Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act: A programmatic application of adaptive management

The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act (CWPPRA), commonly referred to as 'The Breaux Act', has provided some of the resources necessary to begin implementing a comprehensive, large-scale, long-term coastal wetland restoration program for Louisiana USA. Due to the dynamic nature of this ecosystem and the uncertainty associated with large-scale restoration, adaptive management principles were embedded throughout CWPPRA's organizational structure, planning process, project implementation, and monitoring program to facilitate achieving the mandates associated with the Breaux Act. Feedback loops were established within and between each of the programmatic components to encourage continuous learning, which is central to adaptive management. The knowledge gained has led to institutionalized change in projects as well as the program. This paper describes how the formation of the CWPPRA Task Force and associated committees and groups resulted in an integrated coast-wide process for planning, selection, construction, operation, maintenance, monitoring, and scientific evaluation of 84 restoration projects implemented or scheduled for implementation throughout coastal Louisiana. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.