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Popularized by scientists in the 1970s, adaptive management is an integrative, multi-disciplinary approach to managing landscapes and natural resources. Despite its broad appeal many critics complain that adaptive management rarely works in practice as prescribed in theory. This chapter traces the history and evolution of the concept and assess its implementation challenges. One reason adaptive management has not always delivered on its promise to make natural resource management more “rational” is that in the real world of policymaking scientists and natural resource managers must contend with advocates that have conflicting values and goals. Scientists and managers also operate in the context of institutions that create particular constraints and opportunities, and are generally inflexible and resistant to change. In recognition of these sociopolitical realities, the focus of much adaptive management practice and scholarship has shifted to governance, particularly collaboration with stakeholders, transformation of the institutions responsible for management, and the process of social learning.

In early July 1941, Aldo Leopold flew to the Delta Waterfowl Station in Manitoba, Canada, where he conferred with his former student and station director, Albert Hochbaum. Leopold and Hochbaum had for some time spoken informally about working together on a book of essays. Leopold was to provide the text, Hochbaum the drawings. By August 1941, plans for the book had become more definite, though the two men set no firm schedule. That fall, Leopold began crafting the first essays, drawing from his Shack experiences. In February 1947, Hochbaum withdrew from the project because of his responsibilities at the Delta Waterfowl Station. Philip Vaudrin, a trade editor at Oxford University Press, wrote to Leopold expressing interest in publishing his book. But just after Leopold and Vaudrin reached their publication agreement, Leopold died on April 21, 1948. From its original title Great Possessions, Leopold's book was finally published in the fall of 1949 as A Sand County Almanac.

Ducks, shorebirds, rails, gulls and other waterbirds act as vectors of seeds, spores and other plant diaspores carried internally in their guts, externally on their feathers, feet or bills, or used as nesting material. Darwin was the first to understand the significance of dispersal by migratory waterbirds in plant evolution, biogeography and ecology. Countless aquatic and terrestrial plants are dependent on dispersal by waterbirds for long-distance dispersal, and this has probably been the case since the Cretaceous. However, plant ecologists and waterfowl biologists alike have been slow to recognize the importance of this dispersal mode as an ecosystem service. Seed dispersal by waterbirds plays a vital role in plant population dynamics, population genetics and changes in species distributions in response to habitat change and climate warming. On the other hand, waterbirds also spread alien species, and their role as vectors should be taken into account when considering how to prevent and manage biological invasions.

Since the nineteenth century, much of Suisun Marsh has been managed for waterfowl hunting. The marsh supports among the highest densities of breeding ducks in the world. Ducks banded in the marsh are recovered throughout the Pacific Flyway and North America. The marsh annually hosts over 60,000 wintering waterfowl, but current waterfowl abundance is below the population objective of 300,000 wintering ducks and well below the nearly 370,000 waterfowl that wintered there historically. Long-term population trends for dabbling ducks and geese are declining, diving ducks and swans are stable, and sea ducks are slightly increasing. Maintaining the present diversity and abundance of waterfowl in the face of increasing salinities likely will depend on wetland management for high-yielding seed plants.