Editing National Park Service (section)

====2021: Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager====
The "Revisiting Leopold" report mentioned [[climate change]] three times and "climate refugia" once, but it did not prescribe or offer any management tactics that could help park managers with the problems of climate change. Hence, the 2020 NPS-led report specific to the need for [[climate adaptation]]: "Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager."<ref name="framework-2021">{{cite web|last1=Schuurman|first1=Gregor W|display-authors=etal|title=Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD): A Decision Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager (2021)|url=https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/654543|website=IRMA Portal|publisher=U.S. National Park Service|access-date=October 16, 2021|archive-date=October 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018221833/https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/654543|url-status=live}}</ref> This "Natural Resource Report" has ten authors. Among them are four associated with the National Park Service, three with the [[United States Fish and Wildlife Service|US Fish and Wildlife Service]], and two with the [[United States Geological Survey|US Geological Survey]] — all of which are government agencies within the US Department of Interior.

The report's Executive Summary, points to "intensifying global change."

<blockquote>"... The convention of using baseline conditions to define goals for today's resource management is increasingly untenable, presenting practical and philosophical challenges for managers. As formerly familiar ecological conditions continue to change, bringing novelty, surprise, and uncertainty, natural resource managers require a new, shared approach to make conservation decisions.... The RAD (Resist–Accept–Direct) decision framework has emerged over the past decade as a simple tool that captures the entire decision space for responding to ecosystems facing the potential for rapid, irreversible ecological change."<ref name="framework-2021" /></blockquote>

The three RAD options are:
* '''Resist''' the trajectory, by working to maintain or restore ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function on the basis of historical or acceptable current conditions;
* '''Accept''' the trajectory, by allowing ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function to change autonomously; or
* '''Direct''' the trajectory, by actively shaping ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function toward preferred new conditions.<ref name="BioScience-2022">{{cite journal |last1=Schuurman |first1=Gregor W |title=Navigating Ecological Transformation: Resist–Accept–Direct as a Path to a New Resource Management Paradigm |journal=BioScience |date=January 2022 |volume=72 |issue=1 |pages=16—29 |doi=10.1093/biosci/biab067 |url=https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/72/1/16/6429752|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The RAD framework emerged from efforts by the NPS and partners since 2015 to hone a tool that could integrate into standard resource-management planning processes and thereby foster strategic thinking and clear communication about how to steward transforming ecosystems. It built on the Resist–Accept–Guide framework first proposed in the 2012 book ''Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change.''<ref name="Beyond-Naturalness">{{cite book |editor1-last=Cole |editor1-first=David N |editor2-last=Yung |editor2-first=Laurie|title=Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change |date=2012 |publisher=Island Press |isbn=9781597269117 |url=https://islandpress.org/books/beyond-naturalness#desc}}</ref> The NPS and partners in 2021 replaced the 2012 term "guide" with "direct." This explicitly recognized the potential for strong intervention at key points to foster preferred new conditions. Initially, the NPS experimented with the term "accommodate" in place of "accept." This early formulation appeared in a 2016 NPS publication: ''Coastal Adaptation Strategies Handbook''.<ref name="nps-coastal-2016">{{cite web |last1=National Park Service |title=Coastal Adaptation Strategies Handbook (2016) |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/coastalhandbook.htm |website=nps.gov |publisher=U.S. Government |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> Another interagency publication in 2016 also used the term "accommodate": ''Resource Management and Operations in Central North Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary''.<ref name="2016-usgs">{{cite web | display-authors=etal | last1=Fisichelli |first1=Nicholas A |title=Resource Management and Operations in Central North Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary |url=https://www.usgs.gov/publications/resource-management-and-operations-central-north-dakota-climate-change-scenario |website=usgs.gov |publisher=U.S. Government |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> In 2020, the "Resist-Accept-Direct" framework was used in a paper published in the journal ''Fisheries''. Eighteen researchers from federal and state agencies and universities collaborated in this effort, which included short case studies of where and how this framework had already been applied.<ref name="2020-Fisheries">{{cite journal |display-authors=etal |last1=Thompson |first1=Laura M |title=Responding to Ecosystem Transformation: Resist, Accept, or Direct? |journal=Fisheries |date=July 2020 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=8—21 |doi=10.1002/fsh.10506 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fsh.10506}}</ref>

The interagency efforts to forge a climate-adaptive framework culminated in a January 2022 series of six articles in the journal ''[[BioScience]]''. These were grouped in the "Special Section on the Resist–Accept–Direct Framework."<ref name="2022-special-section">{{cite journal |title=Special Section on the "Resist–Accept–Direct" Framework |journal=BioScience |date=January 2022 |volume=72 |issue=1 |url=https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/issue/72/1}}</ref> In 2024, the RAD Framework was included in an NPS policy memorandum titled "Managing National Parks in an Era of Climate Change."<ref name="nps-24-03">{{cite web |last1=National Park Service |title=Policy Memorandum 24-03 (August 2024) |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/policy/upload/PM_24-03.pdf |website=nps.gov |access-date=15 May 2025}}</ref> That memorandum also links to the three previous statements pertaining to NPS climate change responses and adaptation (2012, 2014, and 2015).