In the United States, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages rangeland resources under dynamic conditions such as drought, annual grass invasion, and larger and more frequent wildfires. But federal policies governing rangelands are not structured to respond to annual variability or unexpected events. To integrate flexibility into public rangeland administration and potentially leverage fuels management treatments at the landscape scale, the BLM and livestock grazing permittees are exploring outcome-based rangeland management approaches to achieve desired ecological, social and economic conditions. This paper examines administrative policies and barriers to using outcome-based approaches to manage fire risk in Idaho through 70 semistructured interviews with permittees, BLM staff, and other agency and nongovernmental stakeholders in three Idaho BLM field areas. We analyzed how rules and norms in policy implementation contributed to perceptions of barriers within and among different field areas. Factors affecting perceptions of outcome-based rangeland management implementation included BLM staff tenure, permittee-agency relationships, beliefs about the efficacy of grazing to manage fire risk, and leadership and staff experience in navigating National Environmental Policy Act requirements or potential lawsuits. Differences in the informal institutions among field areas led to different interpretations of latitude found within formal institutions (“gray zones”) for implementation. This study highlights the importance of local context and the interactions between administrative policies and agency culture for implementing adaptive approaches to managing wildfire risk on public rangelands.

在美国，土地管理局（BLM）在动态条件下管理牧场资源，这些条件包括干旱，一年生草入侵以及更大和更频繁的野火。但是，管理牧场的联邦政策并非旨在应对年度变化或突发事件。为了将灵活性纳入公共牧场管理并可能在景观尺度上利用燃料管理手段，BLM和牲畜放牧许可证持有者正在探索基于结果的牧场管理方法，以实现所需的生态，社会和经济条件。本文通过与许可人，BLM工作人员，以及爱达荷州BLM领域的其他机构和非政府利益相关者。我们分析了政策实施中的规则和规范如何促进对不同领域内部和之间的壁垒的认识。影响基于结果的牧场管理实施的看法的因素包括BLM员工的任期，被许可人与机构之间的关系，对放牧管理火灾风险的效力的信念以及领导和员工在浏览《国家环境政策法》要求或潜在诉讼方面的经验。实地区域之间非正式机构的差异导致在正式机构（“灰色地带”）内发现的对纬度的不同解释，以供执行。