American Bison - Buffalo Field Campaign

Implement adaptive management procedures as
needed. Adaptive management, as a restoration
strategy, is essential because what happens at one
stage in restoration informs or dictates what needs to
happen next;
Capacity building should be informed by results of the
monitoring programme and targeted toward the highest
priorities and weakest aspects of management.
10.5 Summary
The next 10-20 years present opportunities for conserving
American bison as a wild species and restoring it as an important
ecological presence in many North American ecosystems. Taking
an ecosystem approach, which puts people and their natural
resource use practices at the centre of decision-making, offers
a paradigm for balancing the sometimes competing demands
of bison conservation, the use of bison and biological diversity
by people, and sustaining human communities in areas where
there are many resource users combined with important natural
values. To achieve ecological restoration at broad scales (large
herds roaming across vast landscapes, at numerous locations)
will require flexible approaches that can be adapted to a variety
of legal and socio-economic conditions. Assembling large
landscapes for conservation herds will typically involve several
land tenure holders, potentially including public agencies, tribal
112 American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010
governments, non-profit private organisations, and for-profit
corporations or individual entrepreneurs. Diverse mandates,
interests, and incentives will influence how stakeholders choose
to manage land and wildlife, including bison. Creative new
approaches are needed for forging enduring partnerships among
land tenure holders for cooperative undertakings. Strategies may
range from top-down government programmes to bottom-up
market-based or cultural-based initiatives. Progress towards
large-scale restoration will require a much more supportive
framework of government policies and significant investment
by both public and private sectors. Awareness and substantial
public support are necessary at both the local level where
restoration occurs, and among national constituencies for
whom the bison is an iconic component of North America’s
natural and cultural heritage. For ecological restoration of bison
to be successful, careful assessment and understanding of
biophysical, social, economic, legal, and political conditions are
required for planning and implementation. This is particularly true
where both community and agency support and involvement
are required. This chapter provided guidelines for planning
and implementing an ecological restoration project for bison,
including feasibility assessment, selection of stock, preparation
and release methods, assessing socio-economic and legal
requirements, monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation.