Eco-Watch

8/4/94

What IS Ecosystem Management?
by Bill Pell1

Ed Grumbine's essay "What is Ecosystem Management?" (Conservation Biology 8: 27-38, Spring 1994) provides a fair overview of the historic development of ecosystem management and makes some valid points about the lack of clarity in most attempts to define it. The emphasis on ecological integrity is appropriate and welcome and yes, "ecosystem management, at root, is an invitation, a call to restorative action." Ultimately, though, the essay falls short. Grumbine outlines themes and goals that emerge from his search of the literature. The ten dominant themes are: 1) Hierarchical Context, 2) Ecological boundaries (working across administrative boundaries and defining ecological boundaries at appropriate scale), 3) Ecological Integrity, 4) Data Collection, 5) Monitoring, 6) Adaptive Management, 7) Interagency Cooperation, 8) Organizational change (structure and function of land management agencies), 9) Humans embedded in Nature, and 10) Values (human values play a dominant role in ecosystem management). The five principal goals he lists are:
  1. Maintain viable populations of all native species in situ.
  2. Represent, within protected areas, all native ecosystem types across their natural range of variation.
  3. Maintain evolutionary and ecological processes (i.e. disturbance regimes, hydrological processes, nutrient cycles, etc.).
  4. Manage over periods of time long enough to maintain the evolutionary potential of species and ecosystems.
  5. Accommodate human use and occupancy within these constraints.
Grumbine's statement of specific goals is cast within the overall, arguably primary, goal of sustaining ecological integrity. The approach is basically solid. But shortly after stating the goals Grumbine says that since we are experiencing an unprecedented rate and scale of environmental destruction, and now admit our profound scientific ignorance of ecological patterns and processes, "we are in no position to make judgements about what ecosystem elements to favor in our management efforts." Such an assertion seriously begs the question, for we are in that position--with varying degrees of humility--whether we like it or not: We do have to decide what ecosystem elements to favor! Oddly, Grumbine seems to agree with this assertion in much of what he then argues for in terms of engaging the public in environmental education, decision-making, and management.

Perhaps the ten "dominant themes" represent a reasonable distillation of 33 papers, including five by Grumbine himself, that deal in one way or another with ecosystem management. But even if "data collection," "monitoring," and "values" would seem to be prerequisites of any coherent management scheme, it would have been more useful, I believe, to focus on themes which distinguish an ecosystem approach from others, an effort that would have yielded (for starters anyway) "hierarchical context," "ecological boundaries," "ecological integrity," "adaptive management" and "humans embedded in nature."

A more thorough elucidation of themes would have recognized that values are not some untidy detritus that has to be factored in once all the scientific information has been synthesized. Values, in fact, are intrinsic to each and every theme listed, especially ecological integrity! Consider the following statements, each appearing in thoughtful recent explorations of the integrity concept:

A more thorough treatment would have explicitly recognized "sustainable use" as another dominant theme (instead of burying it in "values" or expecting readers to somehow decode it from "humans embedded in nature"). The major flaw in Grumbine's thesis is his failure to note that although integrity is indeed the baseline from which all other ecosystem management outcomes must be measured, the greater challenge across most of the planet is how well human societies can forge relationships that both protect ecological integrity and allow for use and livelihood. As David Orr noted in his recent book Ecological Literacy, "Can we manage planet earth? Don't bet on it. But we have a chance to manage ourselves by restoring a disciplined and loving relationship to our places, communities, and to the planet."

Above all else we need better integration of ecological integrity and human use values. The goals of ecosystem management need to be framed explicitly in terms of the dynamic relationships between social-cultural and bio-physical systems that sustain ecological integrity and provide for human use and enjoyment in the long term.

In this light, Grumbine's attempt at definition falls short and should not be termed a "consensus" view. A more reasonable and encompassing version would suggest that

Toward the end of his essay, Grumbine acknowledges that a key to the success of ecosystem management is the "balance between core reserves, buffers, and the matrix of lands used more intensively by humans." This is indeed a pivotal issue, and one that merits more discussion. So too does the idea that we need to nurture "both the wildlands at the core of the reserve system and the wildness within human beings." But let's also fully explore the possibility that some of that wildness can be expressed in respectful, even reverential use of the land. We need responsible alternatives to "resourcism" that embrace human use and sustain options for livelihood, not just more reserves. Only by addressing all the implications of "humans imbedded in nature" can we expect to realize anything close to an ecological integrity ethic.

LITERATURE CITED

1 Bill Pell is the Ecosystem Management Coordinator
for the Ouachita National Forest in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

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