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The Ecosystem Approach Advanced User Guide

2. Steps to using the ecosystem approach

3. Applying the Ecosystem Approach

3.1	Task 1. How do you involve all members of society in decisions associated with the management of land, water and living resources?

3.2	Task 2. How do you ensure management is decentralised to the lowest appropriate level?

3.3	Task 3. How do you ensure the effects of management actions (potential or actual) on adjacent and other ecosystems are taken into account?

3.4

Task 4. How can the economic context be understood so that
Market distortions that affect biological diversity are reduced
Incentives are developed to promote biodiversity and sustainable use
Ecosystem costs and benefits are externalised?

3.5	Task 5. What measures could be used to conserve ecosystem structure and functioning so as to maintain ecosystem services?

3.6	Task 6. What measures can be taken to ensure ecosystems are managed within the limits of their functioning?

3.7	Task 7. What actions can been taken so that the problem(s) is (are) addressed at the appropriate temporal and spatial scales?

3.8	Task 8. How can varying temporal scales and lag-effects be taken into account when considering the sustainable use of ecosystems?

Explanation
Ecosystem processes are characterized by varying temporal scales and lag-effects. This inherently conflicts with the tendency of humans to favour short-term gains and immediate benefits over future ones.

Guidelines for answering this question
Adaptive management processes should include the development of long-term visions, plans and goals that address inter-generational equity, while taking into account immediate and critical needs (e.g., hunger, poverty, shelter).

Adaptive management should take into account trade-offs between short-term benefits and long-term goals in decision-making processes. Adaptive management should take into account the lag between management actions and their outcomes.

Monitoring systems should be designed to accommodate the time scale for change in the ecosystem variables selected for monitoring. Alternatively, if the monitoring cannot be adjusted, a more appropriately scaled but still relevant variable should be selected to monitor.

The capacity to monitor and detect long-term, low frequency changes in ecosystem structure and functioning should be strengthened. To implement long-term management requires stability of institutions, legal and policy frameworks, monitoring programs, and extension and awareness-raising programs.

Tools

Monitoring methods

Modeling

Information exchange

Further explanation
Time needs to be considered explicitly in formulating management plans, and in longer-scale processes need to especially considered and planned for because these are otherwise often neglected. In this regard it should be noted that:

People find long-term trends more difficult to detect than short term trends, particularly in complex systems.

Management systems tend to operate at relatively short time scales, often much shorter than the timescales for change in ecosystem processes.

Where there is a lag between management actions and their outcomes, it is difficult to take reasoned management decisions.

Long-term ecological processes, which can be very important, are therefore likely to be poorly accommodated in management systems, unless these are explicitly and carefully designed to address long-term issues.

Awareness of long-term processes is important because it is the long-term, spatially, extensive processes that both characterize and determine the broad ecosystem properties.

3.9	Task 9. How can adaptive management be used to address the problem(s) identified?

3.10	Task 10. How can an appropriate balance be sought between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity?

3.11	Task 11. How do you ensure all forms of relevant knowledge including, scientific, indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices are included?

3.12	Task 12. What measures can be taken to facilitate the involvement of all stakeholders including all sectors of society and scientific disciplines?

3.13	Cross-cutting issues

4. Creating a Management Plan

5. Assessing a project against the ecosystem approach

References