Ecosystem
Management
About Island Press
Island Press is the only nonprofit organization in
the United States whose principal purpose is the
publication of books on environmental issues and
natural resource management. We provide solutions-oriented information to professionals, public
officials, business and community leaders, and concerned citizens who are shaping responses to
environmental problems.
In 2002, Island Press celebrates its eighteenth
anniversary as the leading provider of timely and
practical books that take a multidisciplinary
approach to critical environmental concerns. Our
growing list of titles reflects our commitment to
bringing the best of an expanding body of literature to the environmental community throughout
North America and the world.
Support for Island Press is provided by The
Nathan Cummings Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge
Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation,
Educational Foundation of America, The Charles
Engelhard Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The
George Gund Foundation, The Vira I. Heinz
Endowment, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, The Moriah Fund, The Curtis
and Edith Munson Foundation, National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation, The New-Land Foundation,
Oak Foundation, The Overbrook Foundation, The
David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Pew
Charitable Trusts, The Rockefeller Foundation, The
Winslow Foundation, and other generous donors.
The opinions expressed in this book are
those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of these foundations.
Ecosystem
Management
Adaptive, Community-Based Conservation
GARY K. MEFFE
LARRY A. NIELSEN
RICHARD L. KNIGHT
DENNIS A. SCHENBORN
Washington • Covelo • London
Copyright © 2002 Island Press
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, Suite 300,
1718 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009
ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Ecosystem Management : adaptive, community-based conservation / by Gary
K. Meffe ... [et al.].
p. cm.
ISBN 1-55963-824-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Ecosystem management. I. Meffe, Gary K.
QH75 .E327 2002
333.95—dc21
2002007408
British Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available.
Printed on recycled, acid-free paper E
Manufactured in the United States of America
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To our wives—
Nancy Meffe, Sharon Nielsen, Heather Knight, and Elaine Schenborn—
for their love, patience, and support, and for reminding us of
what is truly important in life.
Contents
PREFACE
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ESSAY CONTRIBUTORS
Introduction: New Approaches
for a New Millennium
xi
xiii
xv
1
The Appearance of Ecosystem
Management
3
How to Use This Book
5
An Overview and the Flow of the Text
6
PART I: THE CONCEPTUAL
TOOLBOX
1. The Landscape Scenarios
11
The ROLE Model
12
The ROLE Model Agreement
12
The Round Lake Ecosystem
14
The Social and Economic Setting
16
Special Resources
17
Special Interests and Issues
23
SnowPACT
25
2. Getting a Grip on Ecosystem
Management
57
The Evolution of Natural Resource
Management Toward Ecosystem Management 57
A Comparison of Traditional
Management and Ecosystem
Management
59
From Command and Control
to Adaptive Ecosystem Management
60
The Pathology of Natural Resource
Management
63
The Need for Resilience
65
A Model of Ecosystem Management
66
A Closer Look at Ecosystem Management
69
Common Misconceptions About
Ecosystem Management
73
Information, Organizational Behavior,
and Command and Control
74
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
76
3. Incorporating Uncertainty
and Complexity into Management
79
Sources of Complexity and Uncertainty
in Natural Resource Management
80
The Snow River Ecosystem
27
The Social and Economic Setting
29
Category 1: Environmental Variation
80
People, Places, and Interests
31
Special Resources
38
Category 2: Biological Variation
in Small Populations
82
42
Category 3: Nonindependence
of Events and Interactions
83
Category 4: Uncertainties
in the Human Realm
84
PDQ Revival
The PDQ Ecosystem
43
The PDQ Region
45
PDQ Lands and Land Uses
47
Natural Resources and Issues
50
Dealing with Complexity and Uncertainty
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
85
88
vii
viii
Contents
Ecosystem Management in Policy
and Practice, by STEVEN L.YAFFEE
89
4. Adaptive Management
95
Adaptive Management: Another Way to Learn
96
Active Adaptive Management
97
The Glen Canyon Dam
Idaho Elk Management
Passive Adaptive Management
100
101
103
The Northwest Forest Management Plan
103
The North American Waterfowl Plan
104
Adaptive Management as Documented
Trial and Error
106
Conditions Necessary for Successful
Adaptive Management
107
6. Issues Regarding Populations
and Species
131
The Species
131
The Roles of Species in Science and Policy
134
Viewpoints on Species
Connecting Populations and Species
to Landscapes
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
134
137
139
The Copper River Watershed Project,
by RIKI OTT and KRISTIN SMITH
140
7. Populations and Communities
at the Landscape Level
145
Single-Species Management
145
Ecological Conditions
108
Extinctions from Deterministic
and Stochastic Forces
146
Socioeconomic Conditions
108
PVA and MVP
147
Institutional Conditions
109
Approaches to MVP Estimation
148
110
Some Thoughts on PVA and
MVP Estimation
151
Metapopulations
151
Spatially Explicit Models
153
Information Needs for MVP,
Metapopulation, and Spatially
Explicit Models
154
Managing for Species Communities
156
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
PART II: THE BIOLOGICAL
AND ECOLOGICAL
BACKGROUND
5. Genetic Diversity in Ecosystem
Management
115
What Is Genetic Diversity?
116
A Look at Heterozygosity
How Is Genetic Diversity Lost?
116
120
The Loss of Genetic Diversity in Small
Populations
120
Changes in Patterns of Genetic Diversity
Among Populations
124
The Loss of Allelic Richness
The Role of Genetics in Conservation
and Ecosystem Management
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
126
128
129
The Species Approach
157
The Ecological Process Approach
158
The Landscape Approach
158
The Role of Monitoring in Each
Approach
159
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
The Winyah Bay Focus Area,
by ROGER L. BANKS
162
163
ix
Contents
8. Landscape-Level Conservation
169
PART III: THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS
Habitat Fragmentation
170
10. Working in Human Communities 219
The Loss of Area
172
An Increase in Edge
174
Increased Isolation
181
Mosaic and Matrix
183
The Landscape Mosaic
183
The Landscape Matrix
184
Fragmentation and the Landscape
Matrix
184
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Southern California Natural Community
Conservation Planning,
by MICHAEL O’CONNELL
9. Managing Biodiversity Across
Landscapes: A Manager’s
Dilemma
185
The Success Triangle
220
Stakeholder Identification and Assessment
222
Who Is a Stakeholder?
222
Principles of Stakeholder Involvement
223
Stakeholder Analysis
225
Levels of Involvement
227
Techniques for Stakeholder Involvement
230
Keys to Successful Collaboration
233
Three Little Words
238
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
187
193
238
Collaborative Stewardship:Views from
Both Sides Now, by MARK W. BRUNSON
240
11. Strategic Approaches
to Ecosystem Management
245
Characteristics of Strategic Management
247
A Simple Strategic Management Model
249
Ecosystems or Species? Coarse-Filter
and Fine-Filter Approaches
194
The Coarse-Filter Approach
195
The Inventory
249
The Fine-Filter Approach
196
Strategic Thinking
251
Blending Coarse-Filter and FineFilter Approaches
Implementation
251
196
Evaluation
251
Landscape-Level Considerations That
Protect Biodiversity and Ecosystems
The Strategic-Thinking Step
196
Area, Shape, and Isolation
197
Movement Corridors
198
Working Across Administrative Boundaries
203
HCPs: Protecting Biodiversity While
Promoting Cooperation
206
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
The Malpai Borderlands Group: Building
the “Radical Center,”
by WILLIAM MCDONALD
209
211
252
Mission and Mandate
252
Strategy
254
Goals
254
Objectives
256
Problems and Tactics
258
Projects
259
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
262
If All It Took Was Money, Community-Based
Conservation Would Be Easy,
by HEATHER A. L. KNIGHT
263
x
Contents
12. Evaluation
271
The Context for Evaluation
271
Formative Evaluation
274
Characteristics of Formative Evaluation
Process Evaluation
275
Summative Evaluation
Characteristics of Summative Evaluation
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
280
282
285
Participation in Local Government Land-Use
286
Decisions, by GEORGE N.WALLACE
277
Assessing Progress
277
A Final Word
295
Making Adjustments
278
Characteristics of Process Evaluation
280
GLOSSARY
INDEX
297
303
Preface
The world is changing quickly, and our models of
learning, communicating, and acting must change
accordingly. Throughout society we must rethink
basic notions of how we define and accomplish
our goals in a complex and changing environment,
including how we prepare ourselves for professional careers. This book is an effort in that direction for students in natural resource management.
It is a response to some of the challenges we perceive students will face in the early twenty-first
century, and it is a practice field on which they
may begin to develop their skills.
This is a different kind of textbook for a different kind of course. It is based on the proposition
that college education in general, and education in
the natural resources in particular, must be active
and engage participants in the collaborative venture of learning. We’ve created a text consistent
with that proposition, partly because we believe
people learn more effectively in an active mode,
but especially because it is necessary that all of us
become more capable problem solvers in a complicated world. Hence, we like to think of the people
using this text as participants rather than readers,
as collaborators rather than students.
Learning technical information is important, of
course, to any field of endeavor, and it is the foundation upon which professionalism is built. Understanding the basic theories and empirical bases that
constitute fields such as ecology, economics, fisheries and wildlife management, specialized taxonomic studies, physiology, genetics, sociology, and
so forth is necessary to function as a professional—
necessary, but not sufficient. It has been our experience that much more is needed to be a professional, and that individuals planning careers in
natural resource management need more preparation in and experience with other skills and ideas
beyond the technical aspects of our work.
In particular, we need to understand that good
scientific and technical knowledge is not enough,
by itself, to succeed in natural resource management, because science is only one component of a
complex world of decision making. Environmental
policy and management decisions are set within a
much larger socioeconomic and institutional context, one that can swamp and effectively neutralize
the best scientific information if those who represent science do not know how to work effectively
with decision makers and diverse stakeholders. This
context can be a challenging place in which to
work, but work within it we must if the science is
to be used to guide environmental policy and management. We hope that this book, and our approach, helps make participants more effective
within that arena.
Our approach in this text is to engage participants early and often in active problem solving,
using realistic and complex landscape scenarios.
Although we cover the technical scientific information important to natural resource management
ranging from genes to landscapes, the real progress
will be made by integrating this information into
the human context. We believe this approach will
better prepare participants for the very complex
and challenging world beyond the safe confines of
a university.
This book grew out of a training course we developed and have presented for 7 years for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service through their National
Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown,
West Virginia. In 20 offerings to more than 600 natural resource professionals, we learned a great deal
about what is needed to function successfully at
that level. Participants from numerous federal and
state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, the
U.S. military, and industry took our course and educated us about their worlds; to them we owe a
great deal of gratitude. They have provided the
xi
xii
Preface
insights and wherewithal to help future practitioners in their profession travel a smoother road.
We thank Rick Lemmon (Director of NCTC), Chris
Horsch (Head of the Aquatic Resources Training
Branch), and especially June McIlwain, the leader of
our course, An Ecosystem Approach to Conservation.
It has been a pleasure to work with and learn from
such a fine group of professionals. The folks at Island Press have been outstanding to work with and
very professional. We are indebted to Barbara Dean
for encouraging us to attempt this book in the first
place and for keeping the project moving along. Her
insights, instincts, and intellect are something to behold. Barbara Youngblood, Cecilia González, Amelia
Durand, and copyeditor Betsy Dilernia all performed their jobs with grace and determination. We
thank our respective institutions for their logistic
support throughout this process. James Gibbs,
Steven Yaffee, and an anonymous reviewer provided excellent comments on an early draft, and
even where we did not heed their advice we certainly appreciated and learned from it. GKM is in-
debted to Margaret Flagg and Ellen Main of the editorial staff of Conservation Biology. Their professionalism, dedication, levels of excellence, and good
humor not only made it possible to write this book
on top of my “real job,” but they make it fun to go
to work every day. RLK wishes to thank his colleagues and former students at CSU for expanding
his thinking regarding natural resource management. Part of this work was written while on a sabbatical leave granted by Colorado State University.
LAN would like to thank Danielle Young-Kocovsky,
who assisted him in many ways. DAS wishes to
thank the men and women of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for their dedication to
resource management with their many stakeholders.
“Res non verba”—deeds, not words.
Finally, and most importantly, our families not
only have shown infinite patience and much
guidance, but have offered the greatest of gifts—
understanding and a solid foundation of love and
support from which to work and to believe in ourselves. We owe you one.
About the Authors
Gary K. Meffe is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at
the University of Florida. He is senior author of the
widely used college textbook Principles of Conservation Biology, coauthor of Biodiversity on Military
Lands: A Handbook, and coeditor of Ecology and
Evolution of Livebearing Fishes. Since 1997, he has
served as Editor of the international journal Conservation Biology.
Larry A. Nielsen is Dean of the College of Natural
Resources at North Carolina State University in
Raleigh. A fisheries biologist by training, he has
been honored for his teaching while on the faculty
at Virginia Tech and for enhancing diversity while
at Pennsylvania State University. He is sought
widely as a speaker on topics related to ecosystem
management, the future of natural resources, and
community-based conservation.
Richard L. Knight is a Professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University. His interests deal
with the interdependency of healthy human and
natural communities. He has edited several books,
including A New Century for Natural Resources
Management, Stewardship Across Boundaries, and
Aldo Leopold and the Ecological Conscience.
Dennis A. Schenborn is Chief of Planning and
Budget for the Bureau of Fisheries Management
and Habitat Protection of the Wisconsin State Department of Natural Resources. For more than 25
years, he has organized, led, and taught public involvement and organizational management for natural resource management agencies throughout
North America. He is past President of the Organization of Wildlife Planners and formerly served as a
research biologist with the United States Antarctic
Research Program on two Antarctic expeditions.
xiii
Essay Contributors
Roger L. Banks is the Field Supervisor for the
Ecological Services Field Office of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Charleston, S.C. He devoted
most of his career to protecting wetlands and other
important habitats through traditional regulatory
means. For the past 10 years he has pursued private and public partnership efforts in South Carolina geared toward promoting proactive, longterm habitat protection on a landscape scale.
Mark W. Brunson is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Environment & Society at Utah
State University. He studies social and psychological aspects of rangeland and forest management
to better understand what makes people accept or
take part in activities that contribute to environmental sustainability.
Heather A. L. Knight, a native of Australia, is The
Nature Conservancy Program Manager for the Phantom Canyon Preserve in the Laramie Foothills. This
300,000-acre site is one of the last remaining ranching
communities along Colorado’s northern Front Range.
and is a community-based conservation program supported by diverse public and private partners.
Bill McDonald is a fifth-generation rancher on
the Sycamore Ranch in southeastern Arizona. He
is a long-time supervisor of the Whitewater Draw
Natural Resource Conservation District and a past
recipient of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission’s award for Outstanding Wildlife Habitat
Stewardship. He helped form, and is the Executive Director of, the Malpai Borderlands Group,
for which he was awarded a MacArthur Genius
Fellowship in 1998.
Michael O’Connell is Managing Director of the
California South Coast Ecoregion for The Nature
Conservancy. His involvement in conservation
planning dates to the time when only four Habitat
Conservation Plans existed; over 400 are now in
preparation or are implemented. For 5 years, Mike
directed The Nature Conservancy’s involvement in
the Southern California NCCP program.
Riki Ott has dedicated her academic training in
marine biology and toxicology to help the public
understand the effects of oil, mining, and timber
industry activities on water quality and marine and
aquatic ecosystems. She has helped citizens use
this knowledge to redefine business practices and
government accountability to improve the quality
of life through environmental protection, social justice, and economic stability.
Kristin Smith is Executive Director of the Copper
River Watershed Project. For ten years she has
worked in the public sector on low-income housing and community-development projects. She
holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University.
George N. Wallace is an Associate Professor at
Colorado State University in the College of Natural
Resources, where he teaches and does research in
the areas of land use and protected area management. He also directs CSU’s Center for Protected
Area Management, serves as a Larimer County
Planning Commissioner, and owns and operates a
farm that has won several stewardship awards.
Steven L. Yaffee is a Professor of Natural Resource
and Environmental Policy in the School of Natural
Resources and Environment at the University of
Michigan, where he directs the school’s Ecosystem
Management Initiative, a center focused on imagining, evaluating, and promoting innovative approaches for sustainable natural resource management. Dr. Yaffee’s research focuses on collaboration
and adaptive management in ecosystem management and public policies that affect biodiversity
conservation.
xv
Introduction: New Approaches
for a New Millennium
Human activity over the past several hundred years
has left a significant and growing footprint on
planet Earth. In no period of human history has our
species had a greater impact on the biophysical
world. Ozone holes at the poles and microcontaminants in virtually every living organism attest to the
far-reaching effects of human activities on every
ecosystem. We build roads and log the hot zone of
equatorial Africa and then carry emergent viruses
across oceans. We burn neotropical rain forests to
make way for grazing and farming on land that can
sustain those practices for only a few short years.
We mine ancient aquifers to make the deserts
bloom, while other land-use practices expand the
deserts of North Africa. We dam rivers for irrigation
that wither the Caspian and Aral Seas. We harvest
the world’s oceans until the catch is depleted and
then move on to a new place or to another trophic
level. We develop and use land with only the barest
knowledge of the consequences of our actions on
the complex food webs and the bioenergetics of
oceanic and terrestrial systems too vast to under-
stand, yet so vulnerable that we have altered them
in irrevocable ways.
In the United States, we reduce timber harvest on
our public forests, while we increase our consumption of wood products and decry the cutting of boreal and tropical forests. We build cities in the desert
and let them sprawl with far-flung subdivisions,
while we ponder the politics and technology necessary to move water from the Great Lakes to the
Southwest. We construct subdivisions over rich mesic
farmlands of the Midwest, while building elaborate
irrigation systems to grow crops in green circles on
arid, short-grass prairie. We let chance plan our cities
while we meticulously bioengineer transgenic crops
and other species to solve problems we have created
but do not understand. We cannot, however, effectively engineer what we do not understand, and
what we largely do not understand is our impact on
the ecosystems upon which we depend.
During the twentieth century, we became detached from the land that supports us and often
lost sight of its complexity. Although it is crucial
that we consider the long-term consequences of
1
Figure I.1. Three examples of
the application of ecosystem
management principles in
large landscapes.
(a)
(a) A Florida panther habitat
in a mixture of agricultural
fields and forests in Collier
County, south Florida. (Photo
by David Maehr.)
(b)
(b) The Malpai borderlands
region of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New
Mexico, the site of innovative
ecosystem approaches to sustaining ranching lifestyles
and maintaining diverse and
healthy native biota. (Photo by
Charles Curtin.)
(c)
(c) Volunteers in the Chicago
Wilderness initiative help
maintain some 200,000 acres
of forests, prairies, and wetlands in and around the
heavily populated Chicago
region. (Photo by Carol
Freeman.)
New Approaches for a New Millennium
our actions on the ecological systems that support
life on Earth, we typically fail to do so. Now, as we
measure ozone holes at the poles, shrinking ice
caps, rising seas, and the lack of fresh water, a
growing knowledge about the impact of humans
on the environment compels changes in our
business-as-usual attitude. We are more than 6 billion people who have crossed into a new millennium, and we have a clear choice: to continue our
destructive relationship with the ecological world
or to diverge from the path taken for the last several hundred years.
This book is about the application of the sciences
of ecology and conservation biology to real-world
problem solving. Emphasizing the complex ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional matrix in which
natural resource management functions, it will illustrate how we can be more effective in that challenging arena. This book is also about people in communities of interest and communities of place—
people who care so much about their quality of life
today and in the future that they have chosen to
work with others to improve the places where they
live, work, and play, while restoring the land. It is
about the interface of science, people, and their
governments as they struggle to understand
their collective impacts on ecosystems and change
their approaches. It is about people who believe
that, because their actions affect ecosystems in profound ways, they must learn to live more gently on
the land. Here are a few examples (Figure I.1):
• In south Florida, a coalition of public agencies,
environmental groups, and private citizens are
restoring and protecting critical habitat for the
Florida panther and many other species on a
million acres of private land.
• A group of ecological and social scientists in
China is trying to influence their government’s
population control, emigration, and economic
policies to better balance the needs of the local
human community with the habitat needs of
the last giant pandas living in the wild.
• Amidst large pressures from development interests, nearly 1 million acres of native Arizona
and New Mexican grasslands and forests are
cooperatively managed by the Malpai Border-
3
lands Group to maintain ranching lifestyles
and restore the natural processes that sustain a
healthy, unfragmented landscape.
• Along the Blackfoot River of Montana, ranchers and other private landowners are working
together to restore the river while maintaining
the rural working character of the landscape.
They have restored 100 miles of the river, recreated 2100 acres of wetlands, and placed
45,000 acres in conservation easements.
• More than 135 private and public organizations have created the Chicago Wilderness
initiative to protect, restore, and manage native prairie, wetlands, and other natural communities in and around the city of Chicago.
Their mission includes community outreach
and education efforts.
• In the Applegate Valley of Oregon, environmentalists, loggers, and government officials set
aside their differences and found a common
ground centered on managing for a healthy forest with natural and economic values.
These and many other examples of communitybased approaches to ecosystem management affirm
that we can, as Aldo Leopold wrote in 1938, “learn
to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” The
people who are making progress toward resolving
natural resource issues at the ecosystem level do so
by avoiding prolonged court battles and win-lose
situations. Success comes from rational discussion
among groups with different viewpoints and the
development of common goals. Sharing scientific
information is, of course, essential to mutual understanding of the natural processes affected by human
activity, but it is not, by itself, enough. The success
stories come not only from understanding scientific
information, but also from the motivations of various people and their ways of facilitating dialog and
consensus to reach common goals.
The Appearance
of Ecosystem Management
In the 1990s, natural resource management in the
United States underwent a major change in philosophy and direction. As past efforts using top-
4
Introduction
down, government-mandated, expert-driven approaches to managing natural resources failed or
met with public resistance and resentment, new
ideas came into play that took a different approach. For the first time in conservation history,
shared decision making, cooperation rather than
confrontation, and grass-roots, community-based
involvement at the local level began to replace or
supplement government-mandated programs imposed on landscapes from the outside. These efforts are also focusing on large natural systems
(such as watersheds), rather than staying within
artificial and ecologically meaningless straight
lines on a map. Known variously as ecosystem
management, community-based conservation,
adaptive management, or landscape-level conservation, these efforts are not only working, but are
sweeping through natural resource management
agencies, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and even industry as a more reasonable way to conduct land and resource management. There is no going back at this point, and as
we move further into the twenty-first century with
an expanding human population and shrinking
resource base, the demand for ecosystem management as an appropriate problem-solving mechanism will only increase.
This book is intended to address this change in
approach and to prepare you—today’s students of
natural resource management and conservation—
for the many challenges that await you as professionals. The book is based on three fundamental
premises:
1. The effective and efficient use and management of Earth’s natural resources are critically
important to both human welfare and the
continuance of functional ecosystems and biological diversity on this planet.
2. The management of such use is an increasingly difficult challenge, as each year witnesses more people chasing fewer resources
in a more contentious way.
3. Traditional university curricula may not fully
prepare students in natural resource management programs for grappling with the extraordinarily complex, uncertain, multidimen-
sional, and often contentious arena in which
these challenges are played out.
Our intention is to directly address the third
premise: enabling you as students to more effectively deal with the second premise when you become professionals, so that the first premise can ultimately be achieved. But first we must ask
whether these premises are true, or at least reasonable approximations. Let’s examine them in turn.
First premise. Obviously, all of the resources humanity uses come from Earth, driven by the energy
source of the sun. So in a trivial sense, at least, the
first premise is true: We only have materials from
Earth with which to prosper as a species. But in a
less trivial vein, scientific evidence continues to
show that functional ecosystems provide humanity
with many and diverse services that we could not
live without: oxygen production, purification of
fresh water, erosion control, fertile soil production
and retention, climate control and temperature amelioriation, food production, crop pollination, waste
decomposition and detoxification, mitigation of
floods and droughts, and so forth. And biologically
diverse systems seem better than impoverished systems at providing these services. The loss of such
functions cannot help but be harmful to humanity.
At minimum, they are prohibitively costly to replace
through technological means, and they obviously
are harmful to the diversity of life on Earth.
Second premise. Our experiences and those of
other scientists and managers unequivocally indicate that natural resource management increasingly
faces complex challenges. Special interests, ideologically driven politics, competition for limited space
and resources by a growing human population, and
an increasing disconnection from the land by Americans and others have combined to exploit natural
systems in a degradative and unsustainable manner
and offer challenging management dilemmas.
Third premise. A trend in the second half of the
twentieth century toward specialization and highly
focused, disciplinary training in university curricula
means that you may be ill-prepared to meet the
challenges of a complex, contentious atmosphere
that requires skills well beyond technical, scientific
knowledge. We have repeatedly heard from natural
New Approaches for a New Millennium
resource professionals that their university training
did not come close to preparing them for the nonscientific aspects of their jobs—the “people” parts
of their work that often dominate their days. To
better prepare you as professionals, we wish to introduce you to such a world in a “safe setting”
where scenarios may be played out, experience
gained, and new skills developed.
This book is intended to actively engage you in
problem solving by melding the scientific principles
of conservation biology with the complex human
dimensions that prevail in everyday life, with the
goal of equipping you to address real issues in conservation and management. This problem-solving,
inquiry-based mode of learning is, we think, more
effective for professional development than the traditional lecture-and-listen mode, because conservation and resource management are dynamic activities that require active, engaged people able to
adapt to changing circumstances. It is also vastly
more exciting, as it enables you to grapple with
problems and develop your own solutions through
direct experience and participation, and apply your
technical knowledge to real issues. Thus, this book
and its accompanying course will likely be different from traditional classes you have had and
books you have used. We note in particular that
this is not a comprehensive textbook in conservation biology; there are other books that serve that
purpose. Rather, we use basic principles of conservation biology, integrated with practical aspects of
the human dimensions, to pursue and forge problem solving for real landscapes.
How to Use This Book
This book is structured around three main parts.
Part I (Chapters 1–4) provides the conceptual toolbox of, and sets the stage for, ecosystem management. These chapters present the basic models and
concepts that will be followed throughout. Part II
(Chapters 5–9) provides the biological and ecological background necessary to conduct effective
ecosystem management by discussing levels of biological organization from genes progressively up
through landscapes. This will be a review for
5
many, and new material for others, and will get
everyone on the same playing field. Part III (Chapters 10–12) uses the various human dimensions to
implement the technical, ecological knowledge that
you have within contemporary socioeconomic and
institutional settings.
In Chapters 2–12, problem-solving exercises directly engage you with the material at hand. These
exercises are perhaps the most critical aspect of
this approach, as they will challenge you to use the
materials in an applied, hands-on manner and
often will give you the opportunity to discuss the
materials (sometimes in a heated fashion!) with
your fellow students. In places, the material is also
complemented with “boxes,” or supplementary material having some bearing on the subject at hand.
These should also enrich your experiences and
stimulate further thinking on the topic.
There are eight essays—“Experiences in Ecosystem Management”—presented at the end of selected chapters. These are firsthand accounts of
ecosystem management and community-based
conservation, written by the people who were
there and are trying to make this approach work
on the ground in real places. Although the essays
do not necessarily correspond to the specific contents of the chapters, they are good examples of
the challenges that are occuring in many places of
finding innovative ways to reduce conflict and live
better upon the land. You should use these essays
as guides to applying this approach to real-world
situations. Each essay ends with several questions
that offer fodder for further discussion on that particular ecosystem experience. These will prove
very useful, as they derive from real situations that
professionals have had to grapple with.
What really sets this course apart from others,
and, we think, makes it quite exciting, is that it is
built around hypothetical but realistic and complex landscape scenarios that you will work with
to make decisions and recommendations in an
ecosystem management framework. Three scenarios are included in Chapter 1: one represents the
northeastern or midwestern part of the United
States (The ROLE Model); a second represents the
intermountain west (SnowPACT); and a third
reflects the humid, lowland southeast (PDQ
6
Introduction
Revival). Individually and as a class you will become intimately familiar with one or more of
these scenarios, including their geographic settings; ecological features (such as major habitat
types, prevalent species, hydrology, climate, and
management issues); and the human landscape,
including the socioeconomic features, political
scene, and major players. The scenarios will be
used throughout the course to address natural resource management problems and issues that represent those likely to arise in such settings. We
recommend that you address most of these problems and issues as interactive groups or an entire
class and seek solutions collectively via discussion
and careful planning.
The problems and issues you will face are intentionally complex, sloppy, difficult—and maybe
even frustrating at times. But they are realistic and
reflect the problems that professionals in this field
face nearly every day. The goal is to come to grips
with the realities of the world so that you may be
more competent as a professional to confront such
challenges when it really counts.
You will find that often there is no one correct
solution—or many possible solutions—for a given
problem. And you will not know whether the responses you develop will actually work. There are
no patently right or wrong answers to most exercises, and no “answer guide” is provided to check
your results. This approach reflects how the world
actually operates; you must learn to deal with
vagueness and uncertainty, and make decisions
with incomplete information and conflicting pressures. You also must learn to work with people
outside your profession who represent different
value systems, hold perspectives that may be unfamiliar to you, and have the power to do things that
you cannot do or cannot stop. The approach we
lay out here will provide an important opportunity
to experience a realistic professional setting before
you find yourself in such a situation where you
eventually work—when it really counts, and when
the future of the natural and human communities
may be at stake.
Have fun with the scenarios! Embrace them—
learn the players, begin to “inhabit” the places.
Feel free to “think outside the box” to develop in-
novative solutions to very complex problems. Use
this as an opportunity to apply what you already
know about science and human behavior, combined with new materials and skills you will need
to learn and develop, to address very practical and
applied issues. Do not feel bound by convention,
though you will be bound by laws and community
standards of behavior. Always remember to act
with integrity, conviction, and attention to detail.
Regardless of your personal feelings about an
issue, they should not cloud your objectivity as a
scientist or your ethical obligations as a citizen.
You may find yourself making recommendations
you are uncomfortable with or would prefer not to
do. This again reflects the challenges that professionals must deal with every day.
The scenarios, and the book as a whole, focus on
the United States. We do this for two reasons: (1)
Our collective experiences are in the U.S., and it is
best to write what you know about; and (2) many of
the ideas and approaches used here have been developed by and used in resource management in the
U.S. Regardless, this approach and the ideas behind
it fundamentally are without political boundaries.
The scenarios are useful anywhere, or they can be
modified to fit the special needs of any locality.
AN OVERVIEW AND THE FLOW
OF THE TEXT
Our approach will be practical, will orient you toward active problem solving, and will center on realistic land management problems and issues.
Chapter 1 provides the landscape scenarios that
you will use to address management problems
throughout the remainder of the book. Of course,
this chapter should be read first (perhaps more
than once) and the scenario information carefully
absorbed. Chapter 2 formally defines ecosystem
management and examines how successful action
at an ecosystem scale requires the involvement and
long-term commitment of ecological and social
scientists, human communities, and government.
Although they can produce short-term results,
single-species oriented and unilateral, top-down
approaches to managing natural resources often
fail when applied to larger-scale systems or over
New Approaches for a New Millennium
longer time frames. Chapter 3 considers why uncertainty and variation dominate natural and
human systems, pointing out how simple solutions
focusing on only one or a few parameters do not
take into account the complexity of most ecosystems. In Chapter 4, we see that natural resource
policies and actions can be viewed as experiments
that provide opportunities to learn about ecosystems, rather than prescriptions to be faithfully followed. The inherent complexity and uncertainty of
ecosystems mandate the monitoring and evaluation
of management actions, and modifications of our
adaptive management approach as needed.
Chapters 5–9 present advances in the fields of
genetics, population ecology, and landscape ecology that have given us new concepts and scientific
tools with which to better understand ecosystems.
These chapters collectively form a “primer” of conservation biology. They may be a review for some
students and new material for others; regardless,
they will lay the foundation for bringing science
onto a firm footing with socioeconomic and institutional considerations in good management.
In Chapter 10, we discuss why natural resources
cannot be managed effectively without public support. Court battles over ecosystem or environmental issues have not solved ecological problems.
Lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive, and
they produce losers as well as winners. Dialog between scientists and public interest groups can result in mutual goals that meet both ecological and
human needs. People protect what they learn to
value and fail to protect what they do not know
how to value. Clearly, natural resources cannot be
managed effectively without the application of ob-
7
jective, science-based ecological understanding, yet
they also cannot be managed successfully without
public support.
The scale of ecosystem management necessitates cooperation across multiple government jurisdictions and on both public and private lands.
Piecemeal actions do not work as well as coordinated actions that focus on common objectives. A
systematic and explicit process is essential to sustaining action and evaluating progress. Chapters 11
and 12 are concerned with the process of strategic
thinking: deciding what the objectives should be,
how to achieve them, and how to measure success.
You may notice that, contrary to many scientific
textbooks, we generally do not include source citations for information within the text (other than to
attribute direct quotes or ideas). Rather than break
up the message with reference support for every
point made, we conclude each chapter with appropriate references and suggested readings on that
topic. We encourage you to pursue these writings
as authoritative sources for the topics; they will provide more specialized information on each topic
than we can offer here. Also, we move back and
forth between metric and nonmetric measurements.
Virtually all scientific work is done using metric
units (meters, hectares, and so forth), but much
conversation in the “real world” uses nonmetric
measures (yards, acres, and so on). We retained
both of these approaches to reflect the complexities
of the world and to illustrate the flexibility needed
by professionals to work within both scientific and
nonscientific circles. Finally, note that terms in boldface are important enough to be formally defined in
a glossary toward the back of the book.
P A R T
I
The Conceptual Toolbox
R
T E
C H
A
P
1
The Landscape Scenarios
YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THIS BOOK AND THE SUCCESS
of this course largely will revolve around and depend upon the landscape scenarios. These are
where you will work on many of the problems
and questions embedded in the chapters, to help
you work through and “experience” the materials
presented. Get to know your scenario thoroughly
in every aspect: ecologically, socioeconomically,
politically, and geographically.
Three landscape scenarios follow. All of them
are equally challenging, and they all address the
same basic problems.
• The ROLE Model is set in a midwestern/
northeastern landscape of mixed industrial
and agricultural land use.
• SnowPACT is set in the intermountain West,
with large private and public ownerships and
associated conflicts of changing uses.
• PDQ Revival is set in the humid Southeast, is
influenced by a major military base, and cap-
tures the changing sociopolitical climate of
that region.
Your instructor will inform you which scenario(s) to use. As you read the assigned scenario, begin to digest its richness and complexities. Study the maps, look at the photographs,
and get a good feel for the landscape. Begin to
“inhabit” the place and become part it. You will
refer to the scenario throughout the course and
use it as a reference source for detailed information. In the chapters that follow, you will use
your growing scientific knowledge base, combined with processes and techniques we will
cover, to address and explore many challenging
questions and issues to be addressed in this
place. Dive in and have fun!
Note that each scenario contains names of individuals who play various roles in those systems.
All names are fictitious, and any resemblance to
persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
11
12
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
THE ROLE MODEL
Just 6 months ago, an unprecedented event occurred in the area known as Round Lake (Figure 1.1). Representatives of communities, agencies, and interest groups stood together before
a press conference and read the following
statement:
A
n old adage says, “Today is the first day of the
rest of your life.” We can paraphrase by saying
today is the first day of the rest of the Round Lake
Ecosystem’s life. We are here today to sign an agreement that dedicates the people, agencies, and resources of our area to a new style of managing our
natural resources and environment. We pledge to
work together to assure that the qualities we love
and need—clean water, clean air, abundant and diverse wildlife and fish, healthy land, and productive
farms and forests—will continue and prosper
through time and space.
We have chosen to call this initiative the Round
Lake Ecosystem Model—or ROLE Model—because
we believe this effort can truly be a model for ourselves and the rest of the nation. We know that the
ways of the past, which have fragmented land and
communities and have pitted neighbor against neigh-
THE ROLE MODEL AGREEMENT
The Round Lake Ecosystem Model Agreement is a
simple document with profound implications. Most
importantly, it establishes the Round Lake Ecosystem Team as a broadly based coalition of representatives of all groups that wish to join. It has an initial 10-year charter, with the expectation that it will
be renewed continuously and become a leading
focus for community planning and action.
The state Department of Natural Resources
(DNR), through its secretary, and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, through its regional director, have
committed their resources to provide the base operations for the team. Each agency has agreed to
assign one professional to coordinate the team’s
work for the next 5 years—commitments that were
considered essential (and inspirational). In addi-
bor, cannot continue. We all have too much to lose
by those behaviors. And we have so much to gain by
working together, using reason, and seeking win-win
solutions to issues.
We often talk about being role models. We know
that our children will behave as they see us behave,
so we try to be honest, just, and forgiving within our
families. We know that as responsible members of the
public community, we must establish rules and procedures that are fair, open, and respectful of others.
To these roles and role models, today we add the necessity of treating the land and its resources with the
same care and respect that we extend to other humans. We recognize that we depend on the health
and productivity of our lands to provide us the essentials of life—air, water, soil, plants, and animals—
and also the beauty and comfort that nurtures our
character.
Today we begin a long, difficult, and expensive
journey, but a journey that we know will take us
where we want to go. We are confident the people
of the Round Lake ecosystem want to take this journey. We are proud that our citizens, businesses,
agencies, and community groups are leading themselves and the nation in becoming the ROLE Model!
tion, each agency has agreed to assign its most
senior local staff person to serve on the team.
These are the DNR’s District Director, Margaret Staples, and the Bingham National Wildlife Refuge
manager, Oliver Adams. And, of course, these
agencies have pledged the support of their staff
and physical resources to help along the way.
All signatories to the agreement are automatically members of the team, and a subset has been
elected by the members to comprise the Steering
Committee. The list is impressive (Steering Committee members are noted by an asterisk):
ROLE Model Members
Benson City Council*
Bingham National Wildlife Refuge*
CHAPTER
13
1: The Landscape Scenarios
Truman
National
Forest
La
te
ra
lm
ne
ai
or
D
Crawford
State Forest
er
iv
rR
ee
Northeast Power
Company Dam
12
Crawford
State Forest
Crawford
State Forest
Lake City
12
Hydropower
dams
Mixed private
forest and
farm tracts
Round
Lake
Be
nt
C
r
City of
Benson
Little
Lake
k
ee
Bingham
National
Wildlife
Refuge
Golf
course
ai
Dr
na
ge
n
ca
al
Cranberry
fields
Current and
former wetlands
TLC
La
te
l
ra
Row crops
and dairy
m
ne
ai
or
Figure 1.1. A map of the Round Lake ecosystem.
Crawford County Planning Commission*
Cranberry Growers’ Association*
Cranberry Marsh Audubon Society
Crawford County Grange*
Department of Natural Resources*
Friends of Round Lake
Hardwood Lumber Manufacturers’ Association
Hunters for Waterfowl*
Lake City Council*
League of Women Voters
Little Lake Shoreline Association
Mid-State Outdoor Writers Association
Northeast Power Company*
Penowa Indian Nation*
Round Lake Area Chamber of Commerce*
Round Lake Forest Landowners Association*
Society for North American Plants (SNAP)
Truman National Forest*
Trust for Land Conservation (TLC)*
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers*
U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service
Walleyes for Tomorrow
The agreement lists several core values the
group chose as guidelines for their long-term
operation:
The ROLE Model’s Core Values
We seek to create a place that meets the needs of ourselves and future residents. We seek to do this in a way
that will be a model of civility, common sense, rationality, and efficiency. We pledge ourselves to be guided by
the following principles:
• We will be inclusive, rather than exclusive, inviting
all people and viewpoints; but we will not tolerate
attempts to delay or derail our efforts.
14
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
• We will use all the expert knowledge we can get to
help guide decisions, including that of scientists,
economists, and sociologists; but we will not
shrink from decisions or actions because of “insufficient data.”
• We will supplement the maps of ownership and
jurisdiction with maps of natural features and
functions.
• We will work with all decision-making groups,
from county commissioners to national agencies,
to bring the ideas and goodwill of our citizens
forward.
• We will find win-win situations, so that no individuals lose in decisions that bring gains to all of us.
• We will seek voluntary cooperation rather than
rules, regulations, and laws.
• We will set our vision on the long-term and will be
prepared to discuss openly the short-term costs of
such a vision.
• We will be realistic, recognizing that we start from
here and that our first steps probably will be small.
• We will succeed!
THE ROUND LAKE ECOSYSTEM
The Round Lake ecosystem is a large watershed
that drains into the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence system. The major water system is the Little Lake–
Bent Creek–Round Lake–Deer River drainage,
which generally flows northeast. Most of the area
was glaciated in the Wisconsinian era, but fingers
of unglaciated lands intrude from the south. The
elevation is about 800 feet, with flat to rolling terrain. The glaciated areas support rich farms and
relatively productive forestlands in a mixed patchwork that reminds people of a calendar photograph (Figure 1.2).
The Round Lake ecosystem is split into two primary physiographic regions by a lateral moraine
that runs north to south just west of Round Lake
(see Figure 1.1). The soils to the east of the
moraine are a mix of silty loams overlaying a complex geology of glacial till that forms the flat outwash plain to the east. This creates a shallow
aquifer with high transmissibility through the sand
and gravel outwash with scattered clay lenses.
Groundwater flows in a general northeastern direction, but flow varies from location to location because of the clay formations. West of the moraine,
sandstone and limestone formations underlay the
thinner soils of what once was contiguous forest.
The area is dominated by Round Lake, a 40,000acre natural lake named for its nearly circular
shape. Round Lake is relatively shallow (maximum
depth 85 feet; average depth 30 feet) and has
expansive littoral areas, some rocky and some silty;
Figure 1.2. The Round Lake
ecosystem has mixed land
uses of field crops interspersed with deciduous
forests and natural lakes.
(Photo by Larry A. Nielsen.)
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
it stratifies in summer and is ice-covered in most
winters. The lake is roughly divided into two
basins, separated by a relatively shallow section
that runs west-east across the lower third of the
lake. The southern basin has relatively slow water
turnover rates because the main flow of water
through the lake occurs in the larger, northern
basin. The lake holds a typical fauna of warm-water
and cool-water fishes, including largemouth and
smallmouth bass, various panfishes, walleyes, carp,
and suckers; 33 fish species were recorded in the
most recent biological surveys. Round Lake is used
extensively for recreational boating, served by substantial marinas in the towns of Benson and Lake
City.
The southern shore of Round Lake was once
connected to a wetland system almost as large as
Round Lake itself. Much of the wetland area was
drained for farming. Today most of the farms in
the wetland region grow cranberries; the Round
Lake region supplies about 30% of the nation’s industrial cranberries (i.e., those that go into food
processing). A portion of the wetlands is protected
via the Bingham National Wildlife Refuge, a 9000acre refuge created in the 1940s. The refuge is
named after the nineteenth-century artist George
Caleb Bingham, who did an extensive set of paintings depicting pioneer and Native American life
along the southern shore (many of those paintings
are on display in the Lake City Art Museum). Other
parts of the wetland have been drained for golf
course developments; other wetlands, especially
those close to the lakeshore, are privately owned.
Little Lake is a smaller version of Round Lake,
about 10 miles upstream, linked to Round Lake via
Bent Creek. Little Lake, 12,000 acres in area, has a
similar limnological profile to Round Lake and a
similar fauna. However, walleyes are uncommon in
the lake, prohibited from upstream movements by
the series of low-head power dams on Bent Creek.
The land around Little Lake was once owned entirely by Howard Brown, who invented the movable carriage for the typewriter. Brown, who was
somewhat eccentric, wanted to be able to stand on
the shore of the lake and own everything he could
see. He succeeded, but his family was not as fortunate financially, and after his death in 1944, they
15
sold off the land bit by bit. In the 1970s, the family
regained its feet financially, realized that they had
lost most of what had been a tremendous resource,
and gave the remaining parcel, about 5000 acres
and 1 mile of shoreline, to the Trust for Land Conservation (TLC).
Truman National Forest, in the northwestern
portion of the watershed, is named after President
Harry Truman. The land had been in federal ownership since the 1920s, after it had been logged,
farmed, and abandoned. Truman issued an executive order making it a National Forest in 1948,
along with several others in the eastern U.S. It contains a largely even-aged forest, with most stands
80–100 years old. Major stands are white oak, red
oak, sugar maple, hemlock, and white pine. Truman National Forest has been one of the very few
national forests that conduct profitable timber
sales, on approximately 200,000 of its 300,000
acres. Truman is a true multiple-use forest, with
major recreational uses and extensive interests in
developing old-growth forests from the 5000 acres
of old growth remaining. The lands that fall within
the Round Lake area include a mixture of mature
forests and about half of the old-growth tracts.
Managers at Truman National Forest have
looked at their old growth in the Round Lake region and decided that they should develop a management plan that eventually will link their oldgrowth remnants into a continuous band. They are
particularly interested in using this base for linking
with other old-growth and mature forests on state
and private lands.
Crawford State Forest is a three-unit forest in the
region. Just like the Truman, it has mostly mature
stands of mixed hardwoods with occasional stands
of hemlock. Each unit of the forest is about 5000
acres, the minimum size the state will accept or
keep as state forest. The state forest is surrounded
by mixed farmland and private forestland; most
private tracts are small (averaging 55 acres), and
the owners have other jobs that provide their
major income.
Real estate values are soaring anywhere near
the Crawford and Truman forests. Larger tracks of
private agricultural land are being divided into 3to-10-acre home sites and sold to people who
16
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
want to be close to nature while remaining within
commuting distance of Lake City.
THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SETTING
Lake City is a city of 100,000 residents on the
northeastern shore of Round Lake (Figure 1.3).
Like most cities of its size, it grew rapidly around
1900, spurred by the Industrial Revolution. It
profited greatly from its proximity to larger midwestern cities. A rail line put Lake City on the path
of agricultural products moving north and east and
manufactured products moving south and west.
Lake City developed a diversified economic base,
which continues now. Always a civic-minded city,
Lake City has built a reputation for being a good
place to live. Annual surveys place it about halfway down the list of the “100 Best Places to Live in
America.” Lake City’s long-time mayor, Tom Morning, is the perfect representative of the town. He is
down-to-earth, action-oriented, trusting of people,
suspicious of government, ambitious, and hard
working. Although the mayor was slow to warm to
the idea of the ROLE Model, once he became convinced that it could be the way to move Lake City
up the list of the Best 100, he got behind it fully.
Because of its civic character, Lake City is alive
with groups that work on its behalf. The group
known as Friends of Round Lake works constantly
to keep the water clean and the lake accessible to
Figure 1.3. Lake City is a prosperous community surrounding the outlet of Round Lake into the Deer River.
(Photo by Larry A. Nielsen.)
all citizens. They annually sponsor shoreline cleanups, coordinate boating safety classes, and sponsor
an annual Aquatic Envirothon. They have pledged
their membership to being active in the ROLE
Model idea, suggesting especially that they would
love to stage community events that would get
people involved—and might generate money. A
series of other similar organizations feel and act
the same way, although they sometimes tend to be
a bit more narrow in their interests. Friends of
Round Lake has clearly become the leading environmental/civic group in the area. For example,
the group’s part-time executive director, Chris Gallagher, has just been asked by the governor to become co-chairman of his new Commission for the
21st Century Environment.
Benson is across Round Lake from Lake City,
where Bent Creek enters the lake. Benson has
20,000 residents, down from its highest population
of nearly 50,000. Benson has not been as fortunate
as Lake City. It thrived on heavy industries, which
were located along the rail-line in the town and
down Bent Creek toward Little Lake. The rusting of
the industries, starting in the early 1960s, took its
toll on the economics of the community. When Interstate 12 was completed in 1967, continuing west
from Lake City, rather than following the rail-line
south, Benson went into an economic downturn.
Many of the heavy industries closed up, leaving
old facilities that have now become environmental
problems. Long considered a rival of Lake City, the
city of Benson has recently realized that it should
look to Lake City as a partner. Nonetheless, Benson and its mayor, Nancy Lyons, remain fairly traditional. Although signatories to the ROLE Model
Agreement, they enter the team fairly skeptical and
certainly cautious.
Benson has two bright spots economically. The
leading citizens of Benson always lived on the
south side of town, along the lakefront. In recent
years, several residential developments have begun
popping up on the south side of town and beyond. Folks from Lake City and surrounding areas
have begun buying property on 5-to-10-acre sites,
building upscale houses and generally raising the
prestige of the area. Several major real estate investment trusts, searching for relatively cheap sites
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
for development in proximity of desirable communities, have taken options on tracts of several thousand acres each.
The second bright spot has been the growth of
golf in the region. Prominent Benson citizens
funded and built a 9-hole country club golf course
in the 1920s, south of the city and adjacent to the
Bingham Wildlife Refuge. In the post-war boom
time of the early 1950s, they expanded the course
to 18 holes. The quality of the course, along with
its beautiful setting (holes go from forest to wetland to lakeshore settings), attracted increasing interest. In conjunction with real estate developers,
the club went semipublic in the 1970s, selling condominiums along the fairways. In 1990, a second
golf course was built, along with a medium-sized
conference hotel complex. Today, plans are under
way for a major golf resort, with two 18-hole
championship courses, 200 fairway condominiums,
and a 200-room hotel; the resort will be called
Sandhill at Bent Creek.
The Round Lake region is also strongly linked to
the Penowa People, a Native American tribe. The
tribe lived around Round and Little Lakes when
the first pioneers came to the area. They fished the
lakes, gathered wild rice in the marsh of Round
Lake, and eventually practiced some farming. They
fished the spring runs of walleyes that came up
Deer River and Bent Creek, spearing spawning
walleyes. They smoked and dried the walleye meat.
The Penowans chose the wrong side in the war of
1812, however, fighting with the British against the
United States. After the war, they were convinced to
cede their lands to the U.S. government, but they
retained their rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild
rice for both their own use and trade.
Today about 1000 Penowans live in the Round
Lake area. Tribal members have continued to
gather wild rice through time and sell it through
local outlets at a high price. Known for its large,
meaty grains and earthy flavor, Penowan wild rice
is considered a delicacy throughout the region and
has been tapped by organic and health food
restaurants in the East. The business thrives today.
Tribal members also have been increasingly interested in the reestablishment of their walleye fishing traditions and the possibilities of developing a
17
highly profitable business along the lines of their
wild rice ventures. They are increasingly interested
in reestablishing runs of native walleyes, but only
if legitimate stocks will be used.
SPECIAL RESOURCES
The following species illustrate some of the leading “players” in the biological and ecological issues
that need to be addressed with the ROLE Model
ecosystem.
WALLEYES. The walleye population in Round Lake
is quite vigorous, supported by a DNR walleye
hatchery at the mouth of Bent Creek that annually
catches and strips thousands of adults, raises the
eggs to fry, and stocks them in the lake. Through
time, the hatchery has supplemented its catches
with eggs brought in from Lake Erie and the Ohio
River. The walleye fishery is closely monitored by
Walleyes for Tomorrow, a group whose members
have many ideas for improving the fishery.
Walleyes for Tomorrow employs their own biologist, Jacek Wajda, who reviews agency plans and
participates in all technical and citizen task forces.
The group is interested in stocking various strains.
They also want a fishway around the Northeast
Power Company Dam, to get back the walleye
runs their grandparents talk about (Figure 1.4), and
are pushing to introduce zander, the European
equivalent of the walleye. (One reason they hired
Wajda is his previous experience working with
zander in Poland.)
Walleyes in Little Lake are another story.
Walleyes disappeared from Little Lake in the 1920s,
when a series of low-head hydropower dams were
built on Bent Creek; four dams still exist and still
block upstream migration. In 1970, when the DNR
unexpectedly caught 2 ripe females and 20 ripe
males in routine spring netting in Little Lake, they
immediately spawned them and kept them separately in the hatchery. They restocked the fry in Little Lake, and a small, unstable population has developed. The Little Lake walleye population has
grown and shrunk repeatedly over time, but it has
never grown to a size to support a fishery.
Recently, Walleyes for Tomorrow has demanded
18
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
Figure 1.4. The Northeast
Power Company Dam is an
aging hydroelectric facility
on the Deer River downstream from Lake City.
(Photo by Larry A. Nielsen.)
that the DNR increase the stocking of walleyes in
Round Lake in response to several weak year
classes. The Penowan tribe, the DNR, and Walleyes
for Tomorrow also have proposed developing Little Lake as a trophy-only walleye lake, using the
walleye population already in that lake. They wish
to develop a sport fishery to rival Lake Erie within
5 years. They also wish to directly compete for an
annual booking on the North American Walleye
Tournament that will bring more than $3 million to
the local community if successful.
THE SHINERS. Maps of the state distribution of
fishes always show many dots for Little Lake. It has
been an ichthyologist’s delight for a century. Early
surveys by David Starr Jordan remarked about the
unusual diversity of shiners. Later surveys confirmed the reality: Little Lake held an unusual diversity of cyprinids (minnows) and percids (darters
and perch), including five species of a shiner
genus known nowhere else except Little Lake and
Lake Erie. The shiners are quite abundant within
the lake, but are carefully watched because of their
uniqueness.
The shiners are particularly interesting because
they are hosts for the glochidia (larval form) of a
species of freshwater mussel, the radiant mussel,
that lives along the shores of Little Lake and
nowhere else. The radiant mussel is also unusual
because it is a lake mussel, living on the rocky
shoreline areas of Little Lake, which includes TLC
property.
The shiners also have a special significance to
fishing-tackle buffs. They were the models for the
original five colors and patterns used by the American Tackle Company for their “Looks-Alive lures”
in the 1930s.
BOG TURTLE. The wetlands south of Round Lake
are home to the bog turtle, a widely spread but uncommon turtle found east of the Mississippi, from
New York to South Carolina (Figure 1.5). The bog
turtle lives in freshwater marshes and clear, slowmoving streams with muddy bottoms. It is a small
turtle, seldom growing larger than 4 inches across.
It is an omnivore, but dearly loves mussels and
crayfish. It grows slowly and becomes sexually mature at 8 years. It is a secretive animal, except
when it suns on rocks or logs. Rather like a sea
turtle, it leaves the water to lay eggs (1–6 per nest)
in June, moving to more upland areas as much as
a half-mile away from water. Young turtles hatch in
August or September and take the reverse route
back to the water.
The most successful reproduction occurs in
three areas: the Bingham National Wildlife Refuge,
CHAPTER
Figure 1.5. Bog turtles are found in the southern regions
of Round Lake and in the swamps and uplands adjacent
to the lake. (Photo by R.G. Tuck, Jr.)
the fringes of ponds on the back-nine of the original golf course, and in an undeveloped wetland
just past the last cranberry field. From these areas,
postreproductive and young turtles spread out to
at least a dozen known habitat areas along the
southern edge of Round Lake.
Bog turtles have been declining gradually over
time, partly due to illegal sales (a pair can sell for
$2000 in Japan and Europe), but mostly for a suite
of reasons that have not been clearly defined. Although not currently listed as a protected species,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is closely watching its decline, for a judgment of listing as threatened. Recent studies have also found another interesting fact: Bog turtles have high concentrations
of heavy metals in their shells and pesticides in
their soft tissues.
A 1964 research report by a local herpetologist
stated: “The seasonal flooding and natural summer
draining of the wetlands that surround the upland
nesting sites are necessary to the bog turtles’ survival. Either too much or too little water at the
wrong time of year can suppress nesting success to
near zero.” A recent census of the three known
ROLE nesting areas (A, B, and C on Figure 1.6)
found the following:
A
Number of nests/area
Mean % of eggs hatched/nest
Mean clutch size
19
1: The Landscape Scenarios
Bingham
C
18
6
31
80%
35%
70%
5
5
6
THE CERULEAN WARBLER AND OTHER NEOTROPICAL
MIGRANTS. The cerulean warbler has declined by
nearly 50% in the past decade in the area, as
shown by annual breeding bird counts. The warbler lives in the highest branches of dominant and
codominant trees in mature forests. It is found in
relatively high densities in the southern area of
Truman National Forest, but almost always in oldgrowth stands and the surrounding mature stands.
It is especially fond of hemlock stands. The
cerulean warbler is also found occasionally in private forestlands around the national forest, and in
late summer, immature birds are often found in the
three tracts of Crawford State Forest. Rarely, however, are nests of cerulean warblers found in the
state forest; when nests are found, they are always
in the largest, eastern tract.
A college student recently analyzed the data
from annual breeding bird surveys, from the late
1960s to the present, for the three tracts of Crawford State Forest. He found an interesting pattern
of distribution and changes in abundance:
Present in Latest Survey
Species
East Central West
Cerulean warbler
Acadian flycatcher
Blackburnian warbler
Olive-sided flycatcher
Wood thrush
Great crested flycatcher
Eastern woodland
peewee
Hooded warbler
Ovenbird
Yellow-billed cuckoo
Red-eyed vireo
Ruby-throated
hummingbird
Scarlet tanager
Yellow-throated vireo
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Decreasing
Increasing
Stable
Decreasing
Stable
x
Increasing
Stable
Increasing
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Status
Decreasing
Stable
Increasing
Decreasing
Decreasing
Stable
THE HEMLOCK WOOLLY ADELGID. The hemlock
woolly adelgid is a small aphidlike insect that
feeds on several species of hemlock. Infestations
are recognizable by the white, woolly looking material that the insects produce. Native to Asia, the
20
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
Round Lake
C
A
B
e
ag
ain
r
D
ch
dit
Existing
golf courses
Cranberry
fields
Bingham National
Wildlife Refuge
Planned
Sandhill at Bent Creek
Bog turtle nesting sites
Lily bush stands
Sandhill crane nesting sites
Migration route
Figure 1.6. A detailed map of the southern shoreline of Round Lake.
insect was introduced into the United States accidentally and has been spreading slowly across
the country. It has been relatively harmless on
hemlocks and other conifers in the western U.S.,
but has been very destructive on eastern hemlocks.
It attacks the young branches of hemlock trees,
sucking out the sap, destroying the tissue in the
process, and killing an infected tree in 1–4 years.
Serious infestations are now present about 100
miles east of the Round Lake watershed, moving
westward about 10 miles per year. A large number
of studies are being conducted to develop control
methods, including mechanical removal, planting
genetically engineered resistant species (using
genes from western hemlocks), and pesticide control. Studies of two natural predators from Japan,
the oribatid mite and the ladybird beetle, have indicated that biological control may be possible.
A major agent of dispersal is contact with animals that move through the trees, including
cerulean warblers, squirrels, porcupines, and deer.
Clear-cutting of infested stands is often recommended for these reasons and for the effective salvaging of damaged trees.
SANDHILL CRANES. Sandhill cranes return annually
to the Round Lake area, taking up residence south
of the lake (Figure 1.7). They nest in selected areas
in the Bingham Wildlife Refuge, on the existing
golf courses, and in the area where the new golf
development is planned; they build nests in large
mounds of grass or uprooted plants, usually on
slightly elevated hills or drier ground. They feed in
marshes or on prairielike abandoned and active
farm fields. For as long as anyone can remember,
bird watchers have come to the area to watch the
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
21
They have hired a new part-time staff biologist to
work on the property and its possibilities. Shondra
Jefferson has taken the position as her first job,
right out of Tuskegee University’s conservation biology program.
Figure 1.7. Sandhill cranes are common and popular in
the Round Lake ecosystem. (Photo by John and Karen
Hollingsworth, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.)
unusual and active courtship process of the sandhill cranes. The wild dancing and strutting is such
a sight that PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service)
has filmed the activities and featured them in several nature documentaries for television.
Sandhills do not currently nest in the TLC property (which has yet to receive a name), but several
sites appear to be ideal for nesting, with raised
hillocks located at appropriate intervals near the
edge of Little Lake. The TLC folks are eager to attract sandhills to their property, but they are at a
loss as to how. They have suggested that trapping
some adults and/or young from the refuge and
transferring them to their property would be good,
but they cannot seem to get by an imposing set of
state and federal regulations.
The Trust for Land Conservation is also interested in making their holding on Little Lake as significant as possible. Therefore, they are open to
the idea of expanding their holdings, trading lands
for other more significant lands, or operating
within a larger context of adjoining lands that have
various conservation measures (e.g., easements).
FRESHWATER MUSSELS. In addition to the radiant
mussel, which lives in Little Lake, Bent Creek holds
a suite of freshwater mussels. Although beds once
occupied the whole length of stream, now they are
found only within the first half-mile or so below
each of the low-head hydropower dams. As with
most freshwater mussels, these populations seem
to be troubled. Size distributions show that the
populations are getting increasingly older, with few
intermediate-aged individuals present. Concern has
been growing because zebra mussels are moving
up the Deer River from the Great Lakes; however,
no zebra mussels have been found upstream of the
Northeast Power Company Dam.
LILY BUSH. Bingham Refuge contains several selfsustaining stands of the federally threatened lily
bush, a medium-sized evergreen bush that grows
in relatively open woodlands with well-drained
soils. It is found on the refuge’s higher elevations,
atop the glacial drumlins that dot the property, and
in a few locations off the refuge along the edge of
the lateral moraine.
The plant is called the lily bush because it is
usually associated with a complex of wildflowers
from the lily family. Wildflower enthusiasts look
for the distinctive patch of lily bush (a low shrub
with dark bark and bright green, elongated leaves
that flutter in the breeze) and know that they are
also likely to find eastern troutlily, midland Camaslily, and wood lily. The complex also includes a
characteristic set of other wildflowers from the lilyof-the-valley and iris families.
Though generally hardy and relatively free from
insect problems, the lily bush is susceptible to
gypsy moths and particularly prone to overbrowsing by deer in late winter. Although not a preferred
food item of deer, their late-winter browsing will
kill whole stands of the shrub. Ecologists have estimated that deer densities in excess of 15 per
square mile will jeopardize the lily bush.
In addition to the known populations of the lily
22
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
bush south of Round Lake, scattered stands are
found along the moraine north of Interstate 14. A
few stands have been mapped on drumlins in the
Crawford State Forest. These stands have become
increasingly isolated and surrounded by maturing
timber stands in the forest.
A 1935 botanical survey that helped establish
the boundary of the federal forest reported that
many species of the lily family can be found on
the drumlins immediately south of the proposed
forest boundary. It is likely that more stands exist
on private lands surrounding Crawford. However,
the drumlins that dot the private landholdings have
not been surveyed recently.
WHITE-TAILED DEER AND ELK. White-tailed deer
are the basis of a thriving hunting industry—as
well as having become the area’s biggest pest
(Figure 1.8). According to the DNR, the carrying
capacity for deer in the area is 22 per square mile;
the current density is 31 per square mile. The
consequence of deer overpopulation is the elimination of almost all forest regeneration, as well as
the loss of most native wildflowers. Deer consume virtually everything that the timber industry
likes (they leave striped maple, a low-value timber crop, and hay-scented ferns, which crowd out
other vegetation). For successful forest regeneration, harvested areas must be fenced to keep out
deer for 5 years after harvest. The mess is spilling
over into other places as well, with deer and people coming into more contact via vehicle collisions, the eating of landscaping plants, depredating crops, and even roaming down city streets.
Lyme disease is on the increase as well, with
three cases reported last year, all in children on
hikes with the county nature program.
For a decade, the DNR has been trying to reduce the herd, and these efforts are working. In
1980, the density was 38 deer per square mile. Recently, however, the hunting lobby has been getting restless, because hunting is becoming more
difficult. Deer hunters want the density to go back
up.
Deer on the Bingham Refuge also have become a problem. Cross-country skiing on the golf
courses and snowmobile activity in and around
Figure 1.8. White-tailed deer have become so abundant
in the region that most people consider them pests. The
problem is especially acute in the Bingham National
Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Larry A. Nielsen.)
the Bingham Refuge have concentrated deer
onto the refuge during much of the winter. Winter
deer densities on the refuge are estimated at
twice the region’s average. Human activities in
the area around Bingham have made hunter access to the area increasingly difficult. Antihunting
sentiment and demonstrations on the roadways
leading to and from Bingham have made hunters
uncomfortable. Fewer people hunt the refuge
each year, and many have decided to hunt on the
agricultural lands north of the interstate highway
instead.
The DNR also has another idea: to reintroduce
elk. Elk were native in the watershed, but were
eliminated during the 1850s. Sportsmen have
learned of the successful establishment of elk
herds in a number of places around the Midwest
and East, and they want them back here as well.
The Penowans like the idea, too. They are interested in leasing land to breed elk and slaughter
them for sale in restaurants and specialty markets.
Farmers are less excited, because elk are known to
carry a variety of respiratory diseases that can be
transmitted to cattle—and the area’s number 1 agricultural crop is milk. The forestry community is not
happy either, because they see elk as large deer,
capable of eating more and higher than even deer
can.
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
SPECIAL INTERESTS AND ISSUES
Several issues and special interests are and will be
important drivers of decision making within the
ROLE Model ecosystem.
THE CRANBERRY INDUSTRY. The cranberry industry
is growing at an annual rate of 8%, buoyed by the
news that cranberry juice helps prevent kidney
stones and bladder infections, an increasing concern of aging baby boomers. The industry wishes
to expand its operations into the remaining unprotected wetlands, right up to the southern shore of
Round Lake. Consequently, the Cranberry Growers’ Association, a national organization headquartered in Lake City, has hired a marketing firm to
develop ideas and begin building local support for
expansion in the region, as well as developing national markets for cranberries. The firm has assigned Marsha Kwan to the task, and she and a
team are operating out of the Cranberry Growers’
Association’s offices. One of her first ideas has
been to work with the Penowans to develop
paired products centered around Penowan wild
rice and Round Lake cranberries.
However, expansion of cranberry farming in the
region faces some obstacles because of toxic
chemicals in fishes and turtles in Round Lake. The
area south and east of Round Lake is a groundwater maze. Cranberry farmers claim that all their
runoff flows north into their cooperative drainage
ditch and then into a tributary of Deer River. Their
soil and hydrologic consultant insists that there is
an impervious clay lens that separates the commercial fields from the Bingham Refuge, so none of
the environmental problems in the refuge or lake
are of their doing. He also says that studies have
shown no environmental damage from the chemical or management practices of the cranberry farmers, as long as they follow manufacturer’s label
instructions and recognized Best Management
Practices (BMPs)—which they do.
THE ROUND-ABOUT TRAIL. The Lake City and Benson economic communities have recognized that
they have a valuable tourism resource, and they
have decided, based on a consultant’s report, to
target cyclists. The mayors have proposed a bike-
23
way to go all the way around Round Lake (the
Round-About Trail), which would have various
stopping places where cyclists could view natural
features of the ecosystem, visit cultural resources,
and refresh themselves. The Crawford County
Commissioners are excited about the idea, and
they are considering modifications to their master
plans to accommodate the bikeway. Around the
southern end of the lake, they have proposed that
the 12-foot-wide asphalt trail be elevated above the
wetlands. The Round Lake Chamber of Commerce
is very enthusiastic, and their director, Jesse Stern,
has applied for and received a state tourism development grant to conduct an in-depth feasibility
study.
T OXIC C ONTAMINANTS IN THE R OUND L AKE
ECOSYSTEM. Toxic sediments exist in Bent Creek
below the second low-head hydropower dam. The
sediments contain heavy metals and other early industrial chemicals. There is no identifiable responsible party for the toxic chemical—so it is everyone’s problem now. A major flood, or the removal
of the dam, could cause the suspension of these
toxicants in the water column and their transportation downstream to Round Lake and beyond.
A recent public health series on the local PBS
television station highlighted contaminants in soils
and water and their accumulation in fish and
wildlife. This prompted a local university study of
fishes found in Round Lake and Deer River. Although still preliminary, the results show that
walleyes in the lake and carp in the river have
measurable amounts of mercury, halogenated
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and pesticides. The local community is split between users
who scoff at the potential health risk (notably
Walleyes for Tomorrow) and those who think the
fisheries should be shut down as a public health
risk (including many members of Friends of Round
Lake). The public health community continues to
debate risk assessment and relative risks, arriving
at no conclusion and everyone’s confusion.
CANADA GEESE ON THE GOLF COURSES. The Bingham National Wildlife Refuge was established primarily to protect and enhance the habitat of ducks
and geese. Efforts have been successful. The
24
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
movement of waterfowl through the refuge each
spring and fall is a sight to behold, and many people travel to watch the annual migrations. Along
with the migratory waterfowl, the refuge has also
attracted a large population of resident giant
Canada geese. The geese are abundant on the
refuge, but also on the adjacent golf courses. They
interfere with golfers directly—and indirectly due
to their droppings on the greens. This is a major
topic of letters to the editor in the local paper. The
Sandhill at Bent Creek developers are eager to
work to avoid this problem on their resort. They
are also eager to get some sandhill cranes onto the
property. They are willing to talk about planning
their golf course to attract cranes and avoid geese.
They have learned that golf courses can now be
certified by a national conservation organization,
and they are interested in pursuing this opportunity. The Sandhill at Bent Creek project manager,
Alice “Berty” Bertrand, wants to be active in the
ROLE Model initiative.
NORTHEAST POWER COMPANY DAM. The Northeast
Power Company has petitioned the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers to take over ownership of their
nearly century-old dam before it fails. By agreements written when the dam was authorized in
1911, ownership of the dam reverts to the government if the dam is no longer used for power generation. The Northeast Power Company has found
the cost of renovating the dam for modern hydropower generation to be too high, and they are
planning to abandon it as a power-producing facility. The Corps has also received a petition from the
Eastern States Boaters Coalition, located in Boston,
to remove the old dam and open navigation downstream. With the dam removed, boats would have
access to the Deer River and eventually the IntraCoastal Waterway.
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
25
SNOWPACT
Excitement grew as the first printing of The
SnowPACT Way hit the mail. The people who
received the first few copies could hardly believe what had happened in the past year. From
a situation in which individuals and groups
fought about everything related to natural resources in their community, they had come together to work collaboratively on their future.
And a major symbol of their success was the
publishing of their newsletter, The SnowPACT
Way.
The first issue of The SnowPACT Way carried
a full-page description of the ideals of the
group. It is reproduced here:
THE SNOWPACT WAY
INAUGURAL ISSUE, PAGE
1
Distributed quarterly to all Snow River residents without charge.
Subscriptions available at cost outside the
Snow River watershed.
T
he SnowPACT Way is the newsletter of the Snow
River Ecosystem Compact, popularly known as
SnowPACT. We formed SnowPACT as concerned citizens of the Snow River watershed, people who
wanted to ensure that our economic prosperity and
quality of life would continue forever.
The kinds of ideas that we are developing have
many labels in today’s world—ecosystem management, conservation biology, sustainable development, and community-based management. We don’t
really worry about what these terms mean, because
The inside of the newsletter documented the
way that SnowPACT got started and how it works.
Essentially, SnowPACT is a broadly based group of
representatives of government agencies, private organizations, and citizens from throughout the
Snow River watershed; any group can join, as long
as they are committed to the statement of principles that guides the assemblage. The agreement it-
we know what we mean, in our minds and our
hearts.
We mean that we want to live, work, play,
and worship in this place—this wonderful place—
harmoniously, with our families, our neighbors, the
resources that inspire and support us, and the ecological systems that ensure our continued existence
through time.
We mean that we’ve watched the destructive arguing among ourselves—about how this acre will be
used, about who has access and who doesn’t, about
whose “rights” are being lost. And we’ve learned that
such arguing gets us nowhere. It focuses on the
wrong questions—how to divide a shrinking pie—
rather than focusing on how we can make the pie
bigger and better.
We mean that we pledge to work together to
make the present and the future better for all of us—
and for each of us. We came here because it was a
beautiful and prosperous place. We have invested
heavily through time to make our people safe,
healthy, and learned. To complete the journey, we
are now also investing to make our use of our lands
just as safe, healthy, and intelligent.
Over the past year, as the members of SnowPACT
have met and begun to chart our future, we’ve
learned more than we ever imagined and have
grown together in ways that have been extremely rewarding. We also know that more of us need to become involved in the land-use decisions being made
in our county and communities. Today we invite
everyone in the Snow River watershed to join this
effort.
And we don’t care what you want to call it—as
long as you call it successful!
—The SnowPACT Community Circle
self is a simple document that pledges the member
groups to work together for the benefit of the people and resources of the Snow River watershed. Although it does not constrain the members or the
member organizations to certain decisions and actions within their organizations, it does commit
them to “come to the table, over and over again”
as a way of making the best of every situation. As
26
PART
I: The Conceptual Toolbox
such, it encourages group solutions, made voluntarily and consensually, rather than seeking administrative or judicial decisions among contending
parties.
The initial charter of the group is for 10 years,
but the clear intent is that this will become a permanent organizing basis for community planning
and action.
9.
10.
11.
SnowPACT Principles of Intent
and Operation
We seek to create a place to live that meets the needs of
ourselves and future residents. We seek to do this in a
way that is based on community, civility, common sense,
rationality, and efficiency. We pledge ourselves to be
guided by the following principles:
1. We will be inclusive, rather than exclusive, inviting all people and viewpoints; but we will not
tolerate attempts to delay, derail, or fractionate
our efforts.
2. We will use all the expert knowledge we can get
to help guide decisions, including that of natural
scientists, social scientists, Native Americans, and
experienced community members; but we will
not shrink from plans, decisions, or actions because of “insufficient data.”
3. We will seek a sustainable level of economic and
recreational activity, as part of a sustainable
ecosystem that conserves biological diversity and
ecosystem processes.
4. We will recognize and work with the natural cycles of events, such as fire, game population levels, and economic activity, rather than trying to
control them.
5. We will emphasize maps of natural features and
functions, rather than maps of ownership and jurisdiction; but we will respect and work with the
legal authorities that have created property and
jurisdictional lines.
6. We will recognize that ecosystem boundaries are
vague and that the area of interest will vary depending on a specific resource, function, or use.
7. We will find win-win solutions, based on considering many options rather than just two sides, so
that no individuals lose in decisions that bring
gains to us collectively.
8. We will seek voluntary cooperation among our
members rather than rules, regulations, and laws;
12.
but we will respect the spirit and letter of those
laws to which we are subject.
We will set our vision on the long-term and will
be prepared to discuss openly and accept the
short-term costs of such a vision; and we will
provide nonpartisan input to improve our local
decision makers.
We will be realistic, recognizing that we start
from here and that our first steps may be small.
We will be guided not only by the head, but also
by the heart and soul of community and resource
stewardship.
We will succeed!
The state governor, through the Green Government Council and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, through its regional director, have committed
their resources to provide the base operations for
SnowPACT. The governor’s Green Government
Council has assigned one of its regional coordinators a primary task of ensuring easy access to all
state government agencies and programs, directly
through the governor’s office. The state DNR has
assigned a planner from its central office half-time
to facilitate activities of SnowPACT and has assigned a full-time biologist from its regional staff
for the next 5 years to help with technical information and activities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has assigned one professional resource manager from the Kachina Arch Resource Management
Area, also for 5 years. In addition, all state and federal resource agencies with lands or other responsibilities in the watershed and region have pledged
the support of their staff and physical resources to
help along the way.
The state’s senators and representatives from
both parties have taken an intense interest in
SnowPACT as a unique approach and a possible
model for the entire nation. It is also supported
by one independent representative, Bill Hamilton,
who is in his third term and has run each time on
the idea of community-based decisions as best for
the country. During the past year, legislators have
authorized $2,000,000 annually for the work of
SnowPACT for 10 years and have funded the appropriation for the first year and pledge they will
get it every year. Moreover, they made the work
CHAPTER
1: The Landscape Scenarios
of SnowPACT exempt from the rules of the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and have
assigned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as
the lead agency for all federal resource management and environmental responsibilities in the
watershed.
Planning staff in Repose County, where most of
the SnowPACT lands are located, have agreed to
work with SnowPACT representatives via task
forces that will be revising the county master plan.
In addition, both Repose County and the town of
Altavista have added SnowPACT to the entities
asked to review subdivision, rezoning, and development applications.
All signatories to the agreement are automatically members of the Snow River Ecosystem Compact, which entitles them to send a representative
to all meetings as “speaking members” (Figure
1.9). They are also voting members, if the need
arises to hold formal votes.
The core work of SnowPACT is carried out by
the Community Circle, a set of 10–15 representatives of member organizations who are endorsed
by a majority of the signatories to the agreement.
The Community Circle does the hard work of
SnowPACT—organizing, overseeing, making decisions, seeking funds, and generally ensuring that
the principles of the agreement are maintained and
enhanced.
Figure 1.9. Community collaboration, like that shown
here, is a standard way for working on common interests
in the Snow River ecosystem. (Photo by Larry A. Nielsen.)
27
SnowPACT Community Circle
Altavista Mayor (Wayne Orr)
Bluestone River Cattleman’s Association (Sam Henry
III)
Department of Natural Resources regional planner
Green Government Council
NCTC Bluff Canyon (Kristin Bagley)
Red Cliff Association (Eleanor Sanchez)
Repose County Commissioners (Dutch Markson)
Representative Bill Hamilton
ROCin’ (Jacques Moreau)
Semak Council of Elders (Howard Two Feathers)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kachina Arch Resource Management Area
Westfir CEO (Katherine Slater)
THE SNOW RIVER ECOSYSTEM
The Snow River ecosystem is a medium-sized watershed located in the U.S. intermountain West
(Figure 1.10). The watershed is approximately
300,000 acres in extent and is well-defined by low
mountains on the west and north, by undulating
low ridges on the east, and by the Bluestone River
on the south. Most of the watershed is drained by
the Snow River, which flows generally southward.
The Snow River enters the Bluestone River, flowing
from west to east, in the middle of the town of
Altavista.
The Snow River has three main tributaries,
called South, Middle, and North Creeks. The South
and Middle Creeks both drain into Pine Lake, an
impoundment on the Snow River, but North Creek
enters the river below the impoundment. Smaller
streams enter the Bluestone River throughout the
watershed, but they carry relatively little water and
are often dry in the summer and fall.
The land south of the Bluestone River is a relatively narrow strip of undulating hills that end in a
continuous ridge that parallels the river. The land
on the south side of the river is 1–2 miles wide and
is widest within the vicinity of Altavista.
The watershed is bisected by a continuous escarpment, called Red Cliff, which runs northeast to
southwest (Figure 1.11). Red Cliff varies in height
from 50 to 300 feet at various places along its face.
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Kingsville
Figure 1.10. A map of the Snow River ecosystem.
CHAPTER
1: The Landsca...
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