Implementing Ecosystem Management

1
Implementing Ecosystem Management
2
An Ecosystem Management Process
Step 1. Select an ecologically meaningful unit
(e.g. an ecoregion, a landscape, a watershed,
etc.) Step 2. Conduct an integrated assessment,
consisting of - An ecological assessment a)
Terrestrial b) Aquatic - A Socio-economic
assessment - An integrated analysis of the first
two components Step 3 Develop a range of
management alternatives ? Determine the Desired
Future Condition Step 4. Select an
alternative, then implement it. Step 5. Monitor
Adaptive Management
3
How do we construct a range of management
alternatives?

• No Action alternative required by NEPA
• A range of alternatives that varies by the extent
  or intensity of actions proposed
• Slight action
• Moderate action
• Extreme action
• Alternatives that tradeoff multiple objectives in
  varying combinations
• Alternatives proposed by interest groups or
  constituencies

4
Sewing Together a Functional Landscape What
are the building blocks of a functional landscape?
5
There is a spectrum of management opportunities

• Passive Management
• Conservation focused on fully protected core
  reserves
• Initial active restoration efforts often
  included
• But nature left to take its course thereafter

• Intermediary Approaches
• Combines elements of both
• Landscape zoned into a range of allocations
• Different allocations managed actively or
  passively or somewhere in between

• Active Management
• Intensive landscape manipulation
• Conservation through an orchestrated shifting
  mosaic of patches over time
• Provides resource managers with maximum
  flexibility but carries high risk

6
IUCNs Six Protected Areas Management Categories

• Category I. Strict Nature Reserve managed for
  science or wilderness
• Category II. National Park managed primarily
  for ecosystem protection and recreation
• Category III. Natural Monument managed
  primarily for conservation of specific natural
  features
• Category IV. Habitat/Species Management Area
  managed for conservation through active
  intervention
• Category V. Protected Landscape/Seascape
  Managed for cultural and scenic integrity,
  conservation, and recreation human
  settlements and agricultural areas are
  accommodated
• Category VI. Managed Resource Protected Area
  Managed primarily for the sustainable use of
  ecosystems

IUCN The World Conservation Union, previously
known as the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature
7
Large Core Reserve
Small Core Reserve
8
Protected Areas Explained

• What is a protected area?
• An area of land and/or sea especially dedicated
  to the protection of biological diversity and
  natural and associated cultural resources, and
  managed through legal or other effective means
  (IUCN 1996).
• Benefits provided by protected areas
• Conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity
• Recreation
• Prevention of erosion on watersheds
• Provision of clean water to cities
• Provision of clean air
• Control of biological pests
• Preservation of medicinal and genetic resources
• Maintenance of harvestable resources
• Soil regeneration
• Nutrient cycling
• Carbon sequestration/climatic regulation

9
Core Reserves

• SLOSS single large or several small
• Minimum Critical Area The minimum size needed
  to support viable populations of constituent
  species
• Minimum Dynamic Area The minimum size needed to
  absorb large disturbances and still maintain
  colonization sources and viable populations
• Redundancy
• Representativeness
• Gap Analysis

10
National Gap Analysis Program The mission of the
Gap Analysis Program (GAP) is to provide regional
assessments of the conservation status of native
vertebrate species and natural land cover types
and to facilitate the application of this
information to land management activities. This
is accomplished through the following five
objectives 1. map the land cover of the
United States 2. map predicted distributions
of vertebrate species for the U.S. 3.
document the representation of vertebrate
species and land cover types in areas managed
for the long-term maintenance of biodiversity
4. provide this information to the public and
those entities charged with land use research,
policy, planning, and management 5. build
institutional cooperation in the application of
this information to state and regional
management activities.
11
Status of the Gap Analysis Program
12
Vegetation/landcover picture is Lake Champlain
lowlands from VT Gap Project
Overlaid on
Vertebrate species distributions picture is bat
diversity in Washington state from WA Gap Project
Overlaid on maps of protected areas
13
(No Transcript)
14
Result Biologically important areas left out of
protected areas system are recommended for future
protection
15
Marine Protected Areas of the World
16

• Hawaiian Islands National Marine Monument
• Largest marine reserve in the world
• 140,000 sq. miles

17
Protected Areas for Individual Commercial Fish
Species
18
Protected Areas as Population Sources for
entire commercial fisheries
19
Nodes and MUMs (Noss and Harris 1986)
20
Buffer
Buffer
21
Buffers

• Standards and guidelines prescribe management
  actions and policies that maintain habitat
  features and connectivity around core.
• Human uses are accommodated if they dont
  compromise the primary objective of the core.
• Can include several layers or concentric circles
  of buffering, with decreasing levels of
  protection moving away from the core
• Buffers often exist on paper but mean little in
  reality due to lack enforcement or conflicts with
  local communities, land tenure, etc.
• Examples
• UNESCOs Man and the Biosphere Programme ?
  Biosphere reserves
• Yellowstone, Olympic National Park, Smokey
  Mountains National Park ? Is it working?
• Integrated Conservation and Development Programs
  (ICDP) ? internationally sponsored projects,
  including indigenous extractive reserves, in
  developing nations

22
MAB Biosphere Reserves in the United States
23
Terrestrial Corridor
24
Terrestrial Corridors

• Pros
• Species for which the corridors provide effective
  dispersal habitat can use them
• Helps maintain demographic (and thus genetic)
  interaction between populations
• Provide landscape features with other, indirect
  benefits, such as wind breaking, run-off
  reduction, soil stabilization, etc.
• Cons
• May be a sink for a subset of species
• May expose dispersing individuals to predation
• Animals may not find or use them
• Hard to establish wide enough (and long enough)
  corridors in populated landscapes

25
Source Bo Wilmer
26
(No Transcript)
27
Riparian Corridor
28
Riparian Corridors

• Pros
• dendritic networks form an extensive system of
  potential corridors
• Many species prefer to move along riparian
  corridors
• Links together aquatic ecosystems
• Corridors act as riparian buffers, so they
  provide other ecological functions, such as bank
  stabilization, in-stream shade, habitat for
  riparian dependent species, etc.
• Cons
• Some terrestrial species wont use them.
• They dont entirely link together headwater areas
  or provide lateral linkages in lowland areas ?
  they dont always connect the core area you need
  connected!

29
Connectivity Have to think about aquatic
ecosystem connectivity too!
30
Non-corridor Connectivity Approaches

• Provide a variety of habitats structures across
  the landscape and in intervening areas between
  core reserves.
• These might include
• Smaller patches and blocks of habitat
• A mosaic of patches that provides the mix of
  habitat types needed to support dispersing
  animals
• Forest stands managed to dispersal habitat
  standards
• Individual structures, such as snags and
  scattered larger trees.
• Long-rotation forestry gradient-of-retention
  forestry
• Protection for special habitats, such as caves,
  talus slopes, other rocky out-croppings,
  wetlands, seeps, etc.
• Example the Northwest Forest Plan used a
  combination of riparian buffers and structural
  retention in managed areas to provide
  connectivity, but decided not to use discrete
  terrestrial corridors

31
Late-Successional Reserves Designated by the
Northwest Forest Plan
From Vogt, K.A., J.C. Gordon, J.P. Wargo, D.J.
Vogt, H. Asbjornsen, P.A. Palmiotto, H. J. Clark,
J.L. OHara, W.S. Keeton, T. Patel-Weynand, and
E. Witten. 1997. Ecosystems Balancing Science
with Management. Springer-Verlag.
32
Demonstration of Ecosystem Management Options
33
15 trees per acre How effective is this
ecologically?
34
Terrestrial Restoration
Riparian Restoration
Wetland Restoration
35
Restoration Areas

• Restoration is the return of a degraded ecosystem
  to a close approximation of its remaining natural
  potential.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies
  principles of good restoration
• Preserve and protect aquatic resources
• Restore ecological integrity
• Restore natural structure
• Restore natural function
• Work within the watershed and broader landscape
  context
• Understand the natural potential of the
  watershed
• Address ongoing causes of degradation
• Develop clear, achievable, and measurable goals
• Focus on feasibility
• Use a reference site
• Anticipate future changes
• Involve the skills and insights of a
  multi-disciplinary team
• Design for self-sustainability
• Use passive restoration, when appropriate
• Restore native species and avoid non-native
  species
• Use natural fixes and bioengineering techniques,
  where possible

36
Matrix
Matrix
37
Matrix

• Matrix provides the primary area for intensive
  resource use, including extractive uses and more
  intensive recreational development.
• Matrix is very important ecologically. Why?
• It is the dominant patch type covers the
  largest area
• So probably includes much, if the not majority,
  of the biodiversity
• Determines the level of connectivity
• Strongly influences the effectiveness of reserves
• Produces ecosystem goods and services for people
• Standards and guidelines on public lands, or
  other incentives or collaborative-based
  approaches on private lands, help maintain some
  level of habitat protection and ecosystem
  functioning.
• Site-suitability standards that prescribe the
  site-specific appropriateness of management
  activities.

38
Matrix
Matrix
Large Core Reserve
Riparian Corridor
Small Core Reserve
Buffer
Terrestrial Restoration
Riparian Restoration
Terrestrial Corridor
Wetland Restoration
Matrix
Large Core Reserve
Intensively modified areas/urban/low potential
Buffer
39
Where will the functional landscape approach work?

• The functional landscape approach will involve a
  range of strategies depending on context.
• Can fully implement on large-ownerships, such as
  in the western U.S., portions of the northern
  forest bioregion, southern Appalachian region,
  etc.
• Need other approaches in private and small
  ownership dominated landscapes

40
(No Transcript)
41
Strategies for private land dominated landscapes

• Fostering sense of place
• Green certification
• Planning and land-use zoning
• Subsidies some like them, some dont
• Public lands acquisition
• Regulation through environmental statutes

• Tax incentives
• Property tax reform
• Conservation easements
• Information sharing
• Watershed groups/coordination
• Community-based forestry and tourism
• Wildland, wetland, or forest mitigation banks

42
Tax-Based Approaches

• Tax incentives
• Property tax reform

43
Easements

• Conservation easements
• Transfer of development rights

44
Information Sharing

• Information transfer
• Community/watershed groups

• White River Partnership
• Local governments/towns
• State agencies
• Federal agencies
• Conservation groups

45
Conservation Banks

• Wildlands, wetlands, and forests

http//nature.org/aboutus/projects/forestbank/
46
Fostering Sense of Place
47
Regulation, Subsidies, or Acquisition?

• Land and Water Conservation Fund, est. 1965
• Authorized to spend 900 million annually
• Only met twice in 42 years
• FY 2007 Enacted Allocation 143,000,000
• to Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, Fish and
  Wildlife Service, and State grants