Salmon Futures: Stakeholder-driven salmon management scenarios under changing environmental conditions on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula

Abstract:

Understanding the adaptive capacity of individuals within natural resource management agencies is a key component of assessing the vulnerability of salmon to future environmental change. We seek to explore the adaptive capacity of natural resource agencies on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula by exploring the drivers and implications of different salmon allocation scenarios through participatory workshops with managers. We present here the initial results from the first workshop, which explores the various drivers responsible for changes in salmon allocation. Ranging from global to local, and biophysical to socioeconomic, these drivers are also linked to specific actors in the region. These complex interactions comprise the Kenai Peninsula’s social-ecological system and determine its ability to react to change. Using a stakeholder-driven scenario framework, we aim to: 1) explore the adaptive capacity of natural resource agencies in the region by exploring and exposing managers to different but logically coherent salmon allocation scenarios; 2) build stakeholder confidence in the science of environmental change on the Kenai Peninsula; and 3) develop a decision support tool that helps regional resource managers better understand their changing environment. We utilize and present the scenario framework as a platform for integrating hydrologic, landscape, and cultural change information into actionable decisions, crafted by the stakeholders, so that landscape change on the Kenai becomes more coordinated.