The Laws of Nature: Managing Ecosystems for A Sustainable Future

1. An Ecosystem Management Primer History, Perceptions, and Modern Definition

3 1An Ecosystem Management Primer History, Perceptions, and Modern Definition KalyaniRobbins,TheUniversityof Akron “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” —John Muir E cosystemmanagementisstillarelativelynewfieldof study—thenForest Service Chief F. Dale Robertson coined the term just two decades ago in 19921 —soitsmembershipisstillfairlysmall.Buttheissuesaretooimportant ,toopotentiallylife-altering,toleavetoahandfulof expertstoworryabout. This book is for everyone: law students, college and graduate students, experts, and weekend readers alike. Because it is for everyone, it is essential that it begin at the beginning. Muchlikewehaveshortenedbiologicaldiversityintothenowcommonterm ‘biodiversity,’ the term ‘ecosystem’ is the short (and now more common) way of saying ecological system.2 Systems in general exist on multiple scales, so it is likewise the case that the term ‘ecosystem’ applies to discrete natural units such as a lake or a valley, as well as vast regions in which the interconnectedness of nature hasbeenobserved.3 Indeed,whenmultiplesystemsinteract,thatisitself asystem, andsoon,givingrisetoacomplexandnearlyinfiniteconcept.Thespatialdefinitionof anecosystemisanyunitof nature,atanyscale,inwhichthebioticorganismsandabioticenvironmentinteractinamannerthatresultsinanongoingand dynamicbioticstructure.4 However,some adhere toa more‘process-based’view, 4 An Ecosystem Management Primer inwhichanecosystemisdefinedbytheprocessesthroughwhichitfunctions,such as “productivity, energy flow among trophic levels, decomposition, and nutrient cycling.”5 Regardlessof theecosystemunderstandingoneprefers,thereisnoquestionthatecosystemsprovidehumanswithmanyessentialservices ,someof which areevensubjecttoeconomicvaluationviaareplacement-costanalysis.6 The phrase ‘ecosystem management’ already gives away quite a bit, if we simply look at the combination of terms. The term ‘ecosystem’ evokes nature. An ecosystem is the most fundamental unit in nature, and the relationships it embodies are essential to understanding our natural world. Arthur Tansley, a pioneer of the science of ecology, coined the term ‘ecosystem’ in 1935. Tansley stated:“Thoughtheorganismsmayclaimourprimeinterest,whenwearetrying to think fundamentally, we cannot separate them from their special environments ,withwhichtheyformonephysicalsystem.”7 ‘Management,’ontheother hand,suggestshumancontrol.Itisaveryunnaturalword,theoppositeof letting nature take its course. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the Clinton administrationintroducedtheecosystemmanagementconceptinanefforttoincorporate scientific principles into the management of the national forests (recognizing that ecosystems were the focus for scientists),8 the initial effort involved such excessive top-down government control that it met with great resistance.9 The conceptlaterevolvedintooneinvolvinggreatershareddecisionmakingatmultiple levels,10 though management is still management, a human domination overnature.Assuch,theterm‘ecosystemmanagement,’withoutmore,already gives away the inherent tension between nature and humanity—a tension that spawns both the need for, and the problems with, ecosystem management. This chapter will first take the reader on a journey through the history of ecosystem management, providing a summary of how it has grown and developed over the past two decades. This will only naturally lead to the next part of thechapter,whichfocusesonthepresentunderstandingof howecosystemmanagementistobedefinedandapplied ,aswellasthevarietyinperceptionsof this modernunderstanding.Finally,itwillserveasanintroductiontotheremainder of the book, previewing the various contributions collected here, offered by some of the leading scholars in the field of ecosystem management. i. the life and times of ecosystem management Inspiteof thedevelopmentof ecosystem-orientationinthe1930s,thenext half-centuryremainedfocusedonnarrowlytargetedsingle-jurisdictionmanagementof landandnaturalresources.Thelackof amoreholisticapproachcapable kalyani robbins 5 of respecting the intricate web of ecosystem relationships accelerated the damage we caused to the natural environment. By the 1970s and 1980s the scientific community had begun to emphasize the need for a broader landscapebasedapproachtonotonlyunderstanding ,butalsoregulating,thenaturalenvironment .Thiscoincidedwiththeculminationof decadesof ecologicalresearch that had disproved the previous theory—based on a notion of ‘equilibrium’— basically,thatecosystemswerestableandself-regulatingfully-enclosedentities. Whatwewerediscoveringinsteadwasthatecosystemswereinfactdynamicand interactivewithexternalforces,includinghumans.Anddisturbances—suchas fires,hurricanes,floods,anddrought—previouslyviewedaspotentiallyharmful, werefoundtobeincrediblyvaluableplayersintheevolutionof ecosystemsand their relationships with one another.11 We needed to move toward a managementapproachthatcouldtakeeverythingintoaccount —ecological,social,economic , and climate realities—rather than cordoning off a particular tract of land for focused management. Decades of controlling disturbances and expecting already-fragmented ecosystemstomanageontheirown,eventobenefitfromalackof furtherhuman interference,ledtofragileecosystemsunabletowithstandpotentiallyunavoidable disturbance, much like a coddled child forced to enter the real world. This “command-and-control approach implicitly assumes that the problem is wellbounded , clearly defined, relatively simple, and generally linear with respect to cause and effect.”12 The reality, as we were discovering, is a far more complex, interactive, unpredictable world beyond our complete grasp. Not only was it harmful to attempt to control disturbances, but it was unwise to expect nature preservestotakecareof themselvesif wesimplypreventedfurtherhumaninterferencewiththem ,giventhatwehadalreadydonethegreatestmisdeed:turning them into islands forced to devour themselves due to lack of interaction with other ecosystems.13 Bythe1980sithadbecomecleartomanyenvironmentalists,ecologists,and conservationbiologiststhatourpolicydecisionsforlandandresourcemanagementneededtotakegreatercaretoheedthedecades -oldadviceof AldoLeopold, that everything is dependent on everything else and no part can be sacrificed withoutgreatrisktothewhole.14 Environmentalproblemscannotbeaddressed individuallyinavacuum;rather,theentirefieldmustbeviewedholisticallyand in a comprehensive manner. Political boundaries and property lines mean nothing to the natural world and as such make for terrible management scales. It finally dawned on administrators, in response to substantial pressure from 6 An Ecosystem Management Primer environmentalandscientificstakeholders,thatlandandresourcemanagement should ideally take...