Ecosystem Management

An ecosystem is the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit. It is an assemblage of living organisms interacting with one another and their non-living environment. A forest is an ecosystem dominated by trees.

Under ecosystem management, Resource managers, such as foresters, look out over broader landscapes and longer time frames than in the past. We now realize that everything is connected and everything undergoes constant change. These dynamics are managed to produce "desired outcomes." The public must determine what outcomes are desirable on public lands. However, for ecosystems management to work in practice, public and private land owners must cooperate. While some regulations are required, incentives are essential if ecosystems management is to work.

Ecosystems are hard to define because an ecosystem can be anything from a rotting log to the entire planet. Some scientists prefer to talk about Landscape Level Forest Management. A landscape can be defined in space and observed over time.

Ecosystem management raises the question of private property rights. Private property owners fear that this concept will be used to weaken their rights. They also feel that the Endangered Species Act will be used as a tool to gain public control over private lands. In response to this, many private land owners have initiated their own ecosystem management regimes under a Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Many have put together their own habitat conservation plans for threatened and endangered species.

Two approaches of management are competing. One is an integrated management approach across all ownerships on a landscape. Another is to set vast acreages of public land aside in unmanaged preserves which would require very intensive management of private lands to meet our need for resources. We all want amenities from forests such as recreation and aesthetics. However, we also want commodities such as wood products. The needs have to be integrated in a way that is socially acceptable, economically feasible, and ecologically possible.

The demand for resources is driven by population and per capita consumption. We must all accept our responsibility as consumers and make informed choices for the benefit of current and future generations.

Learn more about Ecosystem Management in our Eco-Link Sustainable Forestry or Forest Landscapes

The US Forest Service, St. Paul Field Office offers the publication, Approaches to Ecologically Based Forest Management on Private Lands, online for helping develop forest management plans for private landowners.

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