The Conservation Strategy specifies an adaptive management process and a focused research agenda to assist land and resource managers to meet the recovery needs of the species. Adaptive management uses a “learning by doing” approach. The process is iterative, usually portrayed as a cycle of strategy, design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and decision-making. Management decisions or actions are evaluated using carefully designed monitoring and modifications to management actions are in turn tested with updated monitoring protocols. With each turn of the cycle, active learning through monitoring and evaluation reduces management uncertainties by developing tools that prove beneficial to the resource.

Adoption of the Conservation Strategy in 2002 launched the adaptive management phase of Tahoe yellow cress. The integrity and effectiveness of the decision-making process in an adaptive management framework depends on a structured and timely flow of data so that stakeholders will be able to anticipate and respond to their own, internal constraints (e.g. permits, public notice, funding, hiring) with minimal difficulty. Within this framework, the decision-making entities of the Adaptive Management Working Group (AMWG), the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), and the Executive Committee have clearly defined positions in the flow of information. Insert figure of AM framework Managing TYC The AMWG is the workhorse of the TYC adaptive management process as it carries out the duties of budget oversight, conveyance of decisions to affected parties, prioritization of research and monitoring tasks and long-term planning. It provides the direct communication conduit for all affected agencies, local governments and private entities and it is through the AMWG that adaptive management becomes a community learning process.