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5 IV i %,ii(Iii Il'� Min g Ins WJ iii „ii iii ii a1 Ad a °r,111i "ve °,°°, °Ol1 ,," "Ire x,"111 oli" fr Traditionally, management of wildlife and habitat has relied on the principle of stationarity — the idea that the future is statistically indistinguishable from the past. Given the magnitude and associated uncer- tainty of impacts under climate change, stationarity may not be a viable assumption. Although natural resources professionals have always managed dynam- ic and complex ecological systems, the uncertainty associated with the extent and potential impacts of climate change offer new management challeng- es. Thus, management of natural resources under climate change will require even greater flexibility, creativity, and adaptive learning. Climate change adaptation is a new field. There is uncertainty in the magnitude of climate change and its impacts, and in the ecological responses to those impacts. To prepare for applied, on- the - ground responses, our conservation institutions must them- selves adapt and become adaptive to constant change at large scales. Based on a survey of federal and state agency representatives, conservation practitioners, and natural resource scientists, we observed federal and state agencies, as well as nongovernmental orga- nizations involved in the following types of actions aimed at improving institutional adaptive capacity (Theoharides et al. 2009): Programmatic Changes: Addressing adaptation to climate change involves making climate change a part of program priorities, securing increased funding to reflect that new focus, modifying management plans to address projected climate change impacts, forming internal and exter- nal working groups, and increasing internal capacity to address adaptation. Planning: A significant amount of planning, revision of existing plans, reprioritization of conservation actions, identi- fication of new management goals, and development of monitoring protocols will precede implementa- tion of adaptation projects. The goal of planning should be to ensure that management actions are not maladaptive and to ensure that conservation invest- ments consider future changes and are re- prioritized as needed. Collaboration: Climate change requires conservation partners to work together at landscape- scales, across jurisdiction- al boundaries to adequately understand and respond to the impacts of climate change. Forming working groups, partnerships and collaborative structures and processes will be important to effectively work at this scale. The Department of the Interior Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are an example of this type of collaborative institution forming. Climate change adaptation will also involve collaboration across sectors, for example with land use, economic development, water, and disaster planning agencies to help assure that plans and actions are compatible and an efficient use of limited resources. Increasing science and technical capacity: Developing tools, predictive science, models, guid- ance documents, and planning information are all key components of adaptation to climate change. Developing and implementing active adaptive management programs within wildlife management agencies is also a key part of climate change adap- tation as many adaptation strategies will be imple- mented under changing and uncertain conditions with incomplete information. Improving the insti- tutional capacity of wildlife agencies to understand the human dimensions of climate change adapta- tion by incorporating methods and tools from the social sciences will become more important to assure that wildlife management actions will be effective as human systems also seek to adapt to climate change.