumbling blocks to the adaptive management of fire and to test whether this could be done using participatory methods and a systems modelling tool called Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN). Results from the case study indicate that the participatory system analysis approach provides a co‐learning environment that captures the collective (corporate) knowledge of the factors influencing planning, implementing, monitoring and reviewing outcomes, thus allowing critical success factors (CSFs) influencing the success of adaptive management to be identified. BBN provided the scaffolding for piecing together this knowledge, allowing managers to structure complex problems and conduct dynamic sensitivity and scenario analysis to identify where intervention or investment can significantly improve the practice of adaptive management within a natural resource management (NRM) agency.