Ecosystem Management
Adaptive, Community-Based Conservation
Today's natural resource managers must be able to navigate among the complicated interactions and conflicting interests of diverse stakeholders and decisionmakers. Technical and scientific knowledge, though necessary, are not sufficient. Science is merely one component in a multifaceted world of decision making. And while the demands of resource management have changed greatly, natural resource education and textbooks have not. Until now.
Ecosystem Management represents a different kind of textbook for a different kind of course. It offers a new and exciting approach that engages students in active problem solving by using detailed landscape scenarios that reflect the complex issues and conflicting interests that face today's resource managers and scientists. Focusing on the application of the sciences of ecology and conservation biology to real-world concerns, it emphasizes the intricate ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional matrix in which natural resource management functions, and illustrates how to be more effective in that challenging arena.
Each chapter is rich with exercises to help facilitate problem-based learning. The main text is supplemented by boxes and figures that provide examples, perspectives, definitions, summaries, and learning tools, along with a variety of essays written by practitioners with on-the-ground experience in applying the principles of ecosystem management.
Accompanying the textbook is an instructor's manual that provides a detailed overview of the book and specific guidance on designing a course around it.
Ecosystem Management grew out of a training course developed and presented by the authors for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at its National Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. In 20 offerings to more than 600 natural resource professionals, the authors learned a great deal about what is needed to function successfully as a professional resource manager. The book offers important insights and a unique perspective dervied from that invaluable experience.
Preface
About the Authors
Essay Contributors
Introduction: New Approaches for a New Millennium
Part 1: The Conceptual Toolbox
1. The Landscape Scenarios
The ROLE Model
SnowPACT
PDQ Revival
2. Getting a Grip on Ecosystem Management
The Evolution of Natural Resource Management Toward Ecosystem Management
A Model of Ecosystem Management
A Closer Look at Ecosystem Management
Information, Organizational Behavior and Command and Control
3. Incorporating Uncertainty and Complexity into Management
Sources of Complexity and Uncertainty in Natural Resource Management
Dealing with Complexity and Uncertainty
4. Adaptive Management
Adaptive Management: Another Way to Learn
Active Adaptive Management
Passive Adaptive Management
Adaptive Management as Documented Trial and Error
Conditions Necessary for Successful Adaptive Management
Part II. The Biological and Ecological Background
5. Genetic Diversity in Ecosystem Management
What is Genetic Diversity?
How is Genetic Diversity Lost?
The Loss of Allelic Richness
The Role of Genetics in Conservation and Ecosystem Management
6. Issues Regarding Populations and Species
The Species
The Roles of Species in Science and Policy
Connecting Populations and Species to Landscapes
7. Populations and Communities at the Landscape Level
Single-Species Management
Managing for Species Communities
8. Landscape-Level Conservation
Habitat Fragmentation
Mosaic and Matrix
9. Managing Biodiversity Across Landscapes: A Manager's Dilemma
Ecosystems or Species? Coarse-Filter and Fine-Filter Approaches
Landscape-Level Considerations That Protect Biodiversity and Ecosystems
Working Across Administrative Boundaries
HCPs: Protecting Biodiversity While Promoting Competition
Part III. The Human Dimensions
10. Working in Human Communities
The Success Triangle
Stakeholder Identification and Assessment
Techniques for Stakeholder Involvement
Keys to Successful Collaboration
Three Little Words
11. Strategic Approaches to Ecosystem Management
Characteristics of Strategic Management
A Simple Strategic Management Model
The Strategic-Thinking Step
12. Evaluation
The Context for Evaluation
Formative Evaluation
Process Evaluation
Summative Evaluation
Glossary
Index
You may purchase this title at fine bookstores across the United States. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
