This workshop was supported by the PI-CASC project “Climate resilient restoration: establishing baselines and developing adaptive management approaches” (or DRIER). The project brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and managers to engage in both knowledge synthesis and experimental approaches to support the co-development of tools and strategies to support restoration practitioners. It builds off of two prior efforts, the Hawaiʻi Forest Restoration Synthesis (HI-FRS, in process) and a discussion around “Disturbance-Ready Restoration” (DR-R) at the 2023 Pacific Entomological and Botanical (PEB) Meeting.
The HI-FRS included interviews with over 70 “restoration practitioners” across the state. Interviewees were asked, “How is your program planning for future conditions related to climate change?” Some respondents expressed concern about the impacts of climate change, and many were unsure about how to address climate change in their work. However, for some, the multitude of management challenges superseded any climate change-related concerns. This motivated us to design the workshop as a collaborative space to advance an actionable framework for restoration in the face of climate change. We based this on the premise that by identifying desired restoration outcomes and specific the gaps (in terms of knowledge, resources, or relationships), we could then begin to facilitate bridges and make the connections necessary to achieve these desired outcomes.
The specific workshop format evolved from input gathered at the December 2023 DR-R forum, where participants developed lists of actions that would either a) instill resilience in their restoration efforts before OR b) support recovery after four different extreme events of wildfire, wind storms, flooding and landslides, and drought. DRIER collaborators further developed these action lists and, with input from invited managers, produced six ecosystem-specific lists. These lists were used to initiate the discussions for each breakout group.
This page documents the workshop discussions as a means of sharing them back with our participants, as well as those who couldn’t join but may have an interest in future conversations regarding climate-change-resilient restoration.
Climate-Change Resilient Restoration Workshop
HCC 2024
Introduction Slides
Discussion Framework
Each breakout group was provided a list of restoration strategies–which they could add to.
For each strategy, they discussed the following questions:
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Do you do this?
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Why or why not?
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What kind of modification of this do you do?
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Do you want to do this?
In doing so, each group articulated their starting points, and decided one climate-change resilient strategy to focus on as a desired end goal.
Then, groups were asked to brainstorm steps to move us towards being able to implement their desired strategy. For each step, they explored the following:
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State-of-knowledge (existing information and resources, knowledge and resource gaps)
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Accessibility (easily accessed, more planning or complex coordination)
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And when relevant, key partners and/or
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Desired outputs/outcomes of the step
Summaries of each discussion can be found below.
Breakout Group Discussions
The audience self-organized by ecosystem relevant to their work/experiences. The ecosystems the could choose from were Coastal, Dry Forest, Mesic Forest (either pasture to forest restoration, or non-native to native forest restoration), Wet Forest or Riparian. Below you will find the unique list provided to each breakout group. Strategies that were added by each group are indicated in the "other" section, and are italicized. Click on the pink highlighted strategies to review the breakout group discussions.
Topics of Interest for Future Conversations
The workshop hosted around 70 participants and we received around 60 partially completed feedback surveys. We asked folks what topics they would like to engage in during future conversations. These topics encompassed goals/objectives for gathering, specific topics–for example seed and fire related topics, riparian and place-specific information. As well as topics related to people–culture, communities and funding.
Goals
Increase fluency in climate-change related issues; knowledge exchanges to elucidate gaps and identify research needs; further development of implementation strategies/strategic planning for climate-change resilient restoration; stay connected to other projects, trends and challenges
Topics
Seed hui's and the various infrastructure to supply seeds; permitting, establishing seed farms, and climate adapted seed zones, future research; coordinated knowledge exchanges across needs, island-by-island/regional seed hui discussions around how to share, how to withdraw (how do we build a collective?) and specifically seed sharing for coastal plants.
Expand upon how to implement climate-change resilient strategies such as assisted migration, or sourcing seeds from different areas, improving site selection in response to climate change, harnessing the soil seed bank (seeds already in the soil) for regeneration, direct seeding, experimental outplanting, scarification and thinning, pasture microbiome enhancement to promote recovery, root structures and nature-based solutions for coastal resilience, and more information on managing invasive plants.
Fire-related topics, including measures that increase fire resilience and large-scale fire planning. Mixed-use management (rotational grazing, agroforestry, etc), more about targeted grazing and the use of ungulates to reduce fuel in areas adjacent to restoration/rare plant sites, and controlled burns.
Riparian--Further research in stream and riparian zones and more discussions on riparian work.
Place-specific--connect with someone who may know about historical vegetation in the NWHI.
People, culture, and community
Spaces to explore the cultural aspects of restoring native plants in Hawaiʻi, incorporating traditional practices into restoration to redevelop relationships that thrived and benefited land and the integration of place-based knowledge with "external" science. For someone this was more public knowledge on traditional coastal plant communities. For another, kilo was an important topic to come back to. Opportunities to delve deeper into community engagement, and finding people willing to commit to a place for a period of time. Additionally, how to engage with funders/government to convince them to support our efforts. Restrictions from funder-mandated parameters is a major barrier in all aspects of conservation.
Audience Description
The discussions summarized on this page reflect the experiences of these folks working across the paeʻāina of Hawaiʻi, with a couple of people based in the continental US (Fig 1). The participants were split between 0-5 and 5-10+ years of experience in restoration (Fig 2). The audience was comprised of managers, researchers and technicians, focusing on a wide range of topics, including rare plants, propagation, wildlife and invasive species (Fig 3).
1. Place
2. Work Experience
3. Roles
Let's stay connected!
Interested in future conversations? Join our listerv (below) to stay connected. Have ideas for future discussions? We want to hear from you! Send us an email at EcosystemsExtensionHI@gmail.com We look forward to working with you!