Climate Adaptation and Local Narratives: Using qualitative inquiry to inform adaptive management on the North Shore of Lake Superior Minnesota, USA

Abstract

Adaptive approaches to local climate change impacts primarily focus on finding the best fit between the scale of ecological systems and the scale of existing management systems. This paper argues that a third scale, the scale at which the community perceives the problem of climate change, is essential to constructing best-fit management practices. To understand community perceptions, qualitative interviews of key stakeholders on the North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota were collected. Analysis of the interviews was developed into a narrative visualization framework, providing local decision makers with climate narratives in an accessible format. The narrative frameworks detailed convergence around the attribution of changes in forest health and wildlife populations to climate change, but divergence around when to be concerned for local impacts. Findings indicate the need to ground local adaptation in observable changes, and the importance of facilitating stakeholder engagement with the range of narratives present in the community.