Ecosystem Management &amp;amp; the Evolution of Ideas at the US Forest Service

Michael Zarkin

doi:10.5070/g314649942

Abstract

In the early 1990s, ecosystem management was touted as an emerging new paradigm for US national forest planning, but by the end of the decade the phrase had virtually disappeared from public discussion of the subject. The purpose of this article is to understand what legacy, if any, that ecosystem management left on national forest management. While Klyza (1996) has arguably offered the leading viewpoint on how policy ideas influence change in national forest management, this article relies more heavily on insights from the work of Carstensen (2011) and other scholars who view policy idea change as an evolutionary process. Ultimately, it is concluded that ecosystem management was one component of a longer-term evolution in ideas that culminated most recently in the promulgation of the 2012 forest planning rules.

Highlights

In the 1990s, ecosystem management emerged as a widely discussed policy idea in United States (US) national forest management
Hoberg (2004), for instance, asserts that ecosystem management was the inevitable outcome of a court decision that temporarily gave environmental groups the upper hand in their ongoing and contentious battle with timber interests for control of the national forests
Freeman (2002), by contrast, contends that ecosystem management was mainly an ill-defined concept that high-ranking Forest Service officials embraced as part of a political strategy to regain some of the public trust the agency had lost over the previous two decades

Summary

Introduction

In the 1990s, ecosystem management emerged as a widely discussed policy idea in US national forest management. In the early part of that decade, ecosystem management principles guided the development of the controversial Northwest Forest Plan, which temporarily eased political tensions related to the harvesting of timber on public lands in the Northwest Forest Region. By the middle of the decade, ecosystem management was touted as a new paradigm that had the potential to revolutionize national forest planning. Previous studies of the politics surrounding ecosystem management have largely focused on the actors and processes that shaped the idea’s rise to prominence within the Forest Service. Freeman (2002), by contrast, contends that ecosystem management was mainly an ill-defined concept that high-ranking Forest Service officials embraced as part of a political strategy to regain some of the public trust the agency had lost over the previous two decades. Each of these factors likely played an important role in helping to bring ecosystem management to prominence

Objectives

Conclusion