Chairman Wise gave a Power Point presentation on ecosystem based management of marine and freshwater ecosystems.  He explained that an ecosystem-based management (EBM) is an emerging, integrated approach to resource management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans.  The goal of EBM is to maintain an ecosystem in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that it can provide the services humans want and need.  Traditional resource management approaches usually focus on a single species, sector, activity or concern.  EBM considers the cumulative impacts of different sectors, including human social and economic activities.  His presentation drew heavily on material generated for a recent series of EBM public dialogues jointly sponsored throughout New York State by the New York State Department of State, The SUNY College of Environmental Sciences & Forestry, and the Marine Sciences Research Center of Stony Brook University.

General Principles that Guide EBM

• emphasizes the protection of ecosystem structure, functioning, and key processes, based on science
• is place-based in focusing on specific ecosystem and the range of activities affecting it
• explicitly accounts for the interconnectedness within systems, recognizing the importance of interactions among many target species or key services and other non-target species
• acknowledges the interconnectedness among systems, such as between air, land and sea
• integrates ecological, social, economic, and institutional perspectives, recognizing their strong interdependencies and mutual influences
• emphasizes collaborative governance processes, working together with citizens, landowners, businesses, local governments, interest organizations, and others to face problems, identify opportunities, make feasible improvements, and find common solutions. What has influenced the development of EBM for marine and freshwater ecosystems?

Scientific understanding of marine and freshwater ecosystems has advanced over recent years.  The PEW Oceans Commission, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, several State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conferences on the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative, and subsequent deliberations among policy-makers, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and others (including here in New York, see below) have agreed that a combination of human activities on land, along our coasts, and in our coastal waters are unintentionally but seriously affecting marine and freshwater ecosystems.  These impacts include:

• altering food webs
• changing the climate
• damaging habitat
• eroding coastline
• introducing invasive species
• polluting coastal waters

Although these problems have been previously identified and programs enacted to address them, the health of the nations’s marine resources continues to deteriorate, and the demands on its marine resources continue to increase and are often conflicting.  EBM has emerged nationally to build on the strengths of existing programs and initiate new integrated approaches to more effectively protect and restore U.S. ocean and Great Lakes ecosystems.

How is “ecosystem-based management” different from “ecosystem management?”

Ecosystem management implies that it is possible to control and manage an entire ecosystem, and this is increasingly recognized as an unrealistic and unfeasible way to address marine and freshwater ecosystem challenges.  Ecosystem-based management recognizes that 1) humans cannot control or manipulate entire marine ecosystems and 2) because humans are a significant part of marine and freshwater ecosystems, policy, regulations, and management must address the ways by which human activities and ecosystems synergistically impact each other.

EBM is as much about managing ourselves as it is about managing marine and freshwater ecosystems.  Achieving sustainability in our economies, communities, and natural environment requires rethinking traditional, fragmented approaches to managing complex and interrelated problems.  To do this, EBM seeks to build cooperative, long-term alliances with communities.

What are examples of ecosystem-based management?

EBM is an emerging resource management approach based on integrated principles (see #2), so the processes that characterize it are also evolving.  EBM is often incorporated in processes known, for example, as collaborative governance, cooperative conservation, and community-based collaboration.  Here are a few sources for cases of EBM in action:

• www.citbc.org  The Great Bear Rain Forest in British Columbia
• http://www.chesapeakebay.net  The Chesapeake Bay Program
• www.restorationfund.org  The Puget Sound Restoration Fund
• www.cooperativeconservation.gov  This U.S. government website hosts 800+ cases of integrated management strategies to address environmental restoration and protection, many applying an  ecosystem-based management approach.

What does EBM need to be effective?

EBM is based on scientific understandings of how marine and freshwater ecosystems function across a wide continuum of scale and scope, and that scientific need will continue and increase.  Public policy support is also needed to encourage and remove barriers to EBM.  The most critical factor for EBM success is the commitment and participation of partners contributing their energy, knowledge and creativity.

Mr. Colvin described the current EBM initiative in New York State.  Last year, legislation was introduced to formally create a New York State EBM initiative.  It was unanimously passed by both houses of the Legislature and was signed into law to become Article XIV of the New York State Environmental Conservation Law.  The provisions of this new act are to guide the setting of state policy regarding management of New York's marine and Great Lakes environments.  It establishes principles for ocean and Great Lakes governance and also creates the Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Council.  The Council must prepare a report to the Governor and the State Legislature by 01 November 2008, recommending actions New York State should initiate address the mandate of the act implementing an EBM approach to coastal and Great Lakes.  The Council consists of the commissioners of several state agencies, including DEC (chair), Department of Agriculture and Markets, Department of Transportation, Department of Economic Development, Department of General Services, Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, as well as the New York State Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the State University of New York, and the president of the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority.  The Council's executive director is the Deputy Secretary of State of Coastal Resources.

Mr. Colvin noted that the Council has already begun to meet.  Emphasis needs to be placed on broad public participation and stakeholder involvement.  This will help with community needs and is vital for this ecosystem to succeed.  It was suggested by Councilor Karen Rivera that, in order to involve the community and other members of the industry, meetings arranged by the Council to get stakeholder input to the issues it is deliberating should be held in the evenings, which would ensure higher participation.

 

Page last modified Tuesday, February 27, 2007 by George E. Carroll