Research
May 1, 2009 by Brian Butler | Filed under: Evaluation of Natural Resources
Limits of acceptable change have been a useful process for dealing with recreation issues in the wilderness, such as recreation carrying capacities. The process follows a framework of six questions that focus on bringing balance to change:
1. Identify at least two goals that are in conflict.
2. Identify goals that will need to compromise for successful change.
3. Establish a hierarchy, or importance of goals.
4. Develop indications and standards for the implementation of the identified goals. The goals must be monitored to ensure the indicators are valid.
5. Modify the compromised goals to reach the develop standard.
6. Compromise the remaining goals to make sure the standard is not violated.
For proper implementation, LAC must be useful for evaluating future situations. LAC is not useful, or cannot be used in situations where goals are not in conflict, cannot be set into a hierarchy, or if the developed standards would violate the identified goals. LAC can be a useful process for evaluating issues commonly encountered during project planning and management. This article provides an overview of a tool that was developed for use in natural resource planning that can be used during a management of change process.