1. ESRM 450 Wildlife Ecology and Conservation ECOSYSTEM-BASED MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS

2. Paradigms of ecosystem-based management Ecosystems and landscapes are dynamic Disturbance is a critical component of ecosystems Biophysical processes control ecosystems at different scales and hierarchical levels Succession has multiple outcomes Spatial pattern affects biological diversity Pattern-process interactions are organism specific Human activities of the past have affected systems we now perceive as ‘natural’ (Spies & Turner 1999)

3. Maintaining temporal and spatial heterogeneity can help conserve biological diversity Maintain ‘tails’ of age class and patch size distributions Develop goals for spatial pattern Take advantage of tradeoffs between forest harvest objectives and spatial pattern Incorporate important locations on the physical template of the landscape into planning and management (Spies & Turner 1999)

4. “Environmental problems involve decision scale – actions that are rational from an individual viewpoint can lead to the destruction of a public, community-level value that emerges on a larger and long-term scale … a social trap inherent in the discontinuity between the scale of individual concern and the scale at which environmental issues emerge” Norton (1995)

5. Bounded rationality Decision making by humans is rational only within bounds established by our emotional and cognitive limitations. Emotive decision making Humans make decisions primarily guided by emotional responses to situations.

6. Given the assumptions of bounded rationality and emotive decision making, one might expect… Rank order of considerations in individual decision making 1. Self 2. Family 3. Groups of immediate resource sharers 4. “The greater good” Organizational and cultural incentives and disincentives can modify this order.

7. Predicted outcomes for decision making in natural resources Individuals pursue career advancement and accumulation of influence/power and wealth. Organizations pursue larger budgets and greater influence/power, even at the expense of missions and goals. “The greater good” usually has low priority Incentives and disincentives can give the greater good higher priority.

8. Ecosystem-based management has evolved as a dominant framework for decision making and policy Why is it so difficult to make it work across a wide range of issues and organizations?

9. Prioritized Values Management cultureScience culture CooperationIndividuality Obedience to authorityObjectivity Being a team playerHaving a critical mind Uniformity of purposeMultiple objectives Adherence to policyAdherence to scientific protocol

10. Traditional management vs. ecosystem-based management Organization Planning Decision making Leadership Ecosystem based Decentralized, flexible; adaptive, bottom up Interrelated, imaginative Multiple stakeholders; science provides information; adapted to context of situation Situational, leaders arise as needed Traditional Centralized, rigid; hierarchical, top down Comprehensive, rational Chain of command, authoritarian; science provides “the answer” Authoritarian, leaders designated

11. Ecosystem-based management considers conservation of biological diversity as well as social and economic objectives

12. Ecosystem-based management focuses on strategic conservation approaches Bioreserve Emphasis area Coarse-filter habitat diversity Historical range of variability Fine filter Coarse-filter with species assessment

13. Adaptive resource management Policy as hypothesis Management by experiment