Ecosystem Management and Multiple Use
Just recently, the world’s population reached 6 billion people. With such a large
number of people living on the earth and affecting the earth, we need to highly consider
the best type of management for our forests. With the thought of new management for
the forests and their ecosystems, some new buzzwords have developed: ecosystem
management, biological integrity, and forest health. This paper focuses mainly on
ecosystem management versus multiple use management to see if there is an actual shift
in the concepts of forestry or to see if ecosystem management is just a new way of saying
multiple use management, the term that is used in traditional forestry language.
Ecosystem management integrates scientific knowledge of ecological
relationships within a complex sociopolitical and values framework toward the general
goal of protecting native ecosystem diversity over the long term (Grumbine 1994).
Ecosystem management is the management of natural resources, to protect and preserve
the native biodiversity of an ecosystem, and to maintain and enhance the health of the
ecosystem while producing commodities and other essential items from the ecosystem
needed by humans and desired by society, over a period of time. In essence, this
definition sounds a little more like a dressed-up definition that takes into account the
environmentalists’ views by mentioning such terms as “native biodiversity” and
“protecting native ecosystem diversity.” This definition also includes the utilitarianists’
viewpoints, which are another way of saying ecosystem management is multiple use
management.
Pearson (1994) asserted that multiple use was a mosaic of dominant uses, with
conflicts resolved through spatial and temporal separation (Gorte 1999). Another
definition of multiple use forestry is the use of forestlands to suit the needs of more then
one group of people at one time. It takes into consideration the naturalists’ viewpoints,
(to keep a landscape good to look at), and the utilitarianists’ viewpoints, (to log the land
and acquire money from timber sales).
From the definitions, there are some similarities and some differences between
ecosystem management and multiple use management, which help dispute whether
ecosystem management is a new term for an old concept or if ecosystem management is
.a whole new type of forestry practice. Ecosystem management is not a new word
describing an old idea. Ecosystem management encompasses some of the thoughts and
ideas that go along with multiple use forestry, but ecosystem management goes beyond
the normal concepts of multiple use management. For instance, multiple use
management doesn’t take into consideration forest health, biological diversity or
biological integrity because the ideas of management practices end at the property edge
of whoever owns it. The Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 1897 specified that the
purposes of the reserves were “to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries
and to furnish a continuous supply of timber” (Gorte 1999). Ecosystem management, on
the other hand, requires cooperation between agencies, local governments, and individual
citizens because ownership units often do not correspond to ecosystem boundaries (Smith
1999). This helps to ensure a healthier forest ecosystem with greater biological diversity
and viable levels of native habitats. Also, multiple use management is how people wish
to utilize the land and the forests on it in different ways. For instance, some people want
forests to look at and to value the land for its aesthetics. But in actuality, the best
management practice for that forest is some type of silvacultural practice, such as a seed
tree cut.
I feel that ecosystem management is a much broader term that takes into
consideration thoughts and ideas that haven’t been included in traditional forestry
management practices. These thoughts and ideas are new, developing concepts in the
field and are still very fuzzy, gray areas when people talk about them. The concepts are
creating much controversy right now over the idea of ecosystem management in the
United States Forest Service and in the industrial sector. In the long run, I think
ecosystem management will prevail as a new forestry concept, one of the main tools used
in managing forests in the next era. Even if ecosystem management does not become
what I predict, I feel that the ramifications it will have on the idea of multiple use
management will create a much more diversified management tool for foresters to use.
Bibliography
Egan, Andrew; Wadron, Kathy; Rashka, Jason; and Bender, John. 1999. Ecosystem
Management in the Northeast: A Forestry Paradigm Shift? Journal of Forestry.
97(10) 24-30.
Frost, Evan. 1993. Ecosystem management in the Columbia Mountains. Forest Watch
13(7):23-26.
Gorte, Ross. 1999. Multiple Use in the National Forests: Rise and Fall or Evolution?
Journal of Forestry. 97(10) 19-23.
Grumbine, R. Edward. 1994. What is ecosystem management? Conservation Biology
8(1):27-38.
Smith, Patrick D.; Mcdonough, Maureen H.; Mang, Michael T. Ecosystem Management
and Public Participation: Lessons from the Field. Journal of Forestry. 97(10)
32-38.