A human dimensions framework: guidelines for conducting social assessment

Original publisher: Asheville, NC : U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station, [2003] OCLC Number: (OCoLC)59666901 Subject: Forest management -- Social aspects. Excerpt: ... issues and relevant questions. Social science concepts and Definition and Principles of Ecosystem indicators relevant to the assessment also should be Management identified and connected to real issues and problems. Definitions of Ecosystem Management The Nature of Ecosystems While there is no common, universal definition of ecosystem management, the following are some definitions that have According to documents written for the Interior Columbia been offered: Basin Ecosystem Management Project ( ICBEMP ) in the • The careful and skillful use of ecological, economic, Pacific Northwest, ecosystems are: social, and managerial principles in managing land and resources ( ecosystems ) to produce, restore, or sustain places where all plants, animals, soils, waters, climate, ecosystem integrity and desired conditions, uses, products, people, and processes of life interact as a whole. They values, and services over the long term ( Overbay 1992 ). may be small, such as a rotting log, or large, such as an entire continent; smaller ecosystems are subsets of • The strategy by which the full array of forest values and larger ones. All ecosystems have flows of things - functions, in aggregate, is maintained at the landscape organisms, energy, water, air, nutrients - moving level. Coordinated management at the landscape level, among them. Ecosystems change over space and time, including across ownerships, is an essential component so it is not possible to draw a line around an ecosystem ( Society of American Foresters 1993 ). and try to keep it the same. Instead, managing • A strategy or plan to manage ecosystems for all associated ecosystems means understanding and working with the organisms, as opposed to a strategy or plan for managing processes that cause ecosystems to vary...