Perspectives on Biodiversity Valuing Its Role in an Everchanging World (1999) / Chapter Skim
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1: Introduction
1: Introduction
Pages 9-19
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That simplified overview frames a pressing need to address and minimize such conflicts. Controversy is often generated by management decisions that have either beneficial or adverse consequences for biological diversity.
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But we focus even greater attention on methods for weighing input from stakeholders with different frameworks for determining the value of different actions to yield sound resource-management decisions. The wide range in the kinds of values that people attribute to maintaining biodiversity and in the basic philosophies that lie behind these values led to the committee's conclusion that the processes making decisions involving biodiversity are of greater importance than the techniques that assign values to any one of the philosophical postures.
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Appropriate processes thus become important for identifying how possible management choices affect biodiversity for identifying how these choices affect the various kinds of values that can be assigned to biodiversity and for gaining public acceptance of the decisions made by the resource managers. Our intent has been to provide a spectrum of examples that embody a range of complications and challenges inherent in environmentally sensitive management decisions.
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of the Camp Pendleton region includes all of the camp and the immediately adjacent terrain, a zone of 50 by 83 miles that encompasses five river basins, two zones of coastal drainage, and parts of San Diego, Riverside, and Orange Counties. The reasons for choosing this area for the intensive study included the conflict and controversies inherent in the adjoining region; the likelihood of dramatic changes in the region resulting from rapid population increase of about 300,000 to 2 million by 2010; and the possibility that a policy study might make a difference with respect to the conservation of Biodiversity in the region.
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The study also concluded that there is a window of opportunity of 2 years to about 10-15 years during which critical decisions must be made by Camp Pendleton, regional planning authorities in the three counties, and the Nature Conservancy. During this window, such issues as the integrity of the military mission, transferring military lands to nonfederal entities for biodiversity conservation, planning for development that recognizes the limitations imposed by steep slopes and flood plains, fire management, flood control, and appreciation of the importance of biodiversity will be central in the decision-making process.
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· Riparian habitats are scarce in the West, are very rich in biomass and biological diversity, and are strongly affected by livestock grazing (DOI 1994; Elmore and Kauffman 1994; Johnson and Jones 1977; Platts and Nelson 1985; Saab and others 1995~. · The water-holding capacity of arid lands in the West has been severely altered by heavy livestock grazing to the extent that many streams that once flowed perennially today flow only violently and sporadically (Sheridan 1981~.
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The present conflict over the future of the western rangelands might have been inevitable, given their declining economic value for livestock grazing and the growing recognition of its effects on the ecological integrity and biological diversity of arid grasslands. But there is little likelihood that livestock grazing will cease on public rangelands in the near future (Brussard and others 1994~.
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Other federal agencies and many state natural resource agencies also have lands held in large blocks where biodiversity can be protected and maintained. The federal agencies include the US Department of the Interior National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management and the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
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Advocates for biodiversity conservation often will be motivated by such public value concerns, which form a core part of the American social fabric that resource managers must weigh against instrumental benefits. Thus, the current political debate about values in American society is often not about prices and price shifts as much as it is about the things that Americans deem important.
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Chapter 6 addresses processes that resource managers can use to determine public concerns, identify alternative management approaches, obtain information from stakeholders and the public about values related to the alternatives, and identify alternatives that best meet all needs. It provides guidance on how the valuation of biodiversity and the process of weighing values of biodiversity can be used to improve policy formulation and management decision-making.
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From page 19... ...
Gen Tech Rep RM-43. Fort Collins CO: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station.
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