Ecosystem Management in Practice: The Importance of Human Institutions
Ecosystem Management in Practice: The Importance of Human Institutions
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生态系统管理实践：人文制度的重要性
DOI：
10.2307/2269472
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发表时间：
1996
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
S. Yaffee
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Yaffee
大达比溪是俄亥俄州中西部一条132公里长的小溪，是中西部最多样化的水生系统之一。这条小溪是86种鱼类和40种软体动物的家园，其中包括几种濒危物种。面对传统耕作方式和森林砍伐造成的沉积物造成的水质下降以及哥伦布地区的扩大，1989年成立了一个由40多个私人和公共组织组成的大达比溪伙伴关系，其中包括联邦和州机构、大学、非政府组织和许多其他组织。这种伙伴关系作为一种机制，协调流域内各个合作者实施的一系列战略，包括改变农业方法、重新造林、保护地役权和监测。在新墨西哥州西南部，一个由私人土地所有者和牧场主组成的基层联盟成立了Malpai Borderlands Group，以解决该地区“山地岛屿和沙漠海洋”内各种植物群落面临的一系列威胁。该地区100年的灭火历史是造成天然草原丧失的主要原因，人类的使用和发展威胁着景观破碎化的加剧。该组织与联邦、州和地方政府以及大学密切合作，制定了促进公共和私人所有权规定焚烧的战略，并制定了一项自愿草银行计划。通过捐赠他们财产的永久保护地役权，牧场主可以从其他牧场为他们的牲畜获得草。这两个生态系统管理的实例代表了密歇根大学最近对美国生态系统管理进行的一项研究所编目的一组地点（Frentz等人，1995年）。在我的指导下，由一组研究生进行了这个项目，从662个潜在地点中选出77个地点进行了简短的案例研究，并评估了它们的成功和问题。本文借鉴了密歇根大学的研究奠定的基础，并提出了一套关于生态系统管理的现实，以及创造人类行为，组织和决策过程的至关重要性，赋予生命的科学原则编纂在生态系统理论的意见。事实上，生态系统管理的近期承诺是一个转变组织和决策过程的过程，使他们更愿意在时间和空间上进行实验、创新和超越自我。
Big Darby Creek, a 132-km stream in west central Ohio, is one of the most diverse aquatic systems in the Midwest. The creek is home to 86 species of fish and 40 species of mollusks, including several endangered species. Faced with declining water quality caused by sedimentation from traditional farming practices and deforestation, and expansion of the Columbus area, a Big Darby Creek Partnership was formed in 1989 consisting of more than 40 private and public organizations including federal and state agencies, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and many others. The partnership serves as a mechanism to coordinate a host of strategies carried out by the individual cooperators in the watershed, including altered agricultural methods, reforestation, conservation easements, and monitoring. In southwestern New Mexico, a grassroots coalition of private landowners and ranchers has formed the Malpai Borderlands Group to address a set of threats to the diverse array of vegetative communities within the "mountain islands and desert seas" that characterize this region. A 100-yr history of fire suppression in the region has been a major influence in the loss of native grasslands, and htman use and development threaten increased landscape fragmentation. Working closely with federal, state, and local government, and universities, the group has developed strategies to promote prescribed burning across public and private ownerships, and has developed a voluntary grass banking program. By donating a permanent conservation easement on their property, ranchers can receive grass for their livestock from other ranches. These two examples of ecosystem management in action are representative of a set of sites catalogued by a recent University of Michigan study of ecosystem management in the United States (Frentz et al. 1995). Carried out by a group of graduate students under my supervision, this project developed short case studies of 77 sites drawn from a pool of 662 potential sites, and evaluated their successes and problems. This paper draws on the foundation laid by the Michigan study and makes a set of observations about the realities of ecosystem management, and the critical importance of creating human behaviors, organizations, and decisionmaking processes that give life to the scientific principles codified in ecosystem theory. Indeed, the nearterm promise of ecosystem management is as a process to transform organizations and decision-making processes to make them more willing to experiment, innovate, and look beyond themselves in both time and space.