A Behavioural Approach to Understand the Distinctive Influence of Environmental Instruments on Ecological Integrity

Abstract

“Ecological integrity should be defined as an ecosystem’s undiminished ability to continue its natural path of evolution, its normal transition over time, and to recover successionally from perturbation” (Westra et al., 1998). Following that definition, the members of the Integrity Project initiated in 1992 by Laura Westra concluded that: The concept of ecological integrity should be understood to be a species of an “ecosystem, approach” to understand humanenvironment interactions with an added normative element. That is, the concept of ecological integrity entails protection of ecosystems at a level that would preserve the integrity of the ecosystem. By contrast, the concept of “ecosystem approach” is understood to require analysis of human induced impacts on entire ecosystems but does not specify what level of protection should be achieved through policy implementation. Governments could, for instance, adopt an ecosystem approach to assure that water quality meets drinking water standards. Yet managing a water-shed to meet drinking water standards would not necessarily prevent channelization of a river, a dramatic modification to the ecosystem that could severely degrade benthic biota. By contrast, the concept of ecological integrity should be understood to entail an ecosystem approach that targets protecting or restoring the integrity of an ecosystem as its goal. (Brown et al., 2000)