“I know, therefore I adapt?” Complexities of individual adaptation to climate-induced forest dieback in Alaska

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Individual actions to avoid, benefit from, or cope with climate change impacts partly shape adaptation; much research on adaptation has focused at the systems level, overlooking drivers of individual responses. Theoretical frameworks and empirical studies of environmental behavior identify a complex web of cognitive, affective, and evaluative factors that motivate stewardship. We explore the relationship between knowledge of, and adaptation to, widespread, climate-induced tree mortality to understand the cognitive (i.e., knowledge and learning), affective (i.e., attitudes and place attachment), and evaluative (i.e., use values) factors that influence how individuals respond to climate-change impacts. From 43 semistructured interviews with forest managers and users in a temperate forest, we identified distinct responses to local, climate-induced environmental changes that we then categorized as either behavioral or psychological adaptations. Interviewees developed a depth of knowledge about the dieback through a combination of direct, place-based experiences and indirect, mediated learning through social interactions. Knowing that the dieback was associated with climate change led to different adaptive responses among the interviewees, although knowledge alone did not explain this variation. Forest users reported psychological adaptations to process negative attitudes; these adaptations were spurred by knowledge of the causes, losses of intangible values, and impacts to a species to which they held attachment. Behavioral adaptations exclusive to a high level of knowledge included actions such as using the forests to educate others or changing transportation behaviors to reduce personal energy consumption. Managers integrated awareness of the dieback and its dynamics across spatial scales into current management objectives. Our findings suggest that adaptive management may occur from the bottom up, as individual managers implement new practices in advance of policies. As knowledge of climate-change impacts in local environments increases, resource users may benefit from programs and educational interventions that facilitate coping strategies.

Nature’s contribution to adaptation: insights from examples of the transformation of social-ecological systems

“…By creating novel options for the future, the NCA concept can help actors re-frame decision contexts for implementing transformative adaptation. We consider the NCA concept represents a pragmatic and optimistic approach to adaptation and ecosystem transformation that helps counter feelings of despair that accompany the acceptance of irreversible, unavoidable change and loss of current ecosystem states (Oakes et al 2016). Furthermore, it helps reveals the importance of ecosystem properties for adaptation and the societal change processes in values, rules and knowledge that are required to enable transformative adaptation.…”

The nature, significance, and influence of perceived personal experience of climate change

“…The remaining 19 studies assessed experience through self‐reports. These reports were obtained either through face‐to‐face interviews (Le Dang, Li, Nuberg, & Bruwer, 2014; Oakes, Ardoin, & Lambin, 2016; Ogunbode et al, 2019; Ogunbode, Liu, & Tausch, 2017; Ung, Luginaah, Chuenpagdee, & Campbell, 2018), telephone interviews (Fownes & Allred, 2019), paper/postal questionnaires (Asugeni, MacLaren, Massey, & Speare, 2015; Boon, 2016; Hamilton‐Webb, Naylor, Manning, & Conway, 2017; Vulturius et al, 2018), online questionnaires (Alston, 2000; Babutsidze et al, 2018; Bonaiuto, Giannini, & Biasi, 2003; Broomell et al, 2015; Leiserowitz & Smith, 2018), unspecified or mixed mode questionnaire administration (Besel, Burke, & Christos, 2017; Lujala, Lein, & Rød, 2015; Zaval, Keenan, Johnson, & Weber, 2014), or a life history writing exercise (Tuan, 1974). Five studies (four of which were primarily based on geo‐coded data and one of which was primarily a self‐report study) used elements of both the objective and self‐report approaches to assess experience/exposure.…”

Surprisingly malleable public preferences for climate adaptation in forests

“…Despite the argument that adaptation is easier to communicate than mitigation (because it is less ideological and often has immediate co-benefits), Moser (2014) suggests that specific adaptations may disrupt long-standing legal frameworks, social norms and institutions, especially when innovation-driven. There is also mounting evidence that adaptation is cognitively challenging, particularly in sectors, like agriculture and forestry, that are embedded in socialecological systems (Oakes et al 2016, Findlater et al 2018, 2019a, 2019b. Among commercial farmers who have the demonstrated incentive, capacity and willingness to adapt to climate change, Findlater et al find that they nonetheless treat climate change risks as distinct from weather and climate variability (Findlater et al 2019a), that they tend to isolate climate change from their otherwise highly networked mental models of on-farm risk management (Findlater et al 2018), and that they use heuristics (here called 'cognitive thresholds' and 'hazy hedging') to simplify the difficult trade-offs between competing risk management strategies (Findlater et al 2019b).…”

“…Among commercial farmers who have the demonstrated incentive, capacity and willingness to adapt to climate change, Findlater et al find that they nonetheless treat climate change risks as distinct from weather and climate variability (Findlater et al 2019a), that they tend to isolate climate change from their otherwise highly networked mental models of on-farm risk management (Findlater et al 2018), and that they use heuristics (here called 'cognitive thresholds' and 'hazy hedging') to simplify the difficult trade-offs between competing risk management strategies (Findlater et al 2019b). For knowledgeable forest users and managers in Alaska, Oakes et al (2016) find that adaptation is a complex decision-making problem, drawing on a variety of cognitive, affective and evaluative processes.…”