Public Land Management Research Articles

Barriers to Prescribed Fire in the US Great Plains, Part I: Systematic Review of Socio-Ecological Research

Prescribed fire is increasingly being considered as a viable management tool by public and private land managers. Fully expanding prescribed fire use in a land management context, where it is an ecologically effective but not commonly applied tool, requires a comprehensive understanding of barriers that limit prescribed fire, especially in working rangelands of the North American Great Plains. While there is an emerging body of work on the perceptions of prescribed fire, there has yet to be a compilation of the research. We present a systematic review of the published literature on the perceptions and attitudes of land managers towards prescribed fire in the Great Plains in an effort to provide a social-ecological perspective on the issue. The aim is to share the methods used to assess social perceptions of prescribed fire in the Great Plains and regional distribution of these studies as well as to identify perceived barriers and limitations that restrict the use of prescribed fire by reviewing studies primarily located in the Great Plains ecoregion and focused on perceptions of fire. Surveys were the most commonly used method to assess social perceptions, with most research concentrated in the southern Great Plains. Barriers included a range of social, informational, practical, and regulatory concerns. This compilation of research synthesizes the current knowledge regarding social perceptions of and potential barriers to prescribed fire use so that fire practitioners and communities considering prescribed fire use for rangeland management have the most current information to make sound decisions.

A process for identifying challenges and opportunities for outdoor recreation and tourism development using participatory workshops and big data

The collaborative development of scientific and practical knowledge is fostered through processes which allow scientists and stakeholders to work together toward common interests and goals. The purpose of this community case study is to document a process by which big data characterizing the volume and spatial distribution of outdoor recreation and tourism behavior can be used to initiate collaborative discussions amongst the diverse stakeholders involved in outdoor recreation and tourism management. The process we document involves engaging a diverse group of stakeholders including public land managers, county and city government officials, and local business owners, in participatory workshops centered around visualizations of geotagged social media. We document how three workshops with outdoor recreation and tourism providers in Utah (USA) aided in the development of a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with meeting the growing demand for outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities.

Public land for urban food policy? A critical data-analysis of public land transactions in the Ghent city region (Belgium)

ABSTRACT The development of urban food policies has shed light on the strategic role of public landownership for strengthening farmers capacities in the context of rising land values. Despite attention on a few pioneering farming initiatives promoted by local authorities on public farmland, however, there is often little understanding of the extent of public landownership and the modus operandi of public institutions within urban land markets. This makes it hard to assess how representative these ‘pioneering’ projects are and whether or not they are embedded in coherent urban agendas. The city region of Ghent (Belgium) offers an exemplary case: internationally celebrated for its innovative urban food policy, its administration is at the centre of controversies with farmers and grassroots movements who denounced the large-scale sell-off of historical public farmland in the city region. Using Belgian Land Registry data, this paper constructs a unique, empirically grounded, cartography of public landownership and public land transaction for the Ghent city region. The results expose deep contradictions in public policy and demonstrate the continuation of an urbanism disconnected from agricultural concerns. They also provide tools for reshaping the management of public land aligned to urban food policy goals, in and beyond the Ghent city region.

Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West ed. by Gregory E. Smoak

Reviewed by: Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West ed. by Gregory E. Smoak Debbie Z. Harwell Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West. Edited by Gregory E. Smoak. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2021. Pp. 240. Photographs, notes, index.) Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West grew out of a 2014 symposium commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Utah’s American West Center, the nation’s oldest regional studies center, to “explore the power and promise of publicly engaged [End Page 149] scholarship in the American West” (1). Comprising presentations and selected essays, the book explores some of the ways that historians do public and regional public history with practical applications in areas across the eleven-state area of the American West. To establish a definition of public history, the authors look beyond intended audiences (the public) and the method of delivery to the ways in which public historians use their skills and training to engage in collaborative projects with community partners in order “to empower communities, inform public decision-making, protect heritage resources, and address the needs of public audiences” (8). The twelve essays fit into four main areas. The introduction by editor Gregory Smoak and the first two essays discuss how public history is defined, with Richard White arguing that “the core of public history lies in who asks the questions rather than in who gives the answer” (22), and Leisl Carr Childress seeing it as a public service. Essays by Michael Childers, Leighton M. Quarles, and Mette Flynt examine the history of place as seen through the work of public historians in the West generally, at national parks, and tourist sites in Lake City, Colorado. A third group of essays explores ethnic and Native American populations. Trisha Venisa-Alicia Martínez and Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez explore the meaning of identity and migration patterns of Nuevomexicanos between Albuquerque and Cheyenne. Yvette Towersap Tuell, E. Richard Hart, and Brittani R. Orona explore issues related to Native American populations including public land management, water rights, and memory and visual sovereignty respectively. The last group of essays examines how public historians educate through Native American Studies programs (detailed by Laurie Arnold), scholarship in a regional print journal (discussed by Jedediah Rogers), and museums as a tool to build bridges between academic and public history (by Stephen Aron and Virginia Scharff). The contributors to this volume are historians with extensive credentials in their fields, whether environmental, indigenous, ethnic, or regional history. Therefore, as one would expect, the essays are extensively researched with sources ranging from theoretical discussions of public history as a field to oral histories and primary source documents on water rights and land treaties, some dating back the to the early twentieth century. Although the articles do not mention Texas other than a reference to a Texas-based company’s efforts to extract shale gas deposits on a Mi’kmaq reserve in Canada, the principles discussed on many topics can be related easily to similar questions in this state. Western Lands, Western Voices has material that will appeal to readers specifically interested in studying the American West as a region, Indigenous peoples, policy decisions, environmental issues, and education. The greatest value to broader audiences, however, lies in the discussion of public history itself, using these topics as case studies to show how public history has [End Page 150] evolved, how it is used today, and how it can be used in the future for the greater public good. Western Lands, Western Voices demonstrates the value of public history standing side-by-side equally with traditional academic history to provide a more comprehensive and useful historical perspective. [End Page 151] Debbie Z. Harwell University of Houston Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association

A microeconometric analysis of wildfire suppression decisions in the Western United States

Full suppression strategies remain the dominant option in wildfire management, despite a large body of research demonstrating the ecological and economic benefits of allowing unplanned wildfires to burn under favorable conditions. Consequently, empirical research identifying and understanding the factors that contribute to these decisions within public land management agencies has become of critical importance in efforts to improve management outcomes. This paper assesses the importance of a set of institutional and socioeconomic factors with a random utility model of incident commander suppression decisions. We compare the importance of these factors on chosen strategies before and after an update to federal fire policy implementation guidance and an associated change to federal fire budgeting policy implemented in Fiscal Year 2010. We find that while the update to federal fire policy guidance may have been effective at increasing the probability that managers adopted a strategy other than full suppression, the subsequent increase in suppression budget allotments offset this impact, rendering no true difference in probabilities after the policy change.

Land manager decision-making practices when establishing public fruit-bearing plants in Hennepin county municipalities, Minnesota

Increasingly, public land managers face decisions about using fruit-bearing perennial plants (including fruiting trees, shrubs, and vines) on public lands. While public trees provide many positive ecological, economic, and community health benefits, fruit-bearing perennials provide similar benefits and more. Expanded benefits include enhanced pollinator habitat, increased food access, unique educational opportunities, and ways for residents to interact more deeply with public vegetation. Despite the benefits of fruit-bearing perennials, their use and incorporation into public spaces vary among cities, resulting in an uneven and often inequitable distribution of public services. This study aims to better understand public land managers’ decision-making processes by exploring what factors are considered when deciding to plant, or not plant, fruit-bearing perennial vegetation. Specifically, interviewees (n = 12) described what they perceive as the most significant benefits and barriers to establishing fruit-bearing perennials in public spaces. Respondents reported using fruit-bearing perennials to augment species diversity, community engagement, wildlife habitat, and public education. Barriers cited included limited time and financial resources for management, lack of specialized training, fears associated with liability, limited public awareness, and competing urban forestry goals. This study contributes to the literature on public land manager decision-making which has not previously focused specifically on fruit-bearing perennials. The findings inform vegetation decision-making and urban natural resource planning by outlining key risks and rewards of adopting fruit-bearing perennials.

Forest-Wide Longleaf Pine Restoration Response to Varying Future Management Intensities in a Transitioning Upland Forest

Abstract Many public land management programs in the southeastern United States have been restoring the longleaf pine forest for more than 20 years, which includes intensive treatment with fire, thinning, chemical control of competition, and tree planting. A shift to more passive management (prescribed burning alone) is anticipated once a critical level of longleaf pine has been established. It remains unclear whether this longleaf pine threshold has been reached and whether intensive management should continue at Fort Benning, Georgia. Using the Landis-II forest landscape model, changes in tree species and forest types were estimated from 2017 to 2117 under four forest management scenarios, ranging from passive (“burn only”) to intensive (“proactive”). The desired future condition includes 75% of upland forest dominated by longleaf pine (>49.5% composition). The proactive scenario resulted in the desired future forest condition, whereas reactive and passive scenarios did not. These results suggest a critical threshold of longleaf pine forest has not been reached at Fort Benning and therefore intensive management approaches are still required. This study shows that even well-established populations of longleaf pine on public lands require maintenance and continued intensive restoration to reach desired forest-wide conditions.

Economic contributions of wildlife management areas in North Carolina

Wildlife management areas (WMAs) provide a wide range of ecosystem services. Among these services, hunting and fishing often make the most obvious contribution to local and state economies through the expenditures of the hunters and anglers. However, the total economic contributions of WMAs also include other forms of recreation that are generally less visible, unlicensed, and less well understood. Quantifying the size of the economic contribution from all recreationists can inform decisions about investment in and management of public lands. To this end, we estimated the direct, indirect, and induced economic contributions of recreation on protected land managed by the state of North Carolina (NC) primarily for hunting, fishing, and wildlife conservation (hereafter WMAs). We collected data on visitation and conducted in-person intercept surveys at 9 WMAs to estimate the number of visits and expenditures per visit for people engaged in activities that required licenses (e.g., hunting) and activities that did not (e.g., hiking and bird watching). We estimated annual visitation on the 9 study WMAs, accounting for differences in location, hunting season, day of the week, and weather. We then predicted annual visitation at all 94 WMAs in NC using a predictive regression model. Most visitors did not engage in any licensed activities, and those visitors spent more per trip on average ($119.83) and had greater variability in expenses than visitors engaged in licensed activities ($84.19). We used the estimates of total annual visits, expenditures per visit, and the distribution of those expenditures across sectors to calculate the economic contribution of recreation on each of the 9 study WMAs and on the entire WMA system in NC. Recreation was responsible for approximately 2200 jobs, $84 million USD in annual labor income, and $140 million USD in value added annually in NC. The majority of this contribution was due to visits made by users not engage in licensed uses of WMAs, as those users were more numerous, spent more per trip, and were more likely to visit WMAs in peri-urban areas with more economic linkages than rural areas.

Bridges to a New Era, Part 2: A Report on the Past, Present, and Potential Future of Tribal Co-Management on Federal Public Lands in Alaska

Nowhere else in the United States are tribal connections and reliance on federal public lands as deep and geographically broad-based as in what is now Alaska. The number of Tribes—229 federally recognized tribes—and the scope of the public land resource—nearly 223 million acres—are simply unparalleled. Across that massive landscape, federal public lands and the subsistence uses they provide remain, as they have been since time immemorial, “essential to Native physical, economic, traditional, and cultural existence.”[1] Alas, the institutions, systems, and processes responsible for managing those lands, protecting those uses, and honoring those connections are failing Alaska Native Tribes. 
 The cases referenced in this article share a common theme: federal land officials underutilize their existing legal authorities to engage tribes in the management of federal public lands, or treat them like pro-forma “check-the-box” exercises that must be done but have no real substantive impact on decisions that are likely already made. In case after case, Alaska Native Tribes are forced to defensively react to federal land use programs, plans, and projects they had no role in substantively shaping. Though traditional methods of tribal consultation and engagement are used by federal land agencies, they are viewed for the most part as procedural hurdles that are divorced from their core missions and mandates.

Public Cemetery Land Management Policy in Sidoarjo Regency

This research aims to analyze and describe the implementation of public burial land management policies for villagers in Ban Village as well as factors that affect the implementation of public burial land management policies for villagers in Ban Village. This study is a qualitative descriptive study using purposive sampling techniques in determining informants. Data collection techniques with observations, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis techniques use an interactive approach from Miles and Hubeman consisting of four components of analysis namely; data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion withdrawal. The dimension of the organization's activities has not been maximized even though the coordination of each implemtator exists but there are still people who are not aware of this policy. The behavioral dimensions of policy implementing agents are in accordance with the concept of Van Meter and Van Horn which has procedural performance for the successful implementation of this public burial land management policy. Economic, social, cultural dimensions see the need for a review of the policy of managing public burial land this looks at the condition of rural communities that have changed in terms of economy, habits, lifestyle. Factors that influence the implementation of this policy are encountered by researchers on the age and type of education, gender, and knowledge and understanding that points to each individual in determining the preferences taken as a basis for determining attitudes on existing policies.

Perceived inclusivity and trust in protected area management decisions among stakeholders in Alaska

Abstract The success of conservation initiatives often depends on the inclusion of diverse stakeholder interests in the decision‐making process. Yet, there is a paucity of empirical knowledge concerning the factors that explain why stakeholders do—or do not— believe that they are meaningfully represented by government agencies. Our study provides insight into the relationship between trust and stakeholder perceptions of inclusivity in public land management decisions. Here, we focus on the U.S. state of Alaska, where almost two‐thirds of the land area are managed by the federal government. We used structural equation modelling to test whether an individual's trust and the information sources used to learn about land management positively influenced perceived inclusivity. We conceptualized trust in terms of four dimensions that reflected an individual's disposition to trust, trust in the federal government, trust in shared values and trust that agencies adhere to a moral code. We found that survey respondents across the U.S. state of Alaska had a limited disposition to trust others, did not trust federal land management agencies, did not believe agencies shared their values pertaining to protected area management and did not believe that agencies adhered to a moral code. Beliefs about the morality of agencies were the primary driver of perceived inclusivity in land management decisions, indicating that agencies should focus on solving problems through deliberation and discussion about moral principles rather than by force. Information acquired from professional, community‐based or environmental advocacy exchanges also positively influenced perceived levels of involvement among stakeholders in resource management decisions. These results provide a roadmap for how land management agencies can improve public relations and work towards a model of inclusive conservation around protected areas. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Differences in likelihood of use between artificial and natural turfgrass lawns

Parks in urban areas provide a range of significant benefits across natural and social systems. These critical urban green spaces and those who manage them are faced with balancing budgetary constraints, sustainability goals, and user requirements. Competing demands are exemplified in the difficulties faced in managing the dominant form of park vegetation: natural turfgrass lawns. Traditionally turfgrass lawns can have high input requirements (e.g., water and fertilizer), which may cause negative environmental effects if not managed properly. One proposed solution is the adoption of artificial turfgrass lawns which do not require the more intensive inputs of natural turfgrass lawns. However, park users’ perceptions of the equivalency of artificial and natural lawns across various use cases remain unknown. Thus, we surveyed adults in the United States to elicit responses on the most common uses of public lawn spaces, as well as specifically how likely they were to use artificial and natural lawns across various use cases using photos of each type. Overall, significant differences were found between participants' likelihood to use artificial lawns compared to natural lawns with small to moderate effect sizes across the majority of use cases. This work suggests that park users are generally more hesitant to use artificial turfgrass lawns compared to using natural turfgrass lawns. More work needs to be done on understanding specific reasons for why park users seem to prefer natural lawns across various use cases compared to artificial lawns. The current work generates several implications for decision making and management of public lawn green spaces: Higher favorability towards natural turfgrasses across many use cases should prompt managers to assess the suitability of low input turfgrasses to meet user preferences while addressing management, budgetary, and sustainability constraints and targets. Individuals utilize lawns for a wide variety of use cases. Park level observational surveys could be employed by public land managers and parks departments to assess use cases in any given park and/or park sub-area to better align management regimes with uses. Artificial turfgrass lawns could be used in specific contexts where constraints demand, such as sports fields where individuals held equally favorable views towards artificial and natural turf.

Some of the geological challenges and opportunities associated with the dynamics of the Cenozoic East African Rift System

The Cenozoic East African Rift System (EARS) is the largest continental rift valley system on Earth. Extending over a total distance of c. 4500 km, and with an average width of about 50 km, it is home to some of East Africa's largest urban populations and some of its most important transport, energy and water supply infrastructure. Rifting commenced during the Early Miocene and crustal extension has continued to the present day, posing seismic and volcanic hazards throughout its history of human occupation. Deep-seated landslides also present significant challenges for public safety, land management and infrastructure development on the flanks of rift margins. The rift floor itself poses a range of geohazards to community livelihood and engineering infrastructure, including ground fissuring and cavity collapse, flooding and sedimentation. On the positive side, the development of the EARS has created hydrocarbon and geothermal energy resources, and geomaterials for use as aggregates and cement substitutes in road and building construction. Optimizing the use of these resources requires careful planning to ensure sustainability, while land use management and infrastructure development must take full consideration of the hazards posed by the ground and the fragility and dynamism of the human and physical environment.

Opportunities to Manage Herbicide Resistance through Area-Wide Management: Lessons from Australian Cropping Regions

Herbicide resistance management is often understood as a decision for individual land managers, but their decisions have far-reaching impacts for social-ecological systems. Area-wide management can reduce these impacts by supporting many land managers to cooperatively work towards a shared goal of reducing the spread of resistance. The aim of this research is to identify what support is needed for area-wide herbicide resistance management in cropping systems. Data was collected from 84 interviews with growers, public land managers and weed management advisors. Sixty-five interviews were conducted across three cropping regions of eastern Australia—Darling Downs (Queensland), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria)—and 19 interviews were conducted with stakeholders beyond these regions. The majority (51%) of interviewees expressed concern about the spread of herbicide resistance, but only 14% described involvement in area-wide resistance management programs. Area-wide management was mostly reported to involve sharing information among stakeholders, rather than coordination or joint activities. Key barriers to participation were perceived to be the diverse agricultural industries in each region and the costs of participation. Future area-wide management program designs need to build working relationships among diverse stakeholders, clearly define the boundaries of the program and demonstrate the benefits that accrue from participation.

Scenario planning as a tool to manage tourism uncertainties during the era of COVID-19: a case study of Arizona, USA

ABSTRACT As the tourism industry faces a long road to full recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study utilized a scenario planning method to depict widely contrasting conditions in which tourism recovery in the U.S. state of Arizona will need to navigate. To collect data, we held a scenario planning session in June 2020 with 24 participants representing various stakeholder groups, such as public land management agencies, tourism businesses, destination management organizations, and a multidisciplinary panel of experts from the fields of public health, transportation, travel and tourism, and epidemiology. Six critical drivers of tourism recovery were identified, which included public health status, performance of the economy, destination availability, government policy, consumer confidence, and leadership messaging. Among these six critical drivers, public health status and performance of the economy were determined to be the two most influential and most uncertain determinants of tourism recovery and were used to develop four plausible scenarios consisting of a worst-case, best-case and two mid-level scenarios. As social inequities and economic and public health devastation appeared in the scenarios, the crucial methodological contributions and implications for tourism stakeholders, including destination communities, destination managers and local governments, are discussed.

Decentralized public farmland conveyance: Rental rights auctioning in Ukraine

This study examines whether decentralized auctioning of public agricultural land results in higher land prices in comparison to auctioning via a centralized agency. Decentralization reforms in Ukraine, first, mandated local governments to manage communal land and later transferred agricultural land in their jurisdictions. We compare the resulting land prices of centrally and locally organized auctions and evaluate whether land-use concentration affected auction outcomes. Using unique datasets on land auctions from 2014 to 2020, we find that land plots auctioned locally by rural municipalities generate more competitive land rental outcomes with higher land rental prices. In addition, land concentration is found to negatively affect land rental prices and auction markups. Based on the results, we discuss policy implications for the management of public agricultural land in weak institutional settings.

Conservation of carbon resources and values on public lands: A case study from the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Public lands in the United States are those land areas managed by federal, state, and county governments for public purposes such as preservation and recreation. Protecting carbon resources and increasing carbon sequestration capacity are compatible with public land management objectives for healthy and resilient habitats, i.e., managing habitats for the benefit of wildlife and ecosystem services can simultaneously capture and store carbon. To evaluate the effect of public land management on carbon storage and review carbon management as part of the land management objectives, we used existing data of carbon stock and net ecosystem carbon balance in a study of the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS), a public land management program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). Total carbon storage of the 364 refuges studied was 16.6 PgC, with a mean value 42,981 gCm-2. We used mixed modeling with Bonferroni adjustment techniques to analyze the effect of time since refuge designation on carbon storage. In general, older refuges store more carbon per unit area than younger refuges. In addition to the age factor, carbon resources are variable by regions and habitat types protected in the refuges. Mean carbon stock and the rate of sequestration are higher within refuges than outside refuges, but the statistical comparison of 364 refuges analyzed in this study was not significant. We also used the social cost of carbon to analyze the annual benefits of sequestrating carbon in these publicly managed lands in the United States, which is over $976 million per year in avoided CO2 emissions via specific conservation management actions. We examine case studies of management, particularly with respect to Service cooperation activities with The Conservation Fund (TCF) Go Zero® Program, Trust for Public Land (TPL) and individuals. Additional opportunities exist in improving techniques to maximize carbon resources in refuges, while continuing to meet the core purpose and need of the NWRS.

Bold Moves for Visitor Use Management: Public Health, Public Engagement and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Public land management is inherently complex and requires a systems approach that integrates ecological, economic, and social values. Currently, there are few tools and examples available for federal land management planning that use a systems approach. Issues are often approached from a disciplinary perspective, and outdoor recreation problems, assumptions, and solutions often focus too narrowly on how to mitigate recreation impacts as opposed to understanding the broader role of visitor use and access, public engagement, and public health in sustainable land management. The Visitor Use Management Framework (the Framework), developed by the Interagency Visitor Use Management Council (IVUMC, 2016) provides interagency guidance for managing public use on federal lands and waters. The Framework uses a process that can be incorporated into existing agency planning and decision making. It follows all of the Council agencies’ (NPS, BLM, USFS, USFWS, ACoE, NOAA) planning principles and illustrates how to specifically address visitor experiences and resource protection with an integrated planning approach. This research note explores the evolving role of the Framework in sustainable recreation management and how public health, public engagement, and representation, inclusion, and access can be incorporated throughout the Framework to ensure planning decisions meet the needs, values, and preferences of diverse user groups. Further, this paper invites a broader discussion around next steps for boldly moving to integrate public health, public engagement, and representation, inclusion, and access more fully into all aspects of visitor use management, including the Framework. Collective effort and ongoing innovation is needed to ensure that the Framework is thoughtfully implemented in ways that provide opportunities to enhance outdoor recreation access and inclusion for a broader range of people.

Summer crowds: An analysis of USFS campground reservations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, US public land managers faced the challenge of catering to large increases in camping demand, while maintaining social distancing guidelines. In this paper, we use multivariate linear regression to analyze weekly changes in reservations to US Forest Service (USFS) campgrounds between 2019 and 2020. The regression models estimate the impact of local COVID infection rates, public health restrictions, and spatial spillovers from proximity to National Parks (NPs), metropolitan areas and wildfire on camping demand. Our sample includes 1,688 individual USFS campgrounds from across the contiguous US. The results illustrate the dramatic increases in camping on USFS land that occurred in the summer of 2020 and demonstrate that increases in local infection rates led to significant increases in camping nights reserved in the summer. The results also illustrate that the increase in camping nights reserved at USFS campgrounds was particularly dramatic for campgrounds located near large metropolitan areas and near NPs that saw increases in overall recreational visits. These results point to the important role that public lands played during the pandemic and can help guide public land resource allocations for campground maintenance and operation.

Cultivating Collaborative Resilience to Social and Ecological Change: An Assessment of Adaptive Capacity, Actions, and Barriers Among Collaborative Forest Restoration Groups in the United States

Abstract Collaboration is increasingly emphasized as a tool to realize national-level policy goals in public lands management. Yet, collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) are nested within traditional bureaucracies and are affected by internal and external disruptions. The extent to which CGRs adapt and remain resilient to these disruptions remains under-explored. Here, we distill insights from an assessment of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) projects and other CGRs. We asked (1) how do CGRs adapt to disruptions? and (2) what barriers constrained CGR resilience? Our analysis is informed by a synthesis of the literature, case examples and exemplars from focus groups, and a national CFLRP survey. CGRs demonstrated the ability to mobilize social capital, learning, resources, and flexibility to respond to disruptions. Yet authority, accountability, and capacity complicated collaborative resilience. We conclude with policy and practice recommendations to cultivate collaborative resilience moving forward.