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Abstract-Integration within monitoring programs requires scientists from different disciplines to work together at the monitoring sites. Responsibility and expertise in these disciplines usually reside in different agencies and government departments. This creates a series of barriers to success. Scientists encounter barriers in communicating advanced concepts and results among disciplines. Integrating results from many disciplines into an ecological study is very challenging and is almost becoming a scientific discipline in itself. Scientists can be very uncomfortable in applying the results from one discipline to another-yet that is precisely w ha t is needed in an ecological study.
Inter-organizational cooperation always presents significant barriers often because agency mandates, objectives and budget priorities may conflict-preservation versus exploitation for example.
However, the scientific expertise needed for ecological studies requires interagency cooperation.
The global nature of the current environmental issues, such as atmospheric change, require cooperation among national governments-adding another dimension to the barriers to integration.
We should also mention integration within government processes. By that we mean that monitoring, however perfectly done, must ensure that its ability to alter, the character of its interpretations, the basis for its conclusions and the nature of its products are such as to respond to and feed into the needs of its supporting agencies. Since most such work is performed by, or no response to , government, relating monitoring programs and products to regulatory or policy needs should be recognized as a priority.
Scientists must take the lead role in explaining the needs and benefits of integration and must also be aware of the coordinating processes available to help the work-such as interdepartmental arrangements and International Conventions and Protocols.
Ipaper presented at the North American Science Symposium: Toward a
Unified Framework for Inventorying and Monitoring Forest Ecosystem
Resources, Guadalajara, Mexico, November 1-6,1998.
2Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network, Environment Canada,
867 Lakeshore Road P.O. Box 5050, Burlington (Ontario), Canada L7R 4A6;
Phone: (905) 336-4410; Fax: (905) 336-4499; e-mail: hague.vaughan@Cciw.ca
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-12. 1999 511