Abstract:

The Northern Highlands Lake District of Wisconsin is in transition from a sparsely settled region to a more densely populated one. Expected changes offer benefits to northern Wisconsin residents, but also threatens to degrade the ecological services that they rely upon. Because the future of this region is uncertain, it is difficult to make decisions that will avoid potential risks and take advantage of potential opportunities. In this paper we adopt a scenario planning approach to cope with this problem of prediction. We use an ecological assessment framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to determine key social and ecological driving forces in the Northern Highlands Lake District. From these, we describe three alternative scenarios to the year 2025. Among the scenarios, the projected use of ecological services is substantially different. The work reported in this paper demonstrates how scenarios can be developed for a region, and provides a starting point for a participatory discussion of alternative futures for Northern Wisconsin. While the future is unknowable, we hope that the assessment process begun in this paper will help the people of the Northern Highlands Lake District choose the future path of their region.