Improving Interactions Between Coastal Science and Policy Proceedings of the Gulf of Maine Symposium (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Stage-Setting Papers
Stage-Setting Papers
Pages 11-62
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From page 13... ...
Time has passed and issues have evolved, so that here ~ will briefly review our observations and advice and focus on what will be a major challenge for science relevant to environmental and natural resource management in regions such as the Gulf of Maine application of the emerging concept of ecosystem management. Bridging the Gap In the California symposium paper, we examined differences in how scientists and policymakers and implementors operate and the processes of their interactions.
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From page 14... ...
. , ~ , ., ~ , The processes of translation of scientific understanding to policy formulation and implementation is complex.
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From page 15... ...
Now we face the daunting reality of helping to put our words into practice. Here T will examine the scientific concepts embodied in the principles of ecosystem management identified by the White House Ecosystem Management Task Force and my observations on their application in five major coastal ecosystems of the United States: the Chesapeake Bay, Florida Bay, the Mississippi Delta, the continental shelf of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and San Francisco Bay.
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From page 16... ...
~ have spent most of my career working in the Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi Delta, and the Gulf of Mexico. My experience in Florida Bay and San Francisco Bay is more limited and comes primarily by service on scientific review and advisory committees.
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Outer Continental Shelf (Boesch and Rabalais, 1987) and supports rich fisheries.
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From page 18... ...
Although the issues in each area are numerous, central management issues in Florida Bay and San Francisco Bay revolve around freshwater inputs, in Chesapeake Bay around nutrient enrichment, and in the Gulf of Mexico around oft and gas development and nutrient enrichment. Fisheries management is an important concern in all areas.
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From page 19... ...
Ecosystem health is mentioned three times in the Ecosystem Management Task Force principles and guidelines (Table 21. Ecosystem health and ecosystem integrity are concepts often stated but seldom defined.
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Native Biological Diversity To date, biodiversity has not been a central management goal in any of the five coastal systems other than as represented in endangered species. Some biotic indicators used in monitoring ecosystem health do reflect species diversity within a community, but biodiversity within the ecosystem as a whole has not yet received the attention in coastal marine ecosystems as it has in terrestrial and freshwater systems.
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From page 21... ...
But, a collection of basin plans does not constitute a comprehensive ecosystem management plan because decisions have to be made concerning interbasin allocation of river~ne waters and sediments (Boesch et al., 19941. Scientific controversies in the Mississippi Delta system are often based on different time perspectives, with geologists seeing delta wetland deterioration as part of a natural process of cyclic construction and destruction, whereas ecologists are alarmed at the rapid rates of change compared to recent history.
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From page 22... ...
Effective ecosystem management requires sustained ecological research (Likens, 19921. It will also require more imaginative and integrative science and the sound application of that science.
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From page 23... ...
Practitioners of adaptive management take special care with information: they are explicit about what they expect, collect and analyze information so that expectations can be compared with actuality, and transform comparison into learning and adjustments to policy. While the advanced modeling and monitoring of the Chesapeake Bay Program, the evaluation of CWPPRA projects in the Mississippi Delta, and the hydrodynamic and fisheries modeling of freshwater flow effects in upper San Francisco Bay display some elements of adaptive management, Lee's (1993)
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From page 24... ...
l redictive Systems I ~ Implement Observation and : 'rediction Systems Management · Employ Ecosystem Models as Management Tools · Advance Adaptive Ecosystem Management Stimulate Interactions Between Science and Management 1 that produced this report and was in the thick of preparing the report at the time of this symposium. My ideas were shaped by this committee process as well as my own experiences.
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Nonetheless, the recommendations of the ARC committee are highly pertinent to the issue of ecosystem management and specifically include recommendations concerning improvements in science-policy interactions. Literature cited Bernstein, B.B., B.E.
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1995. Alternative models of the role of science in public policy: Applications to coastal zone management.
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From page 27... ...
In either case, what is being "managed" is not the physical environment directly, but the human behavior associated with that physical environment. In this paper, the term "physical environment" will be used to refer to the nonhuman components and processes in an environment, and the term "human ecology" to refer to the human components and processes in an environment.
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From page 28... ...
Second, we will briefly characterize the principal social science disciplines, with a note on the role of the humanities in environmental management as well. Third, we will summarize the different ways in which social science and social scientists enter the policy-making process, and some of the structures and organizations through which they do so.
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From page 29... ...
Policy and management organizations International Federal Regional State Local Private sector It is important to note that this cultural ecology includes people who may be very remote from the physical environment of the coast or ocean. Even though it is the people who actually live in the coastal environment whose behavior is most directly affected by policy decisions, coastal and marine policy may also affect- and be affected by people who never see or visit coastal or marine environments.
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From page 30... ...
In the case of indicators of environmental quality, we must understand that term to include measures of the benefits and satisfactions derived from human perception and use of the physical environment as well as measures of the state of the physical environment itself. To understand the human component of coastal and marine environments and to understand the policy and management process itself we must understand the beliefs and behaviors of all of the people in the cultural ecology outlined in Figure I
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From page 31... ...
Although certain of the social sciences notably economics and political science have historically been involved in policy processes to a much greater extent than other social science fields, all are relevant to some portion of the policy and management process. The Uses of Social Science in Coastal and Marine Environmental Policy and Management We must begin this section by making a distinction between social science of environmental policy and management and social science for environment policy and management.
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From page 32... ...
and gas, or coastal land use planning, social scientists must work alongside natural scientists in, for example, the definition of policy alternatives and in particular in the analysis of the potential impacts of those alternatives. For any potential policy alternative there is first a potential human impact, and only then, through the alteration in human behavior, a potential impact on the physical environment.
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From page 33... ...
, data management, storage, and analysis, that apply to the natural sciences also apply to the social sciences. Existing Mechanisms for Social Scientific Input There are three mechanisms for social scientific input to environmental policy and management: (~)
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In the regulation of oil and gas exploration and development, social scientists have served on the national Scientific Advisory Committee for the Minerals Management Service in the Department of Interior, and on regional and issue-oriented task forces. In coastal zone management, social scientists have genteel on aclvisorv committees for state, regional, and national programs.
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From page 35... ...
Funding for social science research, especially in the applied areas, in programs such as those of the National Science Foundation, the National Sea Grant College Program, and the programs of the line agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Minerals Management Service, has been much smaller than that for the natural sciences. Although social scientists serve on advisory groups, their potential for input has been restricted by the lack of data to use in their functions, and by the kind of perception referred to above.
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From page 36... ...
Finally, the effective translation of social scientific knowledge into policy often involves having the right combination of conditions occurring at the right time. The data collection must be organized under a conceptual framework oriented to the particular policy problem or issue.
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From page 37... ...
Specific roles for social scientists may be internal to the policy-making organization, as advisors to the process, or as producers of the social scientific data and information itself. These are roles with unique characteristics, and for which specific knowledge, training, and often specific temperaments are required.
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From page 39... ...
Examples will be drawn from the national Coastal Zone Management Program, the National Estuary Program, the Outer Continent Shelf Oil and Gas Program, fisheries management under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and marine mammal protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. it is clear that virtually everyone favors strengthening the scientific basis and the technical soundness of public policy making.
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From page 40... ...
The use of small daily doses of aspirin to ward off heart attacks may be a case in point. The purpose of this paper, as mentioned above, is to examine the present role of "science" in national coastal ocean management programs.
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From page 41... ...
The categories we will use in this study, therefore, are policy initiation, policy formulation, policy implementation, policy evaluation, and policy modification and/or termination. Policy initiation refers to the initial stage, wherein a problem is recognized and placed on the national agenda; policy formulation takes place when, after a review of available options, a specific policy response is drafted into legislation; policy implementation is the process by which the mechanisms called for in the legislation (to achieve the policy goals)
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From page 42... ...
Similarly, a more scientific (more rigorous) approach to coastal zone management would involve much greater emphasis on the evaluation of outcomes and the subsequent adjustment of the management process based on such assessments.
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From page 43... ...
In this setting, one set of recruited scientists sometimes is pitted against another, especially if the policy area under discussion is complex and lacks agreed methodologies. Policy Implementation In policy areas involving the coastal zone and the coastal ocean and management of the resources contained therein, the implementation phase is by far the longest and, many would argue, the most important.
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From page 44... ...
Obviously this is virtually never the case. More realistic is the assumption, especially with regard to coastal zone and coastal ocean management initiatives, that considerable discretion is left to the implementing agency and that the linkage between program inputs and desired program outcomes is ill-defined and poorly understood.
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From page 45... ...
by the federal government and conducted (for the most part) by the states and territories, as many coastal resource management programs are, a strong intergovernmental focus develops.
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From page 46... ...
New concepts are built into coastal and ocean management legislation with some regularity. The federal consistency provisions and the national interest requirements were virtually untested concepts when they were incorporated into the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972.
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From page 47... ...
States will structure and empower their management efforts very differently. For example, they will choose different regulatory devices; they will house their management programs in different agencies; and will give them greatly varying amounts of visibility and/or autonomy, depending on their own realities, constraints, and opportunities.
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From page 48... ...
Each of these are discussed briefly below. Setting Goals Goals undoubtedly are already being set by coastal management programs, but in many cases these are process-related, not outcome-related, goals.
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From page 49... ...
Program Operation-The more rigorous approach to coastal management would require that specific attention be paid to the individual parts of the state's coastal management program associated with each of the agreed goals- that a clear methodology be set out showing what will be done during the next 12 months to achieve each of the goals. Using the wetland example above, the plan would show how the 2,000 acres per year loss was going to be reduced to 1,000 acres per year loss perhaps 500 of the 1,000 would come from increased enforcement actions and the other 500 from a series of pending rezoning actions.
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From page 50... ...
The Use of Science in National Coastal/Ocean Programs This section discusses the role of science in four major national coastal ocean programs (~) the Coastal Zone Management Program (under the Coastal Zone Management , _ _ _ · .
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From page 51... ...
- c,- - - ~ While some analysts may see the first introduction of ITQs into U.S. fisheries management programs as an Experiment the implementation of the new program must apparently go forward as if fishermen were receiving, using, and trading fixed percentages of
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From page 52... ...
The of! and gas program (and the marine mammal protection program ..
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From page 53... ...
Manne Mammal Protection Act of 1972 From the beginning, science has been an integral part of the national effort to protect marine mammals in the United States. The legislation the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 authorized the creation of the Marine Mammal Commission and a committee of scientific advisors on marine mammals.
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From page 54... ...
Estimates of the degree of science involvement in each of the five coastal ocean management programs are noted in Figure 2. Entries in the table have been subjectively estimated by the author based on reference to the unclerlying legislation; the nature of the implementation processes used in connection with the five programs; and a general appraisal of the policy making approaches in each area.
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From page 55... ...
Of the five programs, the marine mammal protection program is judged to be the most tractable; the fisheries management program and the offshore oil and gas program, the second most tractable; the estuary management program is of "moderate" tractability; and the CZM program is the least tractable (Cicin-Sain, 19861. Estimates of the degree that the natural sciences are involved in the program suggest that the most tractable program is likely to have a larger natural science involvement than the less tractable program.
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From page 56... ...
3. Agencies implementing coastal ocean resource management programs containing new and relatively untested concepts should adopt implementation strategies that acknowledge the experimental nature of such programs.
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From page 57... ...
Providing technically sound methodologies (using both natural and social sciences) to deal with specific coastal ocean management problems [formulation/implementation]
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From page 58... ...
Social scientists also bring necessary expertise to the policy-maHng table. Policy making, especially policy making that is a part of the ecosystem management process, obviously requires more than a good scientific understanding of the ecosystem to be managed.
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From page 59... ...
Indeed, design and implementation of a management approach typically involves a number of non-scientific needs and constraints: the need to act consistently with the legal jurisdiction of the policy body the perceived need for universal application the need for equity and fairness in the management regime the need for simplicity and administrative workability regime the need for political acceptability and public support of the proposed management Too often, the question of scientific soundness of the management process simply becomes one among several factors to be weighed in devising a management strategy rather than the essential underpinning of such a strategy. Several other characteristics of the management process also reduce the opportunities for scientific rigor in this process.
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From page 60... ...
But, in my view, applied research having a clear social purpose, should be able to attract scientific attention if the importance of the problems and the availability of funds are adequately communicated to the right parts of the scientific community. Securing funding for such research is always an issue.
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From page 61... ...
might be helpful in moving toward the improved integration of science and policy in ecosystem management. These suggestions deal with changes in the management approach and with issues having to do with funding applied research proposals.
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From page 62... ...
~ suggest that among CZM grants, Sea Grant grants, NOAA Coastal Ocean Program funding, and funding for research through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, a rather sizable amount of money exists that could potentially be directed toward these needs. Perhaps some funds could be set aside in the Coastal Ocean Program or in the Sea Grant Program to match funding made available by field-levl!
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