The Evolution of Resource Management toward Ecosystem Management

Question 1

What is the Resource conservation ethic

Answer 1

 The goal of management is based on utilitarian ethics.
 To produce the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time.

Question 2

What is the romantic transcendental conservation ethic

Answer 2

 Nature has values/uses other than human economic value independent of human use.
 Conservation vs preservation

Question 3

What is the Evolutionary ecological land ethic

Answer 3

 Nature is not simply a collection of parts, some to be used, others to be discarded based on their usefulness.
 It is a complicated and interconnected ‘functional system’ that is the result of long-term evolutionary change.

Question 4

Define ecosystem management

Answer 4

It involves a continual process of learning and improvement so that new ideas and approaches are constantly being tested, evaluated, and rejected or implemented.

Question 5

Define the values of traditional management

Answer 5

• Emphasis on commodities and natural resource extraction.
• Equilibrium perspective; stability, climax communities
• Reductionism; site specificity
• Predictability and control
• Solutions developed by resource management agencies
• Confrontation, single-issue polarization, public as adversary

Question 6

Define the values of Ecosystem management

Answer 6

• Emphasis on the balance between commodities, amenities, and ecological integrity
• Nonequilibrium perspective, dynamics, and resiliency, shifting mosaics.
• Holism, contextual view
  Uncertainty and flexibility
• Solutions developed through discussions among all stakeholders
• Consensus building, multiple issues, partnerships

Question 7

Traditional vs Ecosystem Management

Answer 7

o Traditional management tended to facilitate natural resource extraction.
Ex: timber production fishery and hunting resources, minerals, agriculture.

o Ecosystem management expands these interests to include amenities.
Ex: camping, birding, clear skies, clean water, nature appreciation, ecological processes, and biological diversity.

Question 8

Define command and control

Answer 8

The overuse of resources is a result from using technological ingenuity to manipulate nature toward a specific goal, rather than understanding natural limits and using careful stewardship

Question 9

Define overexploitation/overuse

Answer 9

When efforts to get more from a resource through ingenuity and technological innovation are met by declining yields.

Question 10

what is the conceptualized model of command and control

Answer 10

Command, present situation, and control lead to expectations and assumptions which lead to the desired situation

Question 11

Example of the model of command and control

Answer 11

Ex: planting and allowing the growth of ponderosa pine populations leads to an increase in ponderosa pine populations.
Result: Control would include management decreasing fires and destruction.

Ex: Wanting to increase deer populations on the Kaibab plateau for hunting.
Result: To increase deer populations the predators of deer were reduced. Deer populations increased but to such a number that the ecosystem could not support this increase. Deer began to starve to death and numbers decreased heavily.

Question 12

What are the consequences of command and control?

Answer 12

When the range of natural variation in an ecosystem is controlled, the system loses resilience when faced with new stressors.

Question 13

what are the three components of command and control?

Answer 13

 Human imposed external control – external changes in the ecological system by humans.
 Institutional changes to focus on control – sociality expects institutions to be effective.
 Increased economic dependence on control and overcapitalization.

Question 14

The loss of resilience in an ecosystem due to the control of natural variation can lead to…

Answer 14

(a) The behavior of an uncontrolled ecosystem fluctuates through a wide range of conditions. A perturbation to the system has an immediate effect, but it is absorbed, and the system continues on as before.

(b) in an ecosystem controlled by humans, behavior is tightly constrained within narrow limits. When a perturbation strikes, the system may change
fundamentally to a new state and not be able to return to its formal condition.

Question 15

Define pathology

Answer 15

the specialty of medical science concerned with the cause, development, structural/functional changes, and natural history associated with diseases.

Question 16

Explain how pathology can be used in ecosystem management?

Answer 16

Pathology is relative to controlling river flows through damming, levy building, and dredging.

How does attempted control result in a pathology?
In order to control the river overflow is a constant issue.

Question 17

What is the golden rule of natural resource management?

Answer 17

Natural Resource Management should strive to identify and retain critical types and ranges of natural variation in ecosystems while satisfying the combined needs of the ecological, socio-economic, and institutional systems.

o Maintaining natural variation results in higher levels of resilience
o Challenge – determining the types and ranges of natural variation in various ecosystems

Question 18

What is the principle of resilience and resistance?

Answer 18

Conceptual framework representing the responses (resistance and resilience) of ecosystem structure and function to a disturbance.

Question 19

What are the two types of graphs used in relation to resilience and resistance? List an exampe.

Answer 19

1. High resistance and low resilience (slow recovery and resilience is seen in cacti species)
   - long measure of resilience when depicted in a graph
2. Low resistance and high resilience (quick recovery and resilience is seen in rainforest plant species)
   - short measure of resilience when depicted in a graph

Question 20

What are the three concepts included in ecosystem management?

Answer 20

• ecological context
• institutional context
• socio-economic context