A Framework for Implementing a Paradigm Shift toward a Proactive Approach for Conservation

Abstract

An examination of the conservation program in the Alaska Regional Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed that changes in environmental conditions and corresponding changes in the timing and distribution of species were outpacing traditional conservation management methods. This led to a decision to shift the program more toward a proactive and collaborative manner, with less emphasis on utilizing a reactive approach. Efforts to shift the program included reducing staff workloads, increasing capacity, adding new skill sets, providing examples and a framework for proactive conservation, and building support from supervisors. Staff input and feedback was sought throughout the process and used to shift the culture of the program to foster strategic and collaborative conservation. An assessment of the proactive conservation program both provided encouragement and identified areas in need of additional attention. The current proactive conservation program has persisted through shifting agency priorities, declining budgets, and changes in internal leadership. The circumstances that necessitated a paradigm shift toward proactive conservation are not unique to Alaska; we urge others to consider implementation of proactive conservation or another paradigm that better aligns management approaches with the pace and scale of environmental change.

1. Introduction

Changes in environmental conditions with corresponding changes in the timing and distribution of species are outpacing traditional conservation management strategies. At a time when we can least afford delays in conservation, there is a dangerous mismatch between ecosystem decline and conservation methodologies currently in use. To address this misalignment, an effort was undertaken in the Alaska Regional Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Alaska USFWS office) to harness the expertise of biologists to chart and implement a new direction to improve conservation gains. The strategy that was used to address the current and foreseeable conservation challenges, termed proactive conservation, may provide insights for those considering similar initiatives or paradigm shifts within wildlife management and conservation organization offices.

Proactive conservation aims to use the best available science and collection of information that contributes to actionable conservation plans with achievable objectives [1]. This approach includes working in anticipation of threats to a species or habitat to mitigate or reduce the threats before the ecosystem becomes imperiled [2]. Proactive conservation encourages an ecosystem-based conservation approach in contrast to traditional management regimes that most often focus on individual species or featured locations and tend to utilize crisis-management [3]. Conservation strategies focused on supporting community-led efforts and promoting environmental values as a fundamental part of the management process are often included in proactive work [4, 5]. Proactive conservation planning can inform broad-scale land-use decisions by highlighting areas with high conservation value and assessing strategies that minimize risk to those areas [6]. Overall, proactive conservation work has been shown to be both more efficient and less expensive than traditional reactionary methods and policies, which often employ the delay-and-repair outcome that can be very costly over time [7, 8, 9].

Alaska offers an unequaled opportunity to practice proactive conservation across vast landscapes because it contains thriving fish and wildlife populations and habitats that are still relatively healthy and functionally intact. However, the state is not immune to changes that have occurred across the rest of the United States. Alaska is currently experiencing drastic environmental change, and initial signs of habitats and species under pressure are becoming readily apparent [10, 11]. For example, Alaska is undergoing climatic warming at more than twice the global rate, resulting in shifting biomes, changing ecological functions, and a redistribution of species [12, 13, 14].

There is added complexity in planning around uncertainties of future climate change [15]. Ecosystems are seen as complex, adaptive systems with multiple possible trajectories [16]. Historic conditions were often used as a management benchmark; however, rapid climate change has caused ecologists and natural resource managers to reconsider whether desired ecological conditions [10] goals should be historically based, based on the current set of conditions, or future-based addressing how to adaptively manage ecosystems in transition [14]. Recovery or restoration to a previous state may not be achievable or even desirable considering the way ecosystems and environments are shifting from historical baselines that are generally observable, knowable, and agreed on to nonstationary conditions that are new, unknown, and contested [17, 18]. Instead, a more biologically relevant goal may be to increase the resiliency of species and their habitats in anticipation of future climate challenges. Proactive conservation work has the potential to develop conservation strategies informed by and tailored to work within future climate change trajectories.

We provide a conceptual framework for a paradigm shift toward a greater emphasis on proactive conservation within the Alaska USFWS office. Conservation challenges faced by this office are not unique, nor are the obstacles encountered when attempting to implement a paradigm shift. We detail how the concept of proactive conservation was conceived, developed, and implemented in the Alaska USFWS office and strive to explain the process in a general way so that the lessons learned may assist other conservation entities seeking to implement similar paradigm shifts.

2. Methodology

The process by which the paradigm shift was implemented in the Alaska USFWS Office was both iterative and adaptive and was comprised of multiple steps (see Figure 1). In 2016, efforts began to engage staff in a program-wide strategic planning process to solicit input and opinions on what projects occupied their time, which projects they preferred to focus their efforts, and what actions and projects would have the greatest conservation benefit. The strategic plan that emerged from this review was seen as an important keystone document that provided a clear statement of: (1) the program’s future direction; (2) commonly held values by staff and mangers; (3) a commitment to a desired work environment; (4) consistent criteria to establish work priorities; and (5) a commitment to implement streamlining procedures to provide staff the time and resources to dedicate to proactive planning and landscape-level efforts.

Figure 1.

Diagram of the phases implemented in the Alaska U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office to shift from the traditional reactionary conservation approaches to a proactive conservation framework. Phases include assessing the baseline, socializing the strategic plan, sharing the vision, implementing the paradigm shift, adding capacity, assessing progress and envisioning the future.

A key component of the strategic plan was a commitment to create and foster a work environment that emphasized risk analysis, encouraged innovation, and rewarded courage. Inclusion of this commitment was, and continues to be, controversial. In informal conversations, many staff expressed skepticism that they could be innovative or courageous in their work and seemed uncomfortable when asked about their work relative to this stated commitment. Management recognized that including the words risk analysis, innovation, and courage were not the norm for a government document; their inclusion was intended to provoke a reaction. The thought behind this novelty was that doing things the way they had always been done was not maximizing conservation benefits, so the desire was to push the system toward what is referred to as the productive zone of disequilibrium. The productive zone of disequilibrium is defined as the optimal range of distress within which the urgency in the system motivates people to engage in adaptive work. In other words, this is the place where people are creative and develop novel solutions [19].

During the baseline assessment, most staff identified an imbalance between the work where they spent most of their time, which often had very limited conservation value, and the work that they wanted to do, which often had greater conservation value. However, at the same time, they expressed hesitation in making an abrupt change in how they approached their work, which indicated to management that staff needed both a transition process and time for the shift toward work with greater conservation value to be successful. As a result of this analysis, the strategic plan prioritized staff spending more time and resources on proactive planning and landscape-level efforts given their potential to provide greater conservation impact. These priorities are grounded in the belief that conservation is best achieved in a proactive and collaborative manner, such as by crossing program and office boundaries, rather than by solely utilizing reactive and project-by-project methodologies.

An opportunity arose in the summer of 2018 to add additional capacity to assist with changing the culture of the program to one of greater ownership and engagement by staff. It was recognized that the program faced the adaptive challenge of changing the culture of the program to foster strategic and collaborative conservation [20]. Communication with staff was the focus of this phase and involved interviewing 28 individuals, observing the work of the team, and seeking feedback and input. The themes explored in these interviews are presented in Table 1. The purpose of the interviews was to gain insights from staff on their perceptions of the existing conservation program, prompt their thinking about how the program could be different under a new paradigm, hear what they saw as barriers to change, and to learn how the process used to facilitate the shift was working for them. A report developed following the staff interviews identified the need for clearer guidance from leadership so that staff could meet expectations for their work. The report described a significant amount of uncertainty among staff but portrayed a committed and engaged workforce dedicated to conservation.

Key steps	Example questions for each step
Assessing the baseline	1. In your opinion, what are we doing now that will have lasting impacts?; 2. What kind of work do you want to be doing that you think would have a larger conservation impact?
Envisioning the future	3. What are your ideas on implementing the proactive conservation approach in our office and program?; 4. What does your program look like when proactive conservation is successfully implemented?
Identifying barriers and linkages	5. What are the barriers that prevent you from working proactively in your everyday work?; 6. What linkages across programs/offices do you envision could help with a more proactive approach to conservation?
Assessing the process to support the paradigm shift	7. Did you feel invited to participate in the process to the extent you were interested? If not, why not?; 8. What is working for you in this process? What is not working?

Table 1.

Key steps to launching a paradigm shift within an organization or group and example questions for each of the key steps as part of the paradigm shift toward proactive conservation in the Alaska USFWS office.

In response to the request from staff to reduce uncertainty around the proposed paradigm shift toward proactive conservation, a vision document was drafted and included the expectation that staff dedicate 20% of their annual work time to projects focusing on proactive conservation. This, coupled with the development of best management practices to streamline current workload, was intended to create space in employee’s daily work activities to accommodate a shift toward proactive conservation. The inclusion of proactive conservation to staff’s work time was intended to make the commitment to this paradigm shift tangible and real for staff and supervisors. The value 20% was chosen to provide sufficient time for the work to be meaningful so that the employee would feel a difference in their work plan and so that conservation results could be realized. It was intentionally left vague as to how the 20% could be achieved to allow flexibility—it could be 1 day a week, 1 week a month, or the time could be concentrated during a field season as long as it amounted to 20% of the total annual work hours of the employee. The overall intention was to provide both expectation and accountability, but also to empower staff to take the initiative to chart their own course toward greater engagement in proactive work.

To gain additional capacity, provide fresh perspective and create a confidential and judgment-free opportunity for staff engagement, leadership sought outside support to explore proactive conservation concepts and application in a separate and second round of staff interviews. This approach had the added advantage of reinforcing that this was not a top-down mandate, but instead grew directly out of the feedback provided by staff. The opportunity for open dialog with someone with applied expertise and an outside perspective, and the commitment to include staff input in a final report and presentation to leadership distinguished the proactive program from past efforts.

Staff and managers from multiple subprograms and locations within the Alaska USFWS office were provided the opportunity to discuss the concept of proactive conservation in interviews lasting approximately 1 hour (see Table 1). The questions were not sent ahead to the staff or managers so that first impressions and thoughts could be captured during the interviews, rather than prepared responses. Questions were purposefully open-ended to encourage more conversation.

A total of 31 interviews were conducted, representing the breadth of programs within the office. This was done with the intention of providing a diversity of views from those already involved in proactive work to those voicing skepticism for the proactive conservation concept. In addition to the many themes found within the responses, interviews were also instrumental in generating new ideas for proactive work. Program staff and managers identified the biggest barriers to engaging in proactive work as a lack of time and capacity, lack of a framework for how to go about the work, unknown support from supervisors, and a hesitancy in collaborating with some groups within the program. In response, pilot projects to demonstrate both what proactive work could look like and how it could be undertaken were developed. The intention was to demonstrate how to identify opportunities for proactive work and the appropriate steps to build the necessary partnerships. The point of this pilot project was to illustrate how to go about the process of developing proactive conservation projects and develop a framework and examples for others to follow.

For there to be a real shift toward proactive conservation, the concept needed to be incorporated systemically. One of the most effective ways to implement and sustain change is to integrate it into budget and workforce planning. While the goal remained to have all staff spend time on proactive conservation, it was recognized that the transition would take time, and there was a risk that the initiative would lose its momentum without someone actively and continuously endorsing the concept. A commitment was made to create and fill two full-time, permanent positions to maintain momentum and further catalyze and implement the proactive conservation initiative. Major priorities of a newly created Regional Proactive Conservation Coordinator included building relationships with other conservation agencies, identifying and pursuing proactive conservation opportunities with internal and external partners, and providing guidance and assisting staff on how to engage in proactive conservation work. To build additional capacity, a Proactive Conservation biologist was hired and placed in a program where there was the greatest need to build bridges to other programs and create linkages between offices to realize conservation opportunities. Additional capacity for the proactive concept came from a biologist contractor whose primary duties included identification of opportunities, development of outreach information and educational resources, partnership development, and meeting facilitation and support.

In addition to hiring these positions, hiring panels for all new positions discussed the proactive conservation paradigm when interviewing new applicants. Initiating this conversation at the hiring stage ensured that any individual coming into the program arrives with the expectation and understanding that proactive conservation is an important part of the program. Some candidates provided feedback that this new practice of discussing proactive conservation made the position and program more attractive.

Significant portions of the program budget are allocated to foster the development of proactive conservation projects corresponding to programmatic priorities. Directing funding to the implementation of proactive conservation work demonstrates a commitment to achieving programmatic objectives and supporting opportunities within the program, including supporting projects that a single program may not be able to accomplish alone. This financial commitment allowed for the development of a request for proposals and created a financial incentive and leveraging opportunities to foster the development of projects promoting proactive conservation.

3. Results

The proactive conservation program needed to be adaptively managed if it was going to successfully develop and transition to realize its full potential. Therefore, a commitment was made to regularly assess the program including conducting an evaluation 5 years after inception and 12 months after implementation, and to modify the program as needed to determine if the methodology employed had resulted in the desired paradigm shift. In February of 2022, a Proactive Conservation Program Assessment (hereafter Assessment) was distributed to all staff within the program. The Assessment response rate was 39%, with 50 of 122 individuals employed within the program responding voluntarily. The Assessment was intended to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken to address the barriers staff previously identified, and to identify additional steps necessary to achieve the proactive conservation paradigm shift.

All the respondents indicated they had interest in proactive work, and 60% of respondents indicated that they were already doing proactive work. Many respondents (56%) indicated that proactive conservation was explicitly included in their current work plan. These responses were very encouraging, and a good indicator of success for the first year of the program and demonstrate that proactive conservation is now generally embraced by staff.

The Assessment also asked respondents to use one word or a phrase to describe their feelings toward proactive conservation. These responses were used to generate a word cloud, where larger words represent more frequently referenced ideas (Figure 2). The snapshot provided by the Assessment indicates that the level of awareness of the proactive conservation program has increased, as has the number of staff members engaged in proactive work. The Assessment revealed differences in attitudes toward proactive conservation from the staff to mid-level managers to program leaders. While the proactive conservation program appears to be broadly accepted and endorsed at the staff-level, there is an identified resistance to program implementation by mid-level managers.

Figure 2.

Word cloud developed from 50 responses from polled staff during the proactive conservation program assessment in response to the prompt, “In a few words, describe your thoughts about proactive conservation.” This figure was designed using WordItOut.com.

The Assessment asked respondents to rank what tools or additional support was needed for staff to be able to work more proactively. Staff prioritized the need for direction from leadership and expanded messaging, a framework to guide program implementation, and multidisciplinary teams to brainstorm and scope projects. Approximately an equal number of respondents ranked relief from existing workload as their first choice as those who ranked it as their last choice. Interestingly, awards to incentivize and recognize proactive work were not identified as a need, with 50% of responding staff ranking it as the lowest priority.

Two significant transitions in leadership occurred during the implementation of the proactive conservation paradigm shift described above. The new leaders demonstrated support for the proactive conservation program, including additional cycles of competitive funding opportunities for proactive conservation projects. The fact that the proactive program persisted through transitions at multiple levels of leadership demonstrates progress made in proactive conservation becoming engrained in the culture of the Alaska USFWS office.

4. Discussion

Building a new program that is resilient to shifting priorities, declining budgets, and changes in internal leadership and administrations takes a significant investment in funds, staff, and time. In addition, it is important to look ahead to identify characteristics of a fully successful proactive conservation program so that movement toward a desired future state can be tracked and adaptively managed. The future vision of the proactive conservation program will be fully realized when thinking proactively is as natural and commonplace as reactive work is currently, and when staff are empowered and fully engaged working toward proactive priorities. A successful program is one where everyone shares a common understanding of proactive conservation goals. We anticipate that fully engaged employees will have increased productivity, work satisfaction, and retention, and support and promote a workplace that prioritizes learning and innovation. In our future vision, staff will place a high priority on establishing and maintaining strong relationships with trusted conservation partners within the context of advancing proactive conservation work.

Full engagement from leadership can help ensure that the proactive conservation program continues to focus on identified priorities. Proactive work is most successful when implemented on a landscape level and across disciplines. For the proactive conservation program to be successful, there must be clear and consistent messaging and support from leadership to staff. It should naturally be part of any conversation about program priorities and influence both current and future work. In addition, fostering and maintaining a collaborative working environment is a key component to a fully integrated program. When respect and trust are present, leadership and staff are more comfortable taking smart risks. Respectful and inclusive workplaces support innovation and innovation is key to the future of conservation.

4.1 Lessons learned in addressing barriers to implementation

As previously discussed, the pace and scale of climate change effects in Alaska prompted a re-examination of the conservation strategy used by the Alaska USFWS Office. A paradigm shift was required to institutionalize this new approach. However, implementing a major shift in thinking at the workplace is not without issues. There were a myriad of obstacles and challenges encountered in this process. The pace and magnitude of the shift elicited strong emotions from some staff, including the fear of change; an increase in uncertainty; the need for a clear vision for the new program and paradigm; time, capacity and skill set constraints for individuals; and a need for clear communication and collaboration. Addressing these issues was critical to the adoption of the shift toward proactive conservation.

4.1.1 Addressing the fear of change

There was an undercurrent of fear in many of the responses to surveys administered when the proactive initiative was first introduced to staff and management. Fear took many forms, including a fear of change, a fear of not having enough time to do proactive work, a fear of failing, and a fear of not having enough time to work on non-proactive projects. Working with staff to develop streamlining products to increase efficiency in conducting their traditional work helped create space for proactive work. In addition, institutionalizing the balance between traditional reactionary work and proactive work in staff workplans, and reflecting this balance in annual evaluations, provided a clear message that there was a place for both types of work in the workday, and established accountability for staff and management. While initially it was felt that providing staff with an opportunity to take a risk and try a different approach was enough, we learned that it was necessary to more actively direct staff to participate in the paradigm shift and to support their risk-taking by clearly acknowledging that some attempts at proactive conservation may fail, while others might succeed.

Recognizing that any change is difficult, leadership listened to staff discuss their fears and took action to minimize the risk associated with engaging in proactive conservation. Efforts focused on acknowledging and attempting to reduce fear by empowering staff with ownership over the path forward, adjusting the timing of implementation, maintaining open channels of communication, and utilizing a clear and transparent process. We learned we needed to be adaptive and allow the content and pace of the paradigm shift to be staff driven.

4.1.2 Addressing uncertainty

It was recognized that proactive conservation could mean a lot of different things to different people. A vision document was created in response to the desire of staff to have a clear statement of what program leaders meant by the shift to proactive conservation. At each stage of the paradigm shift, we were reminded how important it was for the messaging to be clear, consistent, and regularly conveyed by all levels of program leadership. Examples of proactive conservation projects were developed to address the concerns voiced by staff that they did not know how to implement a proactive project.

The staff in the program, like many conservation professionals, are so connected to their work that it often becomes a part of their identity. Therefore, it was unnerving and threatening when they are asked to step away from their traditional work or methods where they have demonstrated high competency, to now try something more experimental and less predictable in outcome. The primary metric for evaluating success in the past was through specific deliverables. To preserve the individual’s sense of competence while pivoting toward more proactive work, we learned that a shift was required at all levels of the organization to measure value by conservation gains rather than products produced. Real progress will come when there are multiple successful and readily recalled examples of proactive conservation that are recognized by staff.

4.1.3 Addressing time, capacity, and skill set constraints

Staff were very concerned about not having time to engage in proactive work. While they voiced strong support and interest for proactive conservation, many also expressed concern that proactive work would require more time and energy than their normal work. This was of concern when they already felt time stressed. As a result, proactive work had the potential to be dismissed as an initiative that could only be pursued if their normal workload allowed them additional time. This staff input taught us the importance of streamlining current work to create space for employees to pursue proactive conservation work.

Another concern from staff was that they did not possess the correct skills to successfully complete proactive work and did not know if their training in traditional biology coursework prepared them to be successful at proactive conservation. Many of the respondents thought that they lacked skills in areas such as communication, facilitation, risk analysis, social science, public education, and outreach. To resolve this perceived deficiency, we sought opportunities to collaborate with practitioners who had those skills. Staff also identified the need for a leader to guide employees and a facilitator to help staff engage and be successful at proactive work. These needs were addressed by adding the two new positions within the proactive program mentioned previously.

4.1.4 Addressing the need for clear communication and collaboration

Communication internally and externally has consistently been identified as a priority to ensure a common understanding of what is meant by proactive conservation, identify opportunities for collaboration, and obtain the support of leadership and conservation partners. Previously, taking time to learn more about the work of others internally and externally was seen as a luxury rather than an essential awareness necessary to be able to identify opportunities for proactive work. To demonstrate the importance of these conversations, we created opportunities for more informal presentations and discussion about ongoing proactive projects. As a result of these efforts and others, there were improvements in awareness of the ongoing work in which colleagues were engaged, collaboration across offices, exchange of approaches for applied research and collaborative partnering, and sharing of work to meet important deadlines or to maximize conservation impacts.

5. Conclusions

Implementation of transformational initiatives is contingent on individuals and systems being willing to allow and embrace disruption. Challenges to the status quo can be threatening, with individuals and programs stressed by these changes. Real change takes leadership and perseverance of people working together for a common purpose. The proactive conservation approach employed by the Alaska USFWS office required risk, innovation, courage, and trust to act courageously to meet the conservation challenges of today and those posed by a rapidly changing future.

Both the magnitude and pace of the change required a bold, sustained, and adaptive approach to foster adoption of the paradigm shift and address stress and fear triggered by the proposed changes. Efforts to provide clarity and reduce uncertainty started with the creation of a vision document and continued with the issuance of an implementation strategy. The decision to solicit staff and management input, and to provide examples of on-the-ground proactive conservation was made in direct response to the concerns and requests from staff who wanted more direction on developing and implementing proactive projects.

The expectation that proactive work should constitute a percentage of staff and management workloads created the opportunity for employees to pursue proactive conservation work. In addition, two new proactive positions were created to facilitate and guide proactive efforts by engaging those with the needed skill sets, creating outreach and partnership opportunities, and connecting people interested in proactive work to pursue collaborative work. Benchmarks of success in the transformation toward an ingrained proactive conservation program in the Alaska USFWS office will include having multiple successful and readily recalled projects and efforts recognized as successful examples of proactive conservation, having most staff and management embrace and value the proactive approach, and having a program staffed with individuals capable of implementing proactive work as standard practice.

This paradigm shift is possible for all who are interested in adapting it to their own agencies, offices, and programs. It starts first with the desire to change the paradigm by which biologists approach their work by allowing biologists to work in anticipation of forthcoming threats alongside the traditional reactive approach. The process we present provides an experiment in attempting to change how people approach their conservation work in a federal workplace. We describe the issues that can arise and actions that can be taken during the shift toward proactive conservation, and we provide a framework for others to use to adapt to the needs of their offices. We highly encourage those facing pressing conservation needs to consider adapting their programs to better meet those challenges. We are hopeful that this framework will both inspire others to attempt a similar paradigm shift and that the lessons learned will serve to shorten the time in which those shifts can occur.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank M. Daigneault, D. Wigglesworth, B. Meyer, D. Crane, P. Fasbender, S. Boario, and the staff and managers in the Alaska Regional Office and Northern and Southern Alaska Fish and Wildlife Conservation Offices who have supported the proactive concept. Thank you to N. Bjornlie, C. Burns, D. Crane, and R. Wilson for their early review of this manuscript. We would also like to thank the staff and managers in the USFWS Alaska Region for donating their time to be interviewed on the concept of proactive conservation. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.