Many of the most expensive and important ecosystem management initiatives under way today are in “zones of conflict” between increasing human populations, resource utilization, and demands for environmental services. The four cases in this book—the San Francisco Bay-Delta, the Everglades, the Columbia River Basin, and the Green Heart of the western Netherlands—are no exception. Each combines the need for large-scale ecosystem restoration with the widespread provision of reliable ecosystem services. As seen in chapter 4, case-by-case management is the regime most suited for such contentious issues in zones of conflict. It is no small irony, therefore, that these ecosystem management initiatives are often presented as showcases for adaptive management (e.g., Gunderson et al. 1995; Johnson et al. 1999). This showcasing is understandable when we realize that here the paradox is at its sharpest. Consequently, the initiatives are unique in the considerable amount of resources made available to adaptive management or ecosystem management, precisely because the ecosystems are in zones on conflict. Much of the funds come not from natural resource or regulatory agencies, but from the organizations that produce and deliver services from these ecosystems, such as water-supply or power-generation companies. In southern Florida, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and the South Florida Water Management District (SFMWD) estimate the costs of their proposed ecosystem restoration plan to be $7.8 billion; in the Bay- Delta, the CALFED Program expects to spend about $10 billion during this implementation having already spent more than $300 million on ecosystem restoration in recent years; and in the Columbia River Basin, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) alone provides some $427 million per year for fish and wildlife measures. As a senior BPA planner remarked, “We are the largest fish and wildlife agency in the world.” Contrast these millions and billions to the funding problems often reported by “purer” forms of adaptive management for ecosystems towards the left of the gradient in figure 4.1. In short, although important services are derived from these ecosystems, the services do not override ecosystem-functions, thus raising the resource demands of ecosystem management.
Digital representation of the Montana state geologic map; a contribution to the Interior Columbia River basin ecosystem management project
