Ecosystem and Human Activity

SIX KEY ASPECTS OF ECOSYSTEM BASED MANAGEMENT

October 27, 2013

Table of Contents

Introduction 3
Six Key Aspects of Ecosystem Based Management……………………………………3
Integration of ecological, social, and economic goals and recognition of humans as key components of the ecosystem………………………………………………………..............3
Consideration of Ecological Not Just Political- Boundaries………………………………5
Accounting for the Complexity of Natural Processes and Social Systems and Using an Adaptive Management Approach in the Face of Resulting Uncertainties………7 Engaging Multiple Stakeholders in a Collaborative Process to Define Problems and Find Solutions………………………………………………………..…………………….8 Incorporating Understanding of Ecosystem Processes and How Ecosystems Respond to Environmental Perturbations…………………………………………….....9 Concern with the Ecological Integrity of Coastal-marine Systems and the Sustainability of Both Human and Ecological Systems………………………………10
Conclusion ….12
References 13

Introduction
Human activities on land and in the ocean are changing ecosystems and threatening their ability to provide important benefits to society, such as healthy and abundant sources of food, clean air, and fresh water. The argument that the ecosystem ought to be managed in whole ecological units based on integrative biological, physical and/or socio-economic assessments is not a new one. However the argument is gaining urgency as a result of continuing and increasing problems in environmental management based on old areal units, and it is gaining relevance as a result of new developments in related areas of theory and practice such as landscape ecology, ecosystem health and integrity, protected areas management, and sustainable development. Ecosystem-based management, or an ecosystem approach to planning and management, is partly a matter of redefining management units and partly a matter of building on the best ecosystem science (Slocombe, 1993). More so, Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) is an innovative management approach to address the challenges facing the environment. It considers the whole ecosystem, including humans and the environment, rather than managing one issue or resource in isolation and has six key aspects to take into consideration.

Six Key Aspects of Ecosystem Based Management
Integration of Ecological, Social, and Economic Goals and Recognition of Humans as Key Components of the Ecosystem
The integration of ecological, social, and economic goals and recognition of humans as key components of the ecosystem is important in EBM. For most of human history, the influence of human beings on biophysical processes, ecological systems, and evolutionary change has been relatively limited, as compared with the influence of "natural" (nonhuman) processes. Ecological and evolutionary change has generally been attributable to natural variation in energy and material flows and to natural selection by parasites, diseases, predators, and competitors. Today, however, humans affect Earth's ecosystems at extraordinary rates through conversion of land and resource consumption, alteration of habitats and species composition, disruption of hydrological processes and modification of energy flow and nutrient cycles (Grimm et al. 2000). Humans now use approximately 40% of global net primary production and more than half of accessible freshwater runoff (Postel et al., 1996). At least half of the world's forests have disappeared as a result of human activity, and three-quarters of that total have disappeared since 1700 (Harrison & Pearce, 2001). Human activities fix amounts of nitrogen and sulfur comparable to those fixed by all nonhuman causes. Humans have radically revamped Earth's carbon cycle and freed into the environment vast quantities of naturally occurring trace materials (e.g., cadmium, zinc, mercury, nickel, arsenic) and exotic new anthropogenic substances (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls, chlorofluorocarbons) (Pacyna & Pacyna, 2001). Human activities directly affect land cover, which controls biotic diversity, primary productivity, soil quality, runoff, and pollution. Urbanized areas also modify microclimates and air quality by altering the nature of the land surface and generating heat (Oke, 1987). Although ecological impacts of urban development often seem to be local, urbanization also causes environmental changes at larger scales. Today's cities are sustained by a socioeconomic infrastructure that operates on global scales; the ecologically productive area required to support an urban area can be 100 to 300 times larger than the urban region (Rees & Wackernagel, 1994). A new cooperative relationship between science, business and policy is needed to gather all the information needed and to find a solution that benefits all of society. The study of urban ecology ultimately involves studying how to integrate this new interdisciplinary knowledge about urban ecosystems into policymaking processes--to improve interactions between policymakers and scientists so as to help society achieve more sustainable existence. Today, the scientific and political communities lack the effective two-way communication and trust that they need to address urban ecological problems. Although science can help society formulate a range of options to achieve societal goals, it cannot make value judgments. In addition, scientists often cannot deliver definitive answers to questions posed by policymakers. To be able to find solutions to the larger issues facing the environment, we must understand the effect human activity on the ecosystem, and must also understand the differences in how social scientists, ecologists, managers, and policymakers formulate and define problems, ask questions, gather and evaluate information, and propose and implement solutions.

Consideration of Ecological- Not just Political- Boundaries.
Consideration of ecological, not just political boundaries is also important in EBM. Boundaries must be seen in term of the scale of an effect. Scale is a concept that transcends disciplinary boundaries. In ecology and geography, scale is usually defined in terms of spatial and temporal dimensions. Sociological scale also incorporates space and time, but adds ideas about representation and organization. Although spatial and temporal location determine the context for social and ecological dynamics, social-ecological interactions can create dynamic feedback loops in which humans both influence and are influenced by ecosystem processes. The concept of scale is used in subtly different ways in sociology and in ecology (Gibson et al. 2000). In ecology, scale usually refers to the spatial and temporal dimensions of a pattern or process. Ecological scale, also called “geographic scale,” has two main attributes: grain and extent (Turner et al. 2001). Extent describes the total area or time period under consideration; grain describes the resolution of observations (Turner et al., 2001, Rietkirk et al., 2002). Changes in ecosystems in turn lead to alterations in the scales at which management and policy solutions are needed. Anthropogenic activities often modify not only the immediate biophysical environment but also the action of broad-scale natural processes. Some of the classical examples of human impacts include changes in flooding, fire regimes, and the migratory movements of large herbivores. In each of these instances, humans dampen natural variation through command-and-control management approaches (Holling & Meffe, 1996). By changing the scale of natural variation in the landscape, ecosystem processes may be disrupted or modified in such a way that scale mismatches occur. A fascinating example of a social-ecological scale mismatch comes from the early harvesting and later conservation of populations of marine mammals. These efforts have largely been undertaken at scales smaller than entire oceans and have focused on populations and individual species rather than on communities. Recent evidence (Springer et al., 2003) suggests that reductions in the populations of great whales, a consequence of excessive whaling by maritime nations, may have left some killer whale populations with insufficient food resources. As a result, several killer whale pods have turned to seals and sea otters for food. Sea otters are keystone species (Power et al. 1996) that can regulate populations of sea urchins, influencing algal production and the near-shore food web. The outcome of declining whale populations has been a series of sequential crashes in conserved populations of smaller marine mammals and a lot of finger-pointing and accusations in the social system. The mismatch between the scale of whale population reduction by humans, which is a social phenomenon, and the scale of whale reproduction, which is an ecological phenomenon, has had ecosystem-wide consequences that influence other kinds of social-ecological interactions in complex ways and may take decades to resolve. Hopefully, management actions at broad spatial and temporal scales will eventually lead to the recovery of the whale population and the restoration of the food chain that supports killer whales, while maintaining smaller-scale institutions that mitigate smaller-scale threats, such as by-catch, hunting, and disease, to marine mammal populations. Ecosystem function includes inputs, outputs, cycling of materials and energy, and the interactions of organisms. In order to monitor and manipulate these processes, scientists define ecosystem boundaries operationally. But boundaries defined for the study or management of one process, are often inappropriate for the study of others; thus, ecosystem management requires a broad view. The mismatch between the scales at which humans make resource management decisions and at which ecosystems operate presents the most significant challenge to ecosystem management. To become more effective at finding solutions to environmental issues, we must take a global perspective, because the effect can have implications far beyond political borders, and potentially worldwide.

Accounting for the Complexity of Natural Processes and Social Systems and Using an Adaptive Management Approach in the Face of Resulting Uncertainties
The environment and the climate can change quickly and the complexity of natural processes and social systems requires a management approach that is adaptive to keep pace. It is important to have adaptive governance of social-ecological systems during periods of abrupt change (crisis) and to investigate social sources of renewal and reorganization. Such governance connects individuals, organizations, agencies, and institutions at multiple organizational levels. Key persons provide leadership, trust, vision, meaning, and they help transform management organizations toward a learning environment. Adaptive governance systems often self-organize as social networks with teams and actor groups that draw on various knowledge systems and experiences for the development of a common understanding and policies (Folke, Hahn, Olsson, et al., 2005). Successful Ecosystem Management requires institutions that are adaptable to changes in ecosystem characteristics and in their knowledge base. But to view management as experimental is not to advocate capricious implementation of untried or cutting edge actions. It is rather to acknowledge the limits of our understanding of even conventional management procedures to the complex array of ecosystem components necessary for sustained functioning.

Engaging Multiple Stakeholders in a Collaborative Process to Define Problems and Find Solutions
It is a recent trend in public and private inter-organizational policy that multiple actors get involved to collaborate around issues of water and soil management, nature preservation, land use, farming practices, introduction of new technologies in life sciences and related problem domains. The technical complexity and the fact that these issues have become embedded into the social consciousness, require the collaboration of public authorities, private business, scientific experts, groups of users and social interest groups, non-governmental organizations and representatives of stakeholders in the particular ecological domain. The central concern is always an interdependent involvement of the stakeholders, the development of a shared problem definition, the coordination of the different actions on all levels and the orientation towards a shared common script and action strategy (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004). Participation in collaboration is seen as a management philosophy and a way of involving citizens meaningfully in decisions (Chisholm & Vansina, 1993). Meaningful involvement requires several conditions: (a) people should experience participation on an issue as feasible and realistic based on the task, (b) the boundaries and the limits of the people’s authority and decision-making scope should be clearly defined and mutually accepted, (c) participation thrives only in a climate of openness and trust. Defined this way participation is not merely an instrument, but a complex system of structure and processes, that builds and supports sharing of legitimate authority over participants and that pervades the way an organization or institution views and relates to its members. The quality of a collaboration project can be described in terms of the lived interdependence among the different participants. Interdependence is the mutually negotiated and accepted way of interacting among the parties with the recognition of each other’s perspective, interest, contribution and identity. How can different participants live with the differences as complementary contributions towards some common action pattern? It does not mean a consensus or an equal treatment; it means an actionable set of activities where participants can be part of so that their specificity in terms of contribution and identity can find an acceptable level of fitting together. In this learning for interdependence process not only stakeholders in local communities are involved, but equally important is the way scientists, politicians, policy makers and business leaders interact with each other on different levels. Adopting a social learning perspective means analyzing and reflecting on existing processes & institutions to ensure (representative) stakeholder interaction at multiple levels (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004). With collaboration at all levels, more information can be shared and a resolution that is acceptable to all participants can be achieved.

Incorporating Understanding of Ecosystem Processes and How Ecosystems Respond to Environmental Perturbations
Key ecosystem processes can be altered by transformations, there are complex biological cascades and feedbacks that could result, and some of the potential broader consequences for the earth system. The effects of global change on these ecosystems, and potential climate-change feedbacks, cannot be predicted from simple empirical relationships between processes and driving variables. Rather, the effects of changes in species distributions and dominances on key ecosystem processes and properties must also be considered, based upon best estimates of the trajectories of key transformations, their magnitude and rates of change (Wookey, et al., 2009). Changes in ecosystem structure and function are strongly coupled with the broader earth system, and have the potential to feedback substantially on further environmental change. Greater biodiversity is often associated with increased ecosystem process rates, and is expected to enhance the stability of ecosystem functioning under abiotic stress. However, these relationships might themselves be altered by environmental factors, complicating prediction of the effects of species loss in ecosystems subjected to abiotic stress. In a 2009 study by McKie, Schindler, Gessner & Malmqvist, in boreal streams, they investigated effects of biodiversity and two abiotic perturbations on three related indices of ecosystem functioning: leaf decomposition, detritivore leaf processing efficiency (LPE) and detritivore growth. The results of the study demonstrated how environmental changes might regulate the consequences of species loss for functioning in anthropogenically perturbed ecosystems, and highlight potential influences of biodiversity on functional stability (McKie, Schindler, Gessner & Malmqvist, 2009). From this we get the understanding that perturbations are inevitable in nature, however we also need to understand and be prepared to counteract perturbation caused by our activity.

Concerned with the Ecological Integrity of Coastal-marine Systems and the Sustainability of Both Human and Ecological Systems
Ecosystem-based management (EBM) in the ocean is a relatively new approach, and existing applications are evolving from more traditional management of portions of ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are complex adaptive systems linked across multiple scales by flow of water and species movements (Levin and Lubchenco 2008). Despite their adaptive character and often redundant linkages, marine ecosystems are vulnerable to rapid changes in diversity and function (Palumbi et al. 2008). Observable, widespread declines in the status of species, habitats, and ecosystem function in the marine environment have led to calls for ecosystem-based management as a solution for what ails the oceans. The argument that EBM could maintain ecosystem structure--thus allowing the ecosystem to maintain redundancies and resilience to environmental change--is appealing, yet not well tested. If EBM applications in the oceans are rare, estimates of success, or feedback on what approaches are likely to succeed in achieving ecosystem objectives, are rarer still. Although implementation of the full complement of EBM principles in the ocean is in its infancy, there are regional cases that essentially are "learning by doing" through management of portions of ecosystems towards a subset of ecosystem objectives (Ruckelshaus, Klinger, Knowlton & DeMaster, 2008). This growing number of management applications can help us see the way forward. Broadening the scope of any EBM plan for the oceans will require considering food-web interactions, drivers of ecosystem function, and how human activities interact with species and ecosystem services.

Conclusion
The six key aspects of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) are equally important to each other and developing an understanding of these aspects will provide an innovative management approach that can be used to address the challenges facing the environment. Taking in to consideration the whole ecosystem, including humans and the environment, rather than managing one issue or resource in isolation, and collaborating with each other beyond traditional borders, will make achieving a sustainable existence for humanity a realistic and attainable goal.

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