Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a
Promising Approach (Chapter Report, 08/16/94, GAO/RCED-94-111).

The "ecosystem" approach to managing the nation's lands and natural
resources stresses that plant and animal communities are interdependent
and interact with their physical environment to form ecosystems that
span federal and nonfederal lands. GAO found that the four primary
federal land management agencies--the National Park Service, the Bureau
of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest
Service--have started to implement ecosystem management. In addition,
the administration's fiscal year 1995 budget request includes $700
million for ecosystem management initiatives. GAO recognizes that,
compared with the existing federal approach to land management,
ecosystem management may require greater flexibility in planning; in
budgeting, authorizing, and appropriating funds; and in adapting
management on the basis of new information. However, GAO believes that
if ecosystem management implementation is to move forward, it must
advance beyond unclear priorities and broad principles. Clear goals and
practical steps for implementing ecosystem management need to be
established and progress in implementing this approach needs to be
regularly assessed and reported. GAO summarized this report in testimony
before Congress; see: Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to
Adequately Test a Promising Approach, by James Duffus III, Director of
Natural Resources Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on Natural Resources, the
Subcommittee on Environment and Natural Resources, House Committee on
Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and the Subcommittee on Specialty Crops
and Natural Resources, House Committee on Agriculture.
GAO/T-RCED-94-308, Sept. 20, 1994 (nine pages).

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  RCED-94-111
     TITLE:  Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to 
             Adequately Test a Promising Approach
      DATE:  08/16/94
   SUBJECT:  Environmental policies
             Natural resources
             Environmental monitoring
             Land management
             Conservation
             Public administration
             Data collection operations
             Interagency relations
             Federal/state relations
IDENTIFIER:  Prince William Sound (AK)
             Valdez (AK)
             Everglades (FL)
             Florida Bay (FL)
             Anacostia River Watershed (MD)
             Yellowstone National Park (WY)
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to Congressional Requesters

August 1994

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT - ADDITIONAL
ACTIONS NEEDED TO ADEQUATELY TEST
A PROMISING APPROACH

GAO/RCED-94-111

Ecosystem Management


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  BLM - Bureau of Land Management
  CEQ - Council on Environmental Quality
  CRS - Congressional Research Service
  FACA - Federal Advisory Committee Act
  FLPMA - Federal Land Policy Management Act
  FWS - Fish and Wildlife Service
  GAO - General Accounting Office
  NBS - National Biological Survey
  NEPA - National Environmental Policy Act
  NFMA - National Forest Management Act
  OTA - Office of Technology Assessment

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-256275

August 4, 1994

Congressional Requesters

As agreed with your offices, this report addresses (1) the status of
federal initiatives to implement ecosystem management, (2) additional
actions required to implement this approach, and (3) barriers to
governmentwide implementation. 

As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its
contents earlier, we will make no further distribution of this report
until 30 days after the date of this letter.  At that time, we will
send copies to the appropriate congressional committees; the Director
of the White House Office on Environmental Policy; the Secretary of
the Interior and the Directors of the National Park Service, Bureau
of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National
Biological Survey; the Secretary of Agriculture and the Chief of the
Forest Service; and the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget.  We will make copies available to others upon request. 

This report was prepared under the direction of James Duffus III,
Director, Natural Resources Management Issues, who may be reached at
(202) 512-7756 if you or your staff have any questions.  Other major
contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV. 

Keith O.  Fultz
Assistant Comptroller General

List of Requesters

The Honorable George Miller
Chairman, Committee on
Natural Resources
House of Representatives

The Honorable Gerry E.  Studds
Chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine
and Fisheries
House of Representatives

The Honorable Charlie Rose
Chairman, Subcommittee on Specialty Crops
 and Natural Resources
Committee on Agriculture
House of Representatives

The Honorable Norm Dicks
House of Representatives


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
============================================================ Chapter 0


   PURPOSE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

Even though many laws have been enacted to protect individual natural
resources--air, water, soils, plants, and animals, including forests,
rangelands, threatened and endangered species, wetlands, and
wilderness areas--ecological conditions on many federal lands have
declined.  As a result of these declines and the recognition that
some historic levels of natural resource commodity production and
other natural resource uses cannot be sustained indefinitely, federal
land managers have had to substantially decrease production of some
renewable commodities, such as timber, and other uses, such as
recreational activities, on some land units.  These reductions have,
in some instances, disrupted local economies and communities,
contributing to intractable conflicts between ecological and economic
values and concerns. 

Since the late 1980s, many federal agency officials, scientists, and
natural resource policy analysts have advocated a new, broader
approach to managing the nation's lands and natural resources called
"ecosystem management." This approach recognizes that plant and
animal communities are interdependent and interact with their
physical environment (soil, water, and air) to form distinct
ecological units called ecosystems that span federal and nonfederal
lands.  In response to congressional requests, GAO identified (1) the
status of federal initiatives to implement ecosystem management, (2)
additional actions required to implement this approach, and (3)
barriers to governmentwide implementation. 


   BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

The federal government owns about 30 percent of the nation's total
surface area.  To manage its holdings, it relies primarily on four
agencies--the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) within the Department
of the Interior and the Forest Service within the Department of
Agriculture.  These agencies, the numerous land units they manage,
and the many laws governing their management form the current federal
land management framework that has evolved over the last century.  As
agreed with the requesters, GAO limited the scope of its work
primarily to the relevant activities of these four agencies. 

The federal land management framework is part of a larger national
land and natural resource use framework.  In addition to other
federal and state land management agencies, this larger framework
includes many federal and state agencies that have regulatory or tax
authority or financial or technical assistance programs that can
greatly influence the use of natural resources and other activities
on private lands and in marine waters. 

Proponents of ecosystem management believe that coordinating human
activities across large geographic areas to maintain or restore
healthy ecosystems--rather than managing legislatively or
administratively established land units and individual natural
resources--would, among other things, better address declining
ecological conditions and ensure the sustainable long-term use of
natural resources, including the production of natural resource
commodities.  Hence, proponents believe that this approach would help
to avoid or mitigate future ecological and economic conflicts by
providing greater flexibility to coordinate activities over larger
land areas.  Therefore, ecosystem management would not necessarily
alter the federal land management agencies' basic legislative
mandates--sustaining multiple uses of federal lands and protecting
natural resources.  Rather, it would change these agencies' approach
to fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities through a better
scientific understanding of these mandates' relationship to one
another.  Compared with the federal agencies' current approaches to
land management, this new approach will require greater reliance on
ecological and socioeconomic data, unparalleled interagency
coordination, and increased collaboration and consensus-building
among federal and nonfederal parties within most ecosystems. 


   RESULTS IN BRIEF
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

Over the past 2 years, all four of the primary federal land
management agencies have independently announced that they are
implementing or will implement an ecosystem approach to managing
their lands and natural resources, and each has been working to
develop its own strategy primarily within its existing framework of
laws and land units.  In addition, the administration is proposing in
its fiscal year 1995 budget, among other things, to fund the initial
stage of a governmentwide approach to ecosystem management, including
four ecosystem management pilot projects.  It is also considering
various principles for its governmentwide approach, including
managing along ecological rather than political or administrative
boundaries. 

Implementing the initial stage of a governmentwide approach to
ecosystem management will require clarifying the policy goal for
ecosystem management and taking certain practical steps to apply the
principles being considered by the administration.  These steps
include (1) delineating ecosystems, (2) understanding their
ecologies, (3) making management choices, and (4) adapting management
on the basis of new information.  In taking these steps, the federal
government will have to make difficult policy decisions about how it
can best fulfill its stewardship responsibilities. 

The administration's initiatives to implement ecosystem management
governmentwide face several significant barriers.  For example,
although ecosystem management will require greater reliance on
ecological and socioeconomic data, the available data, collected
independently by various agencies for different purposes, are often
noncomparable and insufficient, and scientific understanding of
ecosystems is far from complete.  While ecosystem management will
require unparalleled coordination among federal agencies, disparate
missions and planning requirements set forth in federal land
management statutes and regulations hamper such efforts.  And
although ecosystem management will require collaboration and
consensus-building among federal and nonfederal parties within most
ecosystems, incentives, authorities, interests, and limitations
embedded in the larger national land and natural resource use
framework--many beyond the ability of the federal land management
agencies individually or collectively to control or affect--constrain
these parties' efforts to work together effectively. 


   GAO'S ANALYSIS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4


      FEDERAL AGENCIES ARE
      BEGINNING TO IMPLEMENT
      ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1

The administration's fiscal year 1995 budget proposal requests $610
million in discretionary spending for ecosystem management
initiatives.  Most of this money is to accelerate three ongoing
interagency restoration efforts that are being designated as pilot
ecosystem management projects:  (1) the old-growth forests of the
Pacific Northwest, (2) south Florida, including the Everglades and
Florida Bay, and (3) the urban watershed of the Anacostia River in
Maryland and the District of Columbia.  Another $90 million in
mandatory spending is to be used to fund a fourth pilot
project--Alaska's Prince William Sound, damaged by the March 1989 oil
spill from the supertanker Exxon Valdez. 

The budget document also states that the administration is
considering the following principles:  (1) managing along ecological
boundaries, (2) ensuring coordination among federal agencies and
increased collaboration with state, local, and tribal governments;
the public; and the Congress, (3) using monitoring, assessment, and
the best science available, and (4) considering all natural and human
components and their interactions. 

In 1993, the White House Office on Environmental Policy, created in
the same year by the President, established an Interagency Ecosystem
Management Task Force to implement an ecosystem approach to
environmental management.  A draft "Ecosystem Management Initiative
Overview," prepared and approved by the task force, summarizes the
efforts of the agencies to clarify goals, translate principles, and
derive lessons from ongoing ecosystem management efforts that can be
applied to other ecosystems.  The task force has also formed an
interagency work group to examine major issues that influence the
effectiveness of ecosystem management--such as the budget process,
legal authorities, and information management--and to make
recommendations to the task force for improvements. 


      ADDITIONAL ACTIONS ARE
      NEEDED FOR IMPLEMENTATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2

Implementing the initial stage of the governmentwide approach to
ecosystem management will require clarifying the policy goal for
ecosystem management and taking certain practical steps to apply the
principles being considered by the administration. 

Neither the administration's fiscal year 1995 budget document nor the
task force's draft "Ecosystem Management Initiative Overview" clearly
identifies the priority to be given to the health of ecosystems
relative to human activities when the two conflict.  Definitions
developed by BLM, FWS, and others leave no doubt that greater
priority will have to be given to maintaining or restoring a minimum
level of ecosystem integrity and functioning over nonsustainable
commodity production and other uses.  The practical starting point
for ecosystem management will have to be to maintain or restore the
minimum level of ecosystem health necessary to meet existing legal
requirements.  As the understanding of ecosystems increases through
the experience gained from ecosystem management initiatives,
including the four pilot projects, needed changes to existing
legislative requirements can be sought to better define and achieve
the minimum required level of ecosystem integrity and functioning. 

Implementing ecosystem management will also require taking practical
steps that clearly identify what must be done and which agencies and
parties must be involved.  These steps include (1) delineating, on
the basis of reasonable ecological and management criteria, the
boundaries of the geographic areas to be managed as ecosystems, (2)
understanding their ecologies (including their current conditions and
trends, the minimum level of integrity and functioning needed to
maintain or restore their health, and the effects of human activities
on them), (3) making management choices about desired future
ecological conditions, about the types, levels, and mixes of
activities that can be sustained, and about the distribution of
activities over time among the various land units within the
ecosystems, and (4) adapting management on the basis of continually
researching, monitoring, and assessing ecological conditions. 


      BARRIERS IMPEDE
      IMPLEMENTATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3

The administration's initiatives to implement ecosystem management
governmentwide face several significant barriers.  For example,
understanding the ecology of an ecosystem will require collecting and
linking large volumes of scientific data.  In addition, large volumes
of socioeconomic data must be collected, organized, and analyzed to
identify important relationships between human activities and
ecological conditions and trends and to make necessary or desired
trade-offs among ecological and socioeconomic values and concerns. 
However, available data are often not comparable, and large gaps in
information exist.  Furthermore, there is still much uncertainty
about how ecosystems function--uncertainty that contributes to strong
differences in the interpretation of scientific evidence. 

Coordination among federal agencies within an ecosystem will be
hampered by disparate missions and separate, lengthy planning
requirements--both of which are rooted in the existing federal land
management framework.  For example, in the greater Yellowstone area,
adjacent National Park Service and Forest Service lands in the same
ecosystem have been managed with very different objectives, in part
because the Forest Service receives funding incentives for timber
harvesting.  Coordinated revision of the agencies' plans under
existing separate laws will take several years to accomplish. 

Collaboration and consensus-building with state, local, and tribal
governments; the public; and the Congress will be constrained by
incentives, authorities, interests, and limitations embedded in the
larger national land and resource use framework, many of which are
beyond the ability of the federal land management agencies to control
or affect.  For example, participants at an October 1993 Yale
University workshop on ecosystem management concluded that federal,
state, and local regulatory agencies and tax authorities often
operate in a way that does not support, and in many cases impedes,
ecosystem management. 

GAO believes that the four pilot projects proposed in the
administration's fiscal year 1995 budget afford an opportunity to
identify these and other barriers as well as statutory, regulatory,
institutional, and procedural options for overcoming them.  However,
to adequately demonstrate ecosystem management's potential to avoid
or mitigate future ecological and economic conflicts, GAO believes
that it will be necessary to test the approach in geographic areas
where problems or issues of mutual concern have not become as
intractable as they have at the four pilot projects and where greater
flexibility exists to coordinate activities across ecosystems while
still maintaining or restoring their ecological health.  The
interagency task force is considering additional projects that should
provide opportunities to demonstrate this potential. 


   RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5

GAO recommends that the Director of the White House Office on
Environmental Policy, through the Interagency Ecosystem Management
Task Force, (1) develop a strategy that clarifies the policy goal for
ecosystem management, translates the general principles in the
administration's fiscal year 1995 budget into practical steps that
clearly identify what must be done and which agencies and parties
must be involved, and identifies barriers to implementing ecosystem
management and options for overcoming them and (2) report progress in
implementing this strategy as part of the yearly budget and
appropriations process. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS AND GAO'S
   EVALUATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6

GAO requested and received written comments on a draft of this report
from the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service, and the
White House Office on Environmental Policy, all of which agreed with
GAO's analysis.  Interior's response included comments from BLM, the
National Park Service, and FWS.  Interior described the draft as
thoughtful and said that it provided much useful guidance.  BLM
considered the draft well researched and well prepared and stated
that it revealed a sound understanding of ecology and its
relationship to ecosystem management.  According to the National Park
Service, the report brings together the current situation regarding
ecosystem management, some implementation problems, and options for
overcoming them.  FWS said that the report provides a well-written
and comprehensive analysis of the issues.  The Forest Service found
the report to be in line with the agency's history and thinking on
ecosystem management and subsequent implementation policy and
posture.  The White House Office on Environmental Policy termed the
draft a well-framed and lucid presentation of the basic facets of
ecosystem management. 

The Forest Service and the White House Office on Environmental Policy
concurred with both of GAO's recommendations, while Interior agreed
with the first recommendation and the intent of the second
recommendation.  However, Interior said it would prefer to see the
collective assessment and reporting of progress in implementing
ecosystem management included in the interagency task force process
rather than in the yearly budget and appropriations process. 

While Interior's preference would meet the executive branch's need
for a collective assessment of federal agencies' progress in
implementing an ecosystem management strategy through pilot projects
and other initiatives, it would not make these agencies as
accountable to the Congress as GAO's recommendation.  In GAO's view,
the greater flexibility in at least some of the agencies' budget
structures, which the agencies believe ecosystem management requires,
needs to be balanced or offset by greater accountability to the
Congress for the agencies' ecosystem management expenditures.  GAO
believes that this accountability can be better ensured by assessing
and reporting progress toward achieving measurable performance
objectives as part of the yearly budget and appropriations process. 

The agencies' comments and our responses are presented fully in
appendixes I through III. 


INTRODUCTION
============================================================ Chapter 1

The federal government's share of the nation's total surface area,
once as high as 80 percent, is now about 650 million acres, or about
30 percent.  Today, four agencies--the National Park Service, the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service
(FWS) within the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service
within the Department of Agriculture--manage about 628 million acres,
or 97 percent of these federal lands.\1 These lands contain a
significant portion of the nation's wealth of natural resources,
including, as of about 1980, 38 percent of the nation's forests, 54
percent of the nation's grazing lands, and the sources of many of the
nation's streams and rivers.  These agencies, the numerous land units
they manage, and the many laws governing their management form the
current federal land management framework that has evolved over the
last century. 

The federal land management framework is part of a larger national
land and natural resource use framework.  In addition to other
federal and state land management agencies, this larger framework
includes many federal, state, and local agencies that have regulatory
or tax authority or financial or technical assistance programs that
can greatly influence the use of natural resources and other
activities on private lands and in marine waters. 

Even though many laws have been enacted to protect individual natural
resources--air, water, soils, plants, and animals, including forests,
rangelands, threatened and endangered species, wetlands, and
wilderness areas--ecological conditions on many federal lands have
declined.  As a result of these declines and the recognition that
some historic levels of natural resource commodity production and
other natural resource uses cannot be sustained indefinitely, federal
land managers have had to substantially decrease the production of
some renewable natural resource commodities, such as timber, and
other natural resource uses, such as recreational activities, on some
land units.  These reductions have, in some instances, disrupted
local economies and communities, contributing to intractable
conflicts, referred to by the Secretary of the Interior as ecological
and economic "trainwrecks."

Since the late 1980s, many federal agency officials, scientists, and
natural resource policy analysts have advocated a new, broader
approach to managing the nation's lands and natural resources called
"ecosystem management." This approach recognizes that plant and
animal communities are interdependent and interact with their
physical environment (soil, water, and air) to form distinct
ecological units called ecosystems that span federal and nonfederal
lands.  They believe that this approach will, among other things,
better address declining ecological conditions and ensure the
sustainable long-term use of natural resources, including the
production of commodities, thus helping to prevent future ecological
and economic conflicts from becoming intractable. 


--------------------
\1 Nearly all of the remaining federal lands are administered by the
Department of Defense. 


   THE FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT
   FRAMEWORK HAS EVOLVED
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1

The federal government's approach to managing federal lands and their
natural resources has evolved in response to changing national
social, economic, and ecological concerns and values.  The current
federal land management framework began to take shape at the end of
the 19th century when, after a century of conveying or selling most
new territorial lands, the Congress began establishing agencies to
manage the remaining federal lands.  Over the last 30 years, this
framework has evolved to include new responsibilities for protecting
individual natural resources. 


      FEDERAL LANDS WERE CONVEYED
      FOR PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.1

During the United States' first century as a nation, the federal
government viewed its land management role as temporary.  Beginning
in 1785, the federal government established a system for surveying
and selling its increasingly vast land acquisitions to new states,
their settlers, and railroad companies, opening the American
frontier. 

Toward the end of the 19th century, the federal government had
transferred virtually all of its generally productive lands in the
eastern, southern, and midwestern United States as well as much of
its most productive agricultural, range, and timber lands in the far
West to private ownership.  It also generally allowed private uses on
the remaining federal lands in accordance with local laws and
customs. 


      FEDERAL LANDS WERE MANAGED
      TO SUSTAIN OR INCREASE THEIR
      LONG-TERM PRODUCTIVITY
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.2

After several decades of rapid development and unrestricted use, many
of the nation's lands and natural resources were significantly
degraded.  Responding to growing national concerns, the Congress
began to redefine the federal government's role in land management
from temporary to permanent retention and active stewardship.  Over
the years, this stewardship became focused on sustaining or
increasing the long-term productivity of the federal lands so that
they might supply desired natural resource commodities and uses into
the future. 

Throughout the 20th century, this new role--and a new federal land
management framework for implementing it--grew as the Congress
enacted legislation reserving numerous federal land units for
different purposes.  Through these laws, the federal government set
aside many remaining lands in the West and acquired degraded private
lands in eastern areas of the country.  These laws generally
specified that various existing or newly created federal agencies
were to actively manage the land units for the production of specific
natural resource commodities and for other uses.  These agencies were
eventually consolidated into the four principal land management
agencies that exist today. 

BLM, established in 1946, currently manages about 270 million acres,
most of which are range and semiarid lands.  Located mainly in the
West and in Alaska, these lands have been used primarily for mineral
development and livestock grazing under systems originating in 1872
and 1905, respectively.  The Forest Service, created in 1905, manages
about 191 million acres consisting primarily of national forests and
grasslands; the forested lands are managed to a great extent for
timber production.  These lands are located in 45 states but are also
largely concentrated in the West and in Alaska.  The National Park
Service, established in 1916, manages about 77 million acres, divided
into over 360 units in 49 states.  These units are managed to
conserve their scenery, natural and historic resources, and wildlife
for the enjoyment and recreation of current and future generations. 
FWS manages a loosely structured system, established in 1966, of
about 500 wildlife refuges, the first of which was created in 1903. 
These refuges are concentrated in Alaska and along four major
north-south waterfowl migration flyways.  They encompass about 89
million acres, which have been managed primarily for the benefit of
wildlife, including endangered species and waterfowl.  When
compatible with the primary purposes for which a refuge was
established, other activities such as mining and mineral leasing,
recreation (including hunting and fishing), and livestock grazing are
generally permitted. 

Figure 1.1 shows the location of these agencies' lands in the 48
contiguous states. 

   Figure 1.1:  Lands Managed by
   Four Primary Federal Land
   Management Agencies in the 48
   Contiguous States

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  U.S.  Geological
   Survey.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)


      LEGISLATION CREATES
      PRODUCTION-ORIENTED
      INCENTIVES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.3

Beginning early in the 20th century, the Congress enacted legislation
creating incentives to provide for specific levels of certain natural
resource commodities and other uses from Forest Service and BLM
lands.  Later legislation directed the agencies to manage lands for
multiple purposes and to consider their long-term as well as
short-term productivity.  Examples of this later legislation include
(1) the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960 and (2) the
Classification and Multiple Use Act of 1964 as superseded by the
Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA).  These statutes
gave authority to the Forest Service and BLM to manage lands for
multiple uses to best meet the present and future needs of the
American people (the multiple-use principle), and to sustain in
perpetuity outputs of various renewable natural resource commodities
and other uses (the sustained-yield principle).  However, despite
this later legislation, the two agencies, in many cases, continued to
emphasize the production of commodities as established in prior
statutes and in accordance with annual congressional appropriations. 

For example, the Forest Service receives most of its operating funds
from (1) the receipts of timber sales under the Knutson-Vandenberg
Act of 1930, which authorizes national forests to retain a portion of
their timber sale receipts to help fund reforestation and other
activities as well as regional office and headquarters expenses, and
(2) appropriated funds linked primarily to managing and harvesting
timber.  Therefore, in most national forests--even in some where
timber harvesting is uneconomic and other activities and uses are
more valuable--forest managers depend on timber sales for funds.  For
many years, in annual appropriations acts, the Congress also
specified "target" levels of timber to be harvested. 

Other legislation requires the two agencies to share receipts from
the sale or use of natural resources on federal lands with the states
or counties within which the activities occur.  For example, the
Forest Service is required to allot 25 percent of its gross receipts
from commercial activities in national forests to states and
counties.  Similarly, BLM is required to allot varying percentages of
its grazing fees, ranging from 12.5 percent to 50 percent, and both
agencies allot about 50 percent of their adjusted onshore oil, gas,
and other mineral receipts to states or counties.  These payments,
which are often required by federal law to support specific local
activities, such as schools and roads, contribute substantially to
some localities' budgets.  This is one reason, in addition to
enhancing local employment, that some state and local governments
have supported the continued production of high levels of natural
resource commodities from federal lands. 


      LEGISLATION REQUIRES
      PROTECTING INDIVIDUAL
      NATURAL RESOURCES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.4

Over the last 30 years, increasing scientific and public concern
about the declining condition of the nation's natural resources has
led the Congress to enact a number of laws to protect individual
natural resources on both federal and nonfederal lands.  These laws
regulate the quality of air and water and require the preservation of
plant and animal species, including fish, whose survival is
threatened or endangered.  As a result, the current federal land
management framework has evolved to become a complex collection of
agencies, land units, and laws designed to sustain or increase
long-term commodity production and uses on federal lands while
protecting the natural resources for future generations. 

Recognizing that federal lands and activities on them are important
to protecting natural resources, the Congress has also enacted
several largely procedural laws requiring federal agencies to
identify and consider the effects of their activities on natural
resources.  Primary among these laws is the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which established the Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President
and requires federal agencies, in accordance with regulations
promulgated by CEQ, to prepare detailed environmental impact
statements for major federal actions that may significantly affect
the quality of the human environment.  In preparing these statements,
the agencies must identify and consider the direct, indirect, and
cumulative impacts on natural resources of activities on their lands,
both alone and in conjunction with the activities of other agencies
and landowners. 

Also, FLPMA, the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA), and
the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 require BLM, the Forest
Service, and the National Park Service, respectively, to develop
long-range land use or general management plans for their lands. 
These plans must not only project resource commodity production and
other uses over a number of years but also, consistent with NEPA
procedures, identify the likely impacts on natural resources of
planned activities. 

In addition, the Congress has set aside certain federal lands to
protect their natural conditions.  For example, to protect and
preserve their natural conditions, vast areas have been designated as
wilderness and certain rivers have been designated as "wild and
scenic."


   FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT IS PART
   OF A LARGER NATIONAL FRAMEWORK
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2

The current federal land management framework of laws, land units,
and agencies is, in turn, part of a larger national land and natural
resource use framework that includes not only other federal and state
land management agencies but also numerous federal, state, and local
agencies with regulatory or tax authority or financial or technical
assistance programs that can greatly influence the use of natural
resources and other activities on private lands and in marine waters. 

States and localities regulate land and natural resource uses by a
variety of means including (1) local zoning laws and regulations, (2)
state forest practices acts that limit the extent and methods of
timber harvesting, and (3) wildlife management programs. 
Furthermore, state laws govern most decisions on water allocation and
use, and states are primarily responsible for devising plans to meet
federal air quality standards and for devising water quality
standards.  Additionally, numerous treaties have given Native
Americans control over the use of tribal lands. 

In addition,

  the Environmental Protection Agency has authorities and
     responsibilities under 12 major environmental statutes,
     including those to protect and enhance air quality (the Clean
     Air Act) and to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and
     biological integrity of the nation's waters (the Clean Water
     Act);

  the U.S.  Army Corps of Engineers has primary legislative authority
     to regulate activities in wetlands and other waters of the
     United States and to manage the nation's water resources with
     such projects as dams, reservoirs, levees, harbors, waterways,
     and locks;

  Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service provides financial and
     technical assistance to private landowners to prevent soil
     erosion;

  numerous commodity stabilization programs in Agriculture provide
     financial assistance to farmers who produce certain crops;

  Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement is
     responsible for protecting the public and the environment from
     the adverse effects of coal mining while allowing access to the
     coal that is important to the nation's energy needs;

  Interior's Bureau of Reclamation is responsible for planning,
     constructing, and operating water resource projects in an
     environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of
     the American public; and

  Interior's FWS, in addition to managing wildlife refuges, shares
     responsibilities with the Department of Commerce's National
     Marine Fisheries Service for ensuring the protection and
     restoration of threatened or endangered plant and animal species
     under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. 

Moreover, land uses can be greatly influenced by state and local
property tax laws, which often provide for differential taxation of
lands on the basis of use, as well as by federal and state
inheritance tax laws, which influence the disposition of lands in
estates.  Finally, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Constitution prohibit the federal and state governments from taking
private lands for public uses without just compensation.  Courts have
ruled that certain government regulations of land use have
constituted takings requiring just compensation. 


   DECLINING ECOLOGICAL CONDITIONS
   HAVE LED TO CONFLICTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:3

Despite the enactment of numerous laws to protect individual natural
resources, ecological conditions on many federal lands have declined. 
For example, according to a federal interagency team, many forests in
the Pacific Northwest have become so damaged by timber harvesting
that species are disappearing and many streams no longer provide
adequate habitat for fish.\2 Similarly, BLM has reported that
sedimentation in streams has increased; rangelands have become less
productive; plant, animal, and fish habitats have been damaged; the
health of forests has declined; and the range and numbers of many
native flora and fauna have decreased.\3 National Park Service
managers have reported diminished scenic views, polluted streams, and
destruction of wildlife and its habitat.\4

Numerous other reports indicate that such problems are neither
isolated nor diminishing. 

Such declines, coupled with the recognition that some historic levels
of resource commodity production and other uses cannot be sustained
indefinitely, have required federal land managers to substantially
reduce levels of timber harvests, livestock grazing, recreational
activities, and other uses on some land units.  These reductions, in
turn, have had adverse economic and social effects on some nearby
communities whose economies are highly dependent on uses associated
with federal lands.  Other communities have also been adversely
affected because they depend on commodities--such as the Pacific
salmon--whose stocks have been reduced by declining ecological
conditions on federal lands. 

These adverse effects on local economies and communities have created
intense ecological and economic conflicts over federal land
management.  Concern over declining ecological conditions and reduced
commodity production and other uses on federal lands has led to an
increasing number of administrative and judicial challenges to
federal land managers' decisions by environmental, industrial, and
recreational organizations and groups.  These challenges have
frequently resulted in delayed, altered, withdrawn, or stalemated
decisions, such as the court-imposed moratorium on timber harvesting
on federal lands in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. 
Responding to these challenges has required agency staff to
extensively reevaluate prior decisions. 


--------------------
\2 Forest Ecosystem Management:  An Ecological, Economic, and Social
Assessment; Report of the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment
Team, Forest Service and BLM (Portland, Oregon:  July 1993). 

\3 Ecosystem Management in the BLM:  From Concept to Commitment,
Instruction Memorandum No.  94-14 (Dec.  14, 1993). 

\4 National Park Service:  Activities Outside Park Borders Have
Caused Damage to Resources and Will Likely Cause More
(GAO/RCED-94-59, Jan.  3, 1994). 


   ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MAY BE A
   PROMISING NEXT STEP FOR FEDERAL
   LAND MANAGEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4

Federal and other researchers have found that communities of plants
and animals, which can include humans, are interdependent and
interact with their physical environment (soil, water, and air) to
form distinct ecological units called ecosystems that span federal
and nonfederal lands.  As a result, a growing number of agency
officials, scientists, and natural resource policy analysts believe
that a new, broader approach--referred to as ecosystem management--is
needed to manage lands and natural resources.  They believe that
maintaining or restoring ecosystems--rather than managing
legislatively or administratively established land units and
individual natural resources--would, among other things, better
address declining ecological conditions and ensure the sustainable
long-term use of natural resources, including the production of
natural resource commodities.  They believe that this approach would
thus help to avoid or mitigate future ecological and economic
conflicts by providing greater flexibility to coordinate activities
over larger land areas.  Therefore, ecosystem management would not
necessarily alter the federal land management agencies' basic
legislative mandates--sustaining multiple uses of federal lands and
protecting natural resources.  Rather, it would change these
agencies' approach to fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities
through a better scientific understanding of these mandates'
relationship to one another. 


      ECOSYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX,
      DYNAMIC ECOLOGICAL UNITS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4.1

Ecosystems are distinct ecological units that are commonly classified
according to their "structures." These structures are differentiated
from one another by particular combinations of "biological
components," such as plant and animal communities, and "physical
components," including landforms like mountains or plains and water
systems like watersheds\5 and river basins.\6 Ecosystem structures
and components are developed and sustained through the influence of
interactive "processes" among components such as climate, nutrient
cycles, and dispersion and succession patterns that are
characteristic of given ecosystems. 

For instance, the old-growth forest ecosystem of the Pacific
Northwest has been defined by its characteristic structure of
biological components--including over-200-year-old living conifers,
standing and fallen dead trees, and associated plants and animals
(including two species of threatened birds, the northern spotted owl
and the marbled murrelet) that depend on both the living and the dead
trees for their survival--and physical components such as mountains. 
Characteristic processes include heavy rainfall and the decay of
woody material that, together, enable trees to grow old enough and
large enough to develop cavities and materials for nesting and allow
their root systems to contribute to nutrient cycles that sustain the
food chain. 

The structures, components, and processes--and even the
boundaries--of ecosystems vary over time as a result of natural
disturbances, such as fires, floods, and climatic variations. 
However, ecosystem functioning is generally resilient to the normal
range of these disturbances--commonly referred to as the historic
range of natural variability.  In many cases, ecosystems depend upon
such disturbances for their regeneration and continued functioning. 

Ecosystems exist at several geographic scales, from large continents
to very small sites of a few square feet or less.  These different
scales form a hierarchy in which several smaller ecosystems may exist
within a single ecosystem at the next larger scale.  Also, ecosystems
are "linked" to one another at any given scale--as well as up and
down among scales in the hierarchy--by ecological "functions" that
they perform for one another, such as providing moisture or nutrients
across their boundaries.  This hierarchy of scales is illustrated in
figure 1.2. 

   Figure 1.2:  Hierarchy of
   Ecosystem Scales

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  Adapted from H. 
   Salwasser, "Conserving
   Biological Diversity:  A
   Perspective on Scope and
   Approaches," Forest Ecology and
   Management, Vol.  35 (1990).

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Maintaining and restoring the "integrity" of the components and the
functioning of the processes within ecosystems is important to
protecting "biological diversity" (biodiversity)--or the variety of
species, the genetic differences among them, and the communities and
ecosystems in which they occur.  A 1991 report by the Keystone
Center, which was based on the deliberations of 60 federal officials
and scientists, nonfederal scientists, and representatives from
environmental and industry organizations, concluded that preserving
biodiversity is critical for a number of reasons.\7 The report
concluded that, among other things, biodiversity (1) supports the
integrity and resilience of ecological systems on which humans
depend, (2) is the source of about half of all prescription drugs and
the likely reservoir for many future ones, (3) makes possible
improvements in the resistance of desired food and fiber species to
pests, disease, and drought, and (4) provides the basis for future
increases in productivity.  However, a 1992 report by the Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA) found, as have numerous other studies,
that a large and growing number of species is recognized as being in
danger of extinction and that many others suffer from a loss of
populations or reductions in their distribution across their natural
ranges of habitat.\8 As the Keystone report noted, the loss of
biodiversity has been associated with the diminished integrity of
ecosystem structures and components and the functioning of their
processes and linkages and can have significant adverse impacts on
their ability to provide for material needs of human society. 


--------------------
\5 A watershed is variously defined as the entire region drained by a
waterway that flows into a lake, reservoir, or ocean; the total area
above a given point on a stream that contributes water to the flow at
that point; or the topographic dividing line from which surface
streams flow in two directions. 

\6 River basins are watersheds drained by a river and its
tributaries. 

\7 Final Consensus Report of the Keystone Policy Dialogue on
Biological Diversity on Federal Lands, Keystone Center (Keystone,
Colo.:  Apr.  1991). 

\8 Combined Summaries:  Technologies to Sustain Tropical Forest
Reserves and Biological Diversity, OTA-F-515, (Washington, D.C.:  May
1992). 


      HUMANS ARE A COMPONENT OF
      ECOSYSTEMS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4.2

Humans are a biological component of most ecosystems, and ecosystem
management does not presume that ecosystems have a life and destiny
independent of people and their communities.  Since ecosystems
include humans, human activities and uses are integral to ecosystem
management.  However, by virtue of new technologies, population
growth, and increased use of lands and natural resources, humans have
a unique capacity to alter ecosystems through activities that create
sudden ecological stresses, profoundly affecting the integrity and
functioning of ecosystems. 

For instance, the Forest Service has used agricultural production
techniques--such as suppressing fires; clearcutting native tree
species; and applying herbicides and fertilizers to replacement
stands of a single species selected for superior growth
characteristics, planted at optimum densities, and periodically
thinned--to produce higher levels of timber from federal forests than
would have been produced by the natural succession of original
stands.  However, by altering the processes important to natural
succession, these techniques have reduced native biological
components and greatly changed forest ecosystem structures.  These
techniques have also adversely affected other ecosystems by
disrupting important functional linkages.  For example, increased
sedimentation in streams resulting from these techniques has damaged
the spawning grounds for Pacific salmon, which are components of both
this and the marine ecosystems where they spend most of their adult
lives. 

Studies by agencies and nonfederal scientists have found that human
activities have brought about much of the decline in ecological
conditions on federal lands.  In some instances, they have found that
commodity production and other uses on federal lands have
significantly changed ecosystems.  These changes occurred because the
activities were concentrated in areas (spatial scale) that were too
small or were conducted over time frames (temporal scale) that were
too short for ecosystems to absorb or in a manner that fragmented
ecosystems, breaking important linkages.  They also found that many
declining conditions were associated with activities taking place on
nearby nonfederal lands.  This finding is consistent with several GAO
studies over the last decade, including (1) the previously cited 1994
report on activities outside park borders that have caused damage to
park resources and will likely cause more and (2) a 1991 report on
the Flathead National Forest that found timber harvests on private
lands in the northern Rocky Mountains had significant adverse impacts
on water quality and wildlife habitat on adjacent national forest
lands.\9


--------------------
\9 Forest Service:  The Flathead National Forest Cannot Meet Its
Timber Goal (GAO/RCED-91-124, May 10, 1991). 


      ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT APPEARS
      TO BE A SOUNDER APPROACH FOR
      MEETING FEDERAL STEWARDSHIP
      MANDATES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4.3

For these reasons, agency officials and nonfederal scientists agree
that federal land management must no longer be focused primarily on
individual uses on individual land units or on protecting individual
natural resources.  Rather, a consensus has emerged that ecosystem
management provides a sounder approach for meeting the federal
stewardship mandates of protecting natural resources and sustaining
long-term commodity production and other uses on federal lands. 

Compared with federal agencies' traditional approaches to land
management, ecosystem management entails coordinating human
activities across larger areas and over longer time frames so as to
maintain or restore an ecosystem's integrity and functioning. 
Healthy ecosystems, in turn, are critical to ensuring the sustainable
long-term use of natural resources, including commodity production,
and have a much greater potential to support diverse and sustainable
local economies.  Finally, ecosystem management may provide a
scientifically credible forum in which regulatory and procedural
requirements for protecting natural resources can be addressed early
and jointly, thus reducing the number of challenges to federal land
managers' decisions. 

Ecosystem management's emphasis on maintaining and restoring the
health of ecosystems does not, however, necessarily mean returning
ecosystems to any particular historic condition.  The ecology of many
areas has been fundamentally--and, in some instances, apparently
irreversibly--altered by human activities.  Moreover, ecosystem
management recognizes that managing natural resources to meet the
needs of humans and other species will require both natural and
altered areas.  Although altered areas, such as farms and
single-species tree stands, contain less biodiversity, the nation and
some local economies depend on such areas.  An ecosystem management
approach that recognizes the continuous interactions between natural
and altered areas within an ecosystem can accommodate both kinds of
land uses while maintaining or restoring the integrity and
functioning of the ecosystem.  Such an approach is directed at
maintaining an ecosystem's ability to recover from natural
disturbances and human activities. 


   OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
   METHODOLOGY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:5

The Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources; the
Chairman of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries; the
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Specialty Crops and Natural
Resources, House Committee on Agriculture; and Representative Norm
Dicks asked us to examine ecosystem management and its potential use
in managing federal lands and natural resources.  As agreed with
their offices, this report identifies (1) the status of federal
initiatives to implement ecosystem management, (2) additional actions
required to implement this approach, and (3) barriers to
governmentwide implementation.  As further agreed with their offices,
we limited the scope of our work primarily to relevant activities of
the four primary federal land management agencies. 

To identify the status of federal efforts to implement ecosystem
management, we reviewed agency directives and met with officials from
the National Park Service, BLM, FWS, the Forest Service, the White
House Office on Environmental Policy and CEQ in the Executive Office
of the President, and other federal agencies involved in implementing
an ecosystem approach to managing federal lands and natural
resources.  We also met with these agencies' field office
representatives in the greater Yellowstone and Pacific Northwest
old-growth forest areas where the agencies have attempted to
coordinate their management activities.  Finally, we reviewed the
administration's fiscal year 1995 budget as well as the individual
budget justifications for the four primary federal land management
agencies. 

To identify additional actions required to implement ecosystem
management, we reviewed the steps and criteria (1) used by the four
primary federal land management agencies and other federal agencies
when proposing to replace one management strategy with another,
including those specifically related to implementing ecosystem
management, (2) included in the administration's fiscal year 1995
budget, and (3) identified in other studies and reports.  We also
drew heavily on the criteria for (1) creating a framework for
addressing management problems, (2) ensuring strategic management,
and (3) developing a strategic plan in GAO's December 1992 Transition
Series reports on Government Management Issues (GAO/OCG-93-3TR),
Information Management and Technology Issues (GAO/OCG-93-5TR), Food
and Agriculture Issues (GAO/OCG-93-15TR), Veterans Affairs Issues
(GAO/OCG-93-21TR), Justice Issues (GAO/OCG-93-23TR), Internal Revenue
Service Issues (GAO/OCG-93-24TR), NASA Issues (GAO/OCG-93-27TR), and
General Services Issues (GAO/OCG-93-28TR) as well as on the elements
of a working definition and goals for ecosystem management identified
at the November 1993 National Ecosystem Management Forum convened and
facilitated by the Keystone Center (the Keystone Forum).  This forum
focused on the experience of people working with ecosystem management
in the field and at the policy level, as well as on the role of
science in ecosystem management initiatives.  The forum--which
involved approximately 40 participants from federal agencies, the
White House Office on Environmental Policy, research institutions,
county and state governments, citizen and environmental
organizations, tribes, and commodity and user groups--represented a
cross-section of interests that must be involved in implementing the
concept. 

To identify barriers to implementing ecosystem management, we
reviewed applicable reports, studies, and articles by executive and
congressional agencies and public and private research and policy
analysis organizations.  These documents included the summary of the
Keystone Forum and the report of a national workshop on ecosystem
management, held in October 1993 at Yale University (the Yale
Workshop).  This workshop was convened by the Forest Policy Center, a
program of American Forests (formerly the American Forestry
Association), and was attended by over 100 resource managers,
scientists, and policy analysts representing federal and state
agencies, major corporations, and environmental organizations
involved in implementing ecosystem management.  The focus of this
workshop was on building effective partnerships across ownership
boundaries.  In addition, we met with representatives from academia;
various state government associations; and environmental, natural
resource professional, and industry organizations. 

We conducted our work primarily from April 1993 through April 1994 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.  We
obtained comments on a draft of this report from the Department of
the Interior, the Forest Service, and the White House Office on
Environmental Policy.  The agencies' comments and our responses are
presented fully in appendixes I through III. 


FEDERAL AGENCIES ARE BEGINNING TO
IMPLEMENT ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
============================================================ Chapter 2

Over the past 2 years, all four of the primary federal land
management agencies have independently announced that they are
implementing or will implement an ecosystem approach to managing
their lands and natural resources, and each has been working to
develop its own strategy primarily within its existing framework of
laws and land units.  In addition, in a few geographic areas, often
in response to court orders or congressional concerns, the agencies
have entered into cooperative agreements with each other or with
other federal agencies to address specific ecological concerns.  At
the local level, some of the agencies' field offices have entered
into collaborative arrangements with both federal and nonfederal
agencies, as well as with private landowners and other interests, to
address transboundary problems or other issues of mutual concern. 
Efforts by the four agencies, as well as those by 14 other federal
agencies, to implement ecosystem management are compiled in an April
19, 1994, Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to the
Congress.\1

The September 1993 Report of the National Performance Review: 
Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less, recommended
that the President issue an executive order establishing ecosystem
management policies across the federal government and that the
concept be phased in using selected demonstration projects. 
Responding to these recommendations, the administration proposes in
its fiscal year 1995 budget, among other things, to undertake four
ecosystem management pilot projects and states that it is considering
managing along ecological rather than political or administrative
boundaries. 


--------------------
\1 Ecosystem Management:  Federal Agency Activities (94-339 ENR). 


   AGENCIES ARE ADOPTING ECOSYSTEM
   MANAGEMENT POLICIES AND
   STRATEGIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1

All four of the primary federal land management agencies have
announced that they are using or will use an ecosystem approach in
managing their lands and natural resources.  For example, on June 4,
1992, the Chief of the Forest Service announced a new policy of
multiple-use ecosystem management on the national forests and
grasslands.  According to the Chief, the announcement was based on
the results of experiments to develop more environmentally sensitive
ways to manage the forests.  In conjunction with this new ecosystem
management policy, the Forest Service announced plans to reduce the
amount of timber harvested by clearcutting by as much as 70 percent
from fiscal year 1988 levels.  Since June 1992, the Forest Service
has, through its Office of Ecosystem Management, been working to
develop a strategy and policies for ecosystem management and internal
guidance for doing so.  It is also drafting revisions to the
regulations implementing NFMA, to, among other things, better support
an ecosystem management approach.  Also, in the explanatory notes to
its proposed fiscal year 1995 budget, the Forest Service states its
intent to accelerate the implementation of ecosystem management
through increased funding for research and on-the-ground ecosystem
protection and restoration efforts, as well as through a simplified
budget structure that reduces the number of main appropriations from
13 to 8 and of funding line items from 72 to 42.  The Service
believes that this restructuring is the necessary first step to
provide support and flexibility for implementing ecosystem
management.  A specific line item has been requested for ecosystem
planning, inventorying, and monitoring. 

Similarly, on December 14, 1993, the Director of BLM issued a concept
paper entitled Ecosystem Management in the BLM:  From Concept to
Commitment, which states that the agency has adopted the principles
of ecosystem management to guide its management of the public lands
and their natural resources.  These principles include (1) sustaining
the productivity and diversity of viable ecological processes and
functions, (2) adopting an interdisciplinary approach to land
management in which program advocacy will yield to ecosystem
advocacy, and (3) basing plans and management on long-term horizons
and goals.  This paper culminated an initiative begun about a year
earlier to develop the agency's policies and strategy for ecosystem
management.  In its fiscal year 1995 budget justifications, BLM
states that it is continuing to move toward ecosystem management and
proposes to streamline its budget structure to focus on larger-scale,
integrated resource management issues to provide, among other things,
the flexibility needed to support the concept's implementation. 

In late 1992, FWS established a working group to develop its policies
and strategy for biodiversity management.  Later, this effort was
expanded to address ecosystem management.  In March 1994, FWS sent a
concept paper to all employees that outlined how FWS intends to apply
principles of an ecosystem management approach to fish and wildlife
conservation.  Among other things, the paper proposed that teams of
staff from various FWS programs be established in 52 ecosystems that
FWS has tentatively identified covering all 50 states.  In its fiscal
year 1995 budget justifications, FWS states that it plans to enhance
its biodiversity management efforts to provide for (1)
ecosystem-oriented long-range planning and (2) ecosystem management
approaches to endangered species conservation.  This latter proposal
reflects a February 1992 decision by FWS to take a multispecies
approach--rather than a species-by-species approach--to protecting
plants and animals.  FWS is proposing to implement ecosystem
management within the existing budget structure but will reevaluate
the need to restructure the budget or its organization in 1995. 

The National Park Service recently established a working group to
develop its ecosystem management policies and strategy.  In its
fiscal year 1995 budget justifications, the Service calls for greater
emphasis on environmental protection and states that it will pursue
new partnerships, alliances, and coalitions to do so.  It further
states that it will be promoting comprehensive regional ecosystem
restoration and management.  For example, the more than 20 national
park units that are located within the Colorado Plateau have formed a
regional partnership to share information, develop cooperative
programs based on the ecology of the area, and seek partnerships with
interested organizations.  The potential zone of cooperation for this
partnership includes southwest Colorado, southeast Utah, northeast
Arizona, and northwest New Mexico.  The Service does not plan to
restructure its budget to accommodate ecosystem management. 

Midlevel staff from the 4 primary federal land management agencies,
together with staff from 16 other federal agencies involved in
ecosystem management initiatives, have been meeting periodically on
an informal basis since 1992.  This group, known as the Interagency
Ecosystem Management Coordination Group, has been exchanging
information and ideas on ecosystem management approaches and other
areas of common interest, such as training. 


   AGENCIES' FIELD OFFICES ARE
   PURSUING COOPERATIVE EFFORTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2

In response to court orders or congressional or agencies' concerns,
the federal land management agencies have begun to coordinate their
activities across land unit boundaries in a few geographic areas to
address specific ecological concerns.  Some efforts predate the
agencies' recently announced ecosystem management initiatives and
strategies.  For example, in the early 1960s, the National Park
Service and the Forest Service began to coordinate management goals
and standards for and activities on the national forests and parks in
the greater Yellowstone area (in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho). 
Figure 2.1 shows the federal land units in the greater Yellowstone
area.  Congressional concerns expressed in 1985 gave further impetus
to improving coordination in the area.  Similarly, the Forest
Service, BLM, and several other federal agencies, at the direction of
the President, drafted a plan for coordinating the management of
federal activities in the old-growth forest ecosystem of the Pacific
Northwest (in Oregon, Washington, and California).  The agencies
undertook this effort in response to federal court orders suspending
federal timber sales until the sales' cumulative effects on the
threatened northern spotted owl could be examined.  Figure 2.2 shows
these old-growth forest areas in the Pacific Northwest.  In southern
Utah, BLM and the National Park Service are attempting to better
coordinate human activities and uses on their neighboring lands. 

   Figure 2.1:  Map of the Greater
   Yellowstone Area

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  Forest Service.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Figure 2.2:  Map of Pacific
   Northwest Old-Growth Forests

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  BLM.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

In other locations, agencies are participating in ecosystem studies
and activities jointly and with nonfederal entities to identify ways
of preventing issues or concerns from becoming intractable conflicts. 
For example, in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, the Forest
Service and the National Park Service are working with state and
private parties to, among other things, avoid declines in water
quality that are expected to adversely affect fish stocks in the
future.  The Forest Service, the National Park Service, FWS, and five
other federal agencies are working with private groups and state
agencies in the southern Appalachian highlands to identify ways of
addressing common problems associated with air and water quality,
conservation, biological diversity, and sustainable economic growth
in an area straddling the borders of six southeastern states
(Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and
Virginia).  This area has been designated as a biosphere reserve by
the United Nations under its Man and the Biosphere program.\2
Similarly, the National Park Service is working with other federal
agencies and nonfederal parties in another biosphere reserve in
southwestern Kentucky to address the effects of regional land use and
development on surface and groundwater resources within a zone of
cooperation defined by the groundwater recharge area for the Mammoth
Cave National Park. 

Agencies' field offices have largely directed their initiatives to
activities on their own lands.  However, some field offices have
entered into cooperative arrangements with other public agencies as
well as with private landowners.  Generally, they have undertaken
these efforts to address transboundary problems and other issues of
mutual concern.  For example, Forest Service and BLM field offices
are participating in a partnership with industry, conservation
groups, other public agencies, research organizations, and private
landowners to protect and restore the ecological health of the
Applegate River watershed in southwestern Oregon (encompassing about
500,000 acres) while sustaining economic productivity and community
stability.  Similarly, all four agencies are party to a recent
agreement with state agencies that, in turn, are working with local
governments, environmental groups, and industry to develop a
coordinated statewide biodiversity planning strategy for ecologically
similar regions throughout California.  This strategy's long-term
goal is to conserve the natural heritage of each major region in the
state while sustaining economic growth and development. 


--------------------
\2 The Man and the Biosphere program was established by the United
Nations in 1970 to solve management problems arising from
interactions between human activities and natural systems.  In the
United States, 47 areas have been designated as part of an
international network of 323 "biosphere reserves." These reserves are
unique, multipurpose areas dedicated both to the conservation of
characteristic ecosystems and species and to the management of land,
water, and other resources for sustainable development to meet human
needs.  Twelve federal departments and agencies participate in the
U.S.  national committee, and more participate in the biosphere
reserves. 


   GOVERNMENTWIDE INITIATIVES ARE
   UNDER WAY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:3

In 1993, the White House Office on Environmental Policy, created in
the same year by the President, established an Interagency Ecosystem
Management Task Force to implement an ecosystem approach to
environmental management.  The task force was charged with
establishing overarching goals for all federal agencies; removing
barriers that frustrate more effective, efficient interagency
cooperation; and learning from large-scale ecosystem-based management
efforts.  The task force is chaired by the Director of the White
House Office on Environmental Policy and is composed of assistant
secretaries from 12 departments and agencies as well as
representatives from the Office of Management and Budget and the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 

Consistent with recommendations in the September 1993 Report of the
National Performance Review, the interagency task force developed the
administration's fiscal year 1995 budget proposal to fund the initial
stage of a governmentwide approach to ecosystem management.  This
proposal requests $610 million in discretionary spending for
ecosystem management initiatives, or 19 percent ($99 million) more
than in fiscal year 1994 for similar activities.  Of the $610
million, $433 million, or 71 percent, is to accelerate three ongoing
interagency restoration efforts that are being designated as pilot
ecosystem management projects.  The remaining $177 million is to
collect information to support decision-making for protecting and
preserving the nation's biodiversity.  In addition, $90 million in
mandatory spending is to be used to fund a fourth pilot project. 

The budget document states that under the administration's ecosystem
management approach, "emphasis on managing whole ecosystems replaces
the piecemeal approach of the past wherein land, water, air,
endangered species, and mineral and other resources were primarily
dealt with one by one." It also states that several agencies have
issued new or revised statements and policies supporting ecosystem
management to "maintain the sustainability and biodiversity of
ecosystems as well as economies and communities.  The human component
is fundamental." The document further states that the administration
is considering the following principles for ecosystem management: 

  Manage along ecological, rather than political or administrative,
     boundaries. 

  Ensure coordination among federal agencies and increased
     collaboration with state, local, and tribal governments; the
     public; and the Congress. 

  Use monitoring, assessment, and the best science available. 

  Consider all natural and human components and their interactions. 

One of the four pilot projects--to restore the old-growth forests of
the Pacific Northwest--is limited primarily to federal lands and
agencies.  Another--to restore natural resources damaged by the March
1989 oil spill from the supertanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince
William Sound--involves primarily federal agencies and the state of
Alaska.  A third--to restore the ecological health of south Florida,
including the Everglades and Florida Bay--involves collaboration
among federal and nonfederal agencies, private landowners, and other
interests.  The fourth pilot project--to restore the ecological
health of the Anacostia River in Maryland and the District of
Columbia--is being led by state and local governments and includes
participation by several federal agencies. 

In the interim, the interagency task force has been developing
definitions, goals, and principles of ecosystem management and
identifying barriers to its implementation within the federal
government.  A draft "Ecosystem Management Initiative Overview,"
prepared and approved by the task force, summarizes the efforts of
the agencies to clarify goals, translate principles, and derive
lessons from ongoing ecosystem management efforts that can be applied
to other ecosystems.  The task force has also formed an interagency
work group to examine major issues that influence the effectiveness
of ecosystem management--such as the budget process, legal
authorities, and information management--and to make recommendations
to the task force for improvements. 


ADDITIONAL ACTIONS ARE NEEDED FOR
IMPLEMENTATION
============================================================ Chapter 3

In its fiscal year 1995 budget, the administration proposes to fund
the initial stage of a governmentwide approach to ecosystem
management.  However, implementing this initial stage will require
clarifying the policy goal for ecosystem management and taking
certain practical steps to apply the principles being considered by
the administration.  These steps include (1) delineating ecosystems,
(2) understanding their ecologies, (3) making management choices, and
(4) adapting management on the basis of new information.  In taking
these steps, the federal government will have to make difficult
public policy decisions about how it can best fulfill its stewardship
responsibilities. 


   IMPLEMENTATION REQUIRES
   CLARIFYING THE POLICY GOAL FOR
   ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1

In its budget document, the administration says that its ecosystem
management approach emphasizes "managing whole ecosystems" so as to
"maintain the sustainability and biodiversity of ecosystems, as well
as economies and communities." As experience has shown in the
old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, it is not
always possible to maintain or restore healthy ecosystems and, at the
same time, sustain historic types, levels, and mixes of human
activities.  The administration's budget document does not clearly
identify the priority to be given to the health of ecosystems
relative to human activities when the two conflict. 

Currently, there is no governmentwide legal requirement to maintain
or restore ecosystems as such.  However, (1) the purpose statement of
the Endangered Species Act, which states that a purpose of the act is
to provide a means for conserving the ecosystems upon which
endangered and threatened species depend, and (2) regulations adopted
under NEPA that require all federal agencies to identify and consider
the impacts ".  .  .  on natural resources and on the components,
structures, and functioning of ecosystems .  .  ." of their
activities both alone and in conjunction with those of other nearby
agencies and landowners.  But neither these nor any other acts or
implementing regulations define or delineate ecosystems or
specifically require federal agencies to act to maintain or restore
the health of ecosystems.  Other laws do require federal agencies to
give priority to (1) sustaining multiple uses on federal lands and
(2) providing minimum levels of protection to individual natural
resources.  If meeting these mandates depends on healthy ecosystems,
then priority will have to be given to maintaining or restoring a
minimum level of ecosystem integrity and functioning over production
and other uses of resources at nonsustainable levels. 


      CONFUSION EXISTS OVER THE
      GOAL OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1.1

In the absence of a clear statement of federal priorities for
sustaining or restoring ecosystems and the minimum level of ecosystem
health needed to do so, ecosystem management has come to represent
different things to different people.  As CRS noted in a July 14,
1993, report to the Congress,\1 many disparate groups--from
multiple-use supporters to wilderness proponents--are advocating an
ecosystem approach to land management in the United States; however,
"there is not enough agreement on the meaning of the concept to
hinder its popularity."

This confusion was noted in the report of the November 1993 Keystone
Forum on ecosystem management, which stated that "people's
interpretations, and thus perceptions, of ecosystem management
varied--sometimes significantly." Some participants said that
ecological values and concerns should take precedence over social or
economic considerations, others said that ecological concerns should
be secondary to social or economic ones, and still others said that
the three are equally important and should be balanced when
implementing the concept.\2 Although Forum participants could not
reach a consensus on a specific priority, they generally supported a
working definition of ecosystem management with a goal of
"preserving, restoring, or, where those are not possible, simulating
ecosystem integrity as defined by composition, structure, and
function that also maintains the possibility of sustainable societies
and economies."

This goal appears to give priority to maintaining or restoring the
integrity and functioning of ecosystems over short-term use levels
that cannot be sustained indefinitely.  Some participants observed,
however, that the federal government should provide a clear national
policy and guidance to federal agencies that outlines the goals of
ecosystem management. 

In its recent draft "Ecosystem Management Initiative Overview," the
Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force states that the goal of
ecosystem management is to "restore and maintain the health,
sustainability, and biological diversity of ecosystems while
supporting sustainable economies and communities." While this
statement may indicate that greater priority will have to be given to
maintaining or restoring the health of ecosystems relative to
nonsustainable uses, other definitions leave no doubt.  For example,
in its December 1993 concept paper, BLM states that "since the
production of all goods and services is dependent on ecosystem
health, BLM's overriding objective will be to maintain naturally
diverse and sustainable ecological systems." BLM continues that the
"primary goal of ecosystem management is to develop management that
conserves, restores, and maintains the ecological integrity,
productivity, and biological diversity of public lands." Similarly,
in its March 1994 concept paper, FWS defines ecosystem management as
"protecting or restoring the function, structure, and species
composition of an ecosystem, recognizing that all components are
interrelated."

We believe that the varied interpretations and perceptions of the
goal of ecosystem management must be replaced by a common
interpretation of what is to be accomplished within and across
ecosystems on the basis of clearly stated priorities. 


--------------------
\1 Ecosystems, Biomes, and Watersheds:  Definitions and Use (93-655
ENR). 

\2 In this report, social and economic values and concerns are
hereafter referred to as "socioeconomic considerations." These
considerations include those related to the conditions and trends of
local economies and industries; the stability of communities, their
populations, and institutions; and aesthetic responses to nature. 


      A MINIMUM LEVEL OF ECOSYSTEM
      INTEGRITY AND FUNCTIONING
      NEEDS TO BE DEFINED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1.2

The Congress has enacted laws to protect individual natural
resources--for example to protect and restore plant and animal
species whose survival is threatened or endangered; to protect and
enhance air quality; or to restore and maintain the chemical,
physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters--that
define minimum levels of protection to be met or assign
responsibility for defining these levels to executive branch
officials.  In addition, the Congress has enacted laws to sustain
outputs of various renewable natural resource commodities and other
uses. 

As a starting point, ecosystem management will need to maintain or
restore the minimum level of ecosystem integrity and functioning
necessary to meet existing legal requirements.  As the understanding
of ecosystems increases through the experience gained from ecosystem
management initiatives, including the four pilot projects, needed
changes to existing legislation can be sought to better define and
achieve the minimum required level of ecosystem integrity and
functioning. 

For example, under the Endangered Species Act, a determination about
whether a plant or animal species or a specific population of a
species is threatened or endangered generally requires a detailed
examination, and efforts to list and protect it can be quite lengthy
and expensive.  Some agency officials and scientists believe that a
multispecies approach focused on broader geographic areas, such as
some ongoing FWS efforts, may (1) be more efficient and effective,
(2) identify ways to prevent many species from becoming threatened or
endangered in the first place, and (3) result in fewer limitations on
human activities.  An approach that focuses on ecosystems rather than
on individual species or populations may require some changes to, or
flexibility in applying, existing law.  For example, protection for
specific populations of species in ecosystems may have to be adjusted
in accordance with their importance in maintaining or restoring the
ecosystems' integrity and functioning. 


   PRACTICAL STEPS ARE REQUIRED TO
   IMPLEMENT ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2

The principles for implementing ecosystem management being considered
by the administration appear to be consistent with those identified
in various scientific and policy studies and reports on ecosystem
management, as well as with the elements of the working definition
for ecosystem management identified at the Keystone Forum.  However,
implementing ecosystem management will require translating these
principles into certain practical steps that clearly identify what
must be done and which agencies and parties must be involved. 

On the basis of our review of numerous scientific and policy studies
of ecosystem management and consultation with ecosystem management
experts representing a wide range of views, we identified four
practical steps that we believe need to be taken to implement the
principles being considered:  (1) delineating ecosystems, (2)
understanding their ecologies, (3) making management choices, and (4)
adapting management on the basis of new information.  Figure 3.1
shows these steps and relates them to the principles in the fiscal
year 1995 budget document. 

   Figure 3.1:  Relationships
   Between Practical
   Implementation Steps and
   Ecosystem Management Principles

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)


      ECOSYSTEM BOUNDARIES NEED TO
      BE DELINEATED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.1

Although one of the principles in the administration's budget is to
"manage along ecological rather than political or administrative
boundaries," the existing boundaries of most federal lands were not
drawn along ecological lines.  As CEQ noted, the impetus for
establishing many national parks was to preserve scenic beauty rather
than ecological function, and the parks operate under these dual
mandates of conservation and recreation.  Similarly, many wildlife
refuges operate under game management objectives that can conflict
with the well-being of other plant and animal species, and
consideration for the character of the wilderness, rather than
attention to the functioning of ecosystems or the preservation of
biodiversity, determined the boundaries of many wilderness areas. 
Finally, the boundaries of national forests and public lands were
generally not established on the basis of ecological considerations. 

To date, much attention has focused on delineating the boundaries of
ecosystems and, in particular, on determining their appropriate
spatial or geographic scale.  Such delineations are problematic
because (1) several smaller ecosystems may exist within a larger one,
(2) ecosystems are interlinked and difficult to separate, (3)
boundaries of ecosystems expand and contract over time in response to
natural disturbances and human activities and (4) ecosystems are
ecological--rather than legislatively or administratively
established--units.  However, delineating the boundaries of the
geographic areas to be managed as ecosystems is a prerequisite to
planning for, budgeting, authorizing, and appropriating funds for,
and ultimately managing activities on the basis of, ecological units. 

In its July 1993 report, CRS concluded that further research will not
make the boundaries of ecosystems clearer.  Even if not perfectly
defined, these boundaries can be delineated for management purposes
in a way that meets certain tests of reasonableness to provide a
needed starting point.  One scientific criterion of reasonableness
was articulated by some participants at the November 1993 Keystone
Forum, namely, that a geographic area to be managed as an ecosystem
be large enough to capture the complexities and linkages among the
components and processes of the ecosystem. 

Various alternatives have been suggested for meeting this basic
scientific criterion.  Some scientists have suggested using the
physical components of river basins and smaller watersheds as the
primary building blocks for delineating and managing ecosystems. 
They note that the boundaries of river basins and watersheds (1) are
relatively well defined, (2) can have major ecological importance,
(3) are systematically related to one another hierarchically and thus
include smaller ecosystems, (4) are already used in some water
management efforts, and (5) are easily understood by the public. 
Other alternatives suggested for delineating ecosystems include (1)
areas that are large enough to encompass the primary habitat required
to sustain the largest carnivore in a region, (2) "biomes,"\3 or (3)
"ecoregions" and "subregions" based on combinations of similar
climate, landforms, and vegetation. 

Additional criteria for reasonableness in delineating ecosystems
mentioned by several analysts, as well as by participants at the
Keystone Forum, are derived from management considerations of spatial
or geographic scale.  Boundaries should not be so large that managers
will not be able to adequately focus on specific local problems or
issues of mutual concern.  Nor should they be so small that managers
will be unable to address the effects on the ecosystem of activities
originating across ownership boundaries. 

Although not yet precisely or systematically defined, "landscapes"
have been recommended by many scientists and analysts as the primary
management scale.  "Landscapes" are described as dynamic,
interacting, and interconnected patterns of habitats affected by
climate, landforms, and human activity.  They will generally include
a mix of government and private lands, often be smaller in size than
a state, and frequently cross state boundaries.  Since ecosystems
exist at several geographic scales in a hierarchy and are
functionally linked to one another, analysts believe that ecosystems
at the next higher and next lower scales from the primary management
scale should also be identified in order to assess whether their
integrity and functioning are being affected by activities at the
primary management scale and vice versa. 

Although we have not examined them closely, the boundaries of the
four pilot projects in the administration's fiscal year 1995 budget
appear to address at least some of these tests of reasonableness. 
All generally appear to be (1) based on watersheds or other
ecological criteria, (2) large enough to allow for consideration of
the effects on the ecosystem of activities originating across
ownership boundaries, but (3) small enough to focus on local problems
or issues of mutual concern. 

In addition to the four pilot projects, other geographic areas have
been identified by agency officials and scientists as potential
locations for testing ecosystem management.  These include the
greater Yellowstone area; the southern Appalachian highlands; the
Sierra Nevada ecosystem; the Rio Grande Valley (Colorado, New Mexico,
and Texas); the Great Lakes; the Great Plains grasslands (Minnesota,
North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska); the California Central Valley
Bay Delta; Monterey Bay; the coastal Louisiana wetlands; and the
upper Mississippi/Missouri River flood zone.  Figure 3.2 shows the
boundary for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem suggested by the
Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a public interest group. 

A governmentwide approach to ecosystem management may ultimately
require agreement among federal agencies on delineating ecosystem
boundaries across the national landscape.  However, as FWS notes in
its March 1994 draft concept paper on ecosystem management,
"Regrettably, at present, there is no ecologically based mapping
system that all agencies have adopted to support an ecosystem
approach." Similarly, BLM states in its December 1993 concept paper
that "Coordination among management agencies is impeded by the fact
that federal land management agencies often employ different data
standards and resource classification systems." For example, FWS has
adopted tentative ecosystem boundaries based on watersheds to
organize its activities nationwide and to set ecosystemwide goals and
objectives.  (See fig.  3.3.) Meanwhile, the Forest Service has
developed an ecoregional approach using climate, physiography, water,
soils, air, and natural communities.  (See fig.  3.4.) The need to
delineate ecosystem boundaries across the national landscape is
currently being addressed by the Interagency Ecosystem Management
Coordination Group. 

   Figure 3.2:  Boundary Suggested
   for the Greater Yellowstone
   Ecosystem

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  Greater Yellowstone
   Coalition.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Figure 3.3:  Fish and Wildlife
   Service Ecosystem Unit Map

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  FWS.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Figure 3.4:  Forest Service
   Ecoregion Map

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  Forest Service.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)


--------------------
\3 A biome is a major regional community of plants and animals with
characteristic life forms and environmental conditions.  It is the
largest geographical biotic unit and is named after the dominant type
of life form, such as tropical rain forest, grassland, or coral reef. 


      AN ECOSYSTEM'S ECOLOGY NEEDS
      TO BE UNDERSTOOD
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.2

Once a geographical area to be managed as an ecosystem has been
delineated, its ecology needs to be understood on the basis of the
best available data in order to determine how the ecosystem's
integrity and functioning can be maintained or restored.  This step
consists of a set of specific actions that we believe are required to
address two principles in the administration's budget
document--"considering all natural and human components and their
interactions" and "using the best science available." These actions
are to determine (1) the ecosystem's structure, components,
processes, and functional linkages to other ecosystems, (2) the
ecosystem's current ecological conditions and trends, (3) the minimum
level of integrity and functioning needed to maintain or restore a
healthy ecosystem, and (4) the effect of human activities on the
ecosystem. 

On November 11, 1993, the Secretary of the Interior transferred
biological research and monitoring programs from eight agencies
within the Department of the Interior to make operational a new
agency called the National Biological Survey (NBS).  This agency is
tasked with gathering, analyzing, and disseminating the biological
information necessary for sound stewardship of the nation's natural
resources.  According to the administration's fiscal year 1995
budget, the agency will be responsible for providing better, more
reliable, objective information on key ecosystems.  Therefore, NBS
has been designated to develop information that will be needed to
improve the understanding of ecosystems' ecologies.  In addition, the
Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force's working group is
identifying the information needed to understand the ecologies of
ecosystems. 

The information to be developed by NBS will be critical to federal
land management agencies in acquiring an adequate understanding of
the minimum levels of integrity and functioning necessary to (1)
maintain or restore healthy ecosystems and (2) meet existing legal
requirements.\4 For example, the federal interagency team assigned to
examine ecosystem management in the old-growth forests of the Pacific
Northwest found that one of the first things that they needed to do
before they could draft a plan was to determine how the various
agencies' existing statutory requirements for protecting natural
resources jointly applied across the different federal land units in
the ecosystem.  This determination became the basis for identifying
and deciding on the minimum level of ecosystem integrity and
functioning that needs to be maintained or restored. 


--------------------
\4 A minimum level of integrity and functioning necessary to maintain
or restore a healthy ecosystem is also referred to as a "threshold"
below which the integrity of the ecosystem is diminished to the point
that its functions are not adequately performed. 


      MANAGEMENT CHOICES NEED TO
      BE MADE WITHIN ECOSYSTEMS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.3

After gaining an understanding of an ecosystem's ecology, land
managers must identify (1) the desired future ecological conditions,
(2) the types, levels, and mixes of activities that can be sustained
while still achieving these conditions, and (3) the distribution of
these activities over time among the various land units within the
ecosystem.  We believe that these actions are required to address the
administration's principle to "ensure coordination among federal
agencies and increase collaboration with state, local, and tribal
governments; the public; and the Congress."

The extent to which ecosystems receive protection above the minimum
levels necessary to maintain or restore their integrity and
functioning will depend on public policy decisions involving
trade-offs among ecological and socioeconomic considerations and will
likely vary by ecosystem.  In reaching these decisions, policymakers
will need to understand the ecological and socioeconomic
considerations involved.  Many of the required socioeconomic data--on
employment, production, and commerce--are maintained by states,
firms, and industry organizations with which collaboration will be
necessary. 

The extent to which desired future ecological conditions can be
maintained or restored and long-term commodity production and use can
be sustained will depend in large measure on the extent to which
disparate private landowners and government agencies--including not
only the federal, state, and local agencies that manage land but also
the agencies that regulate, tax, or otherwise influence uses on
private land--can reach agreement.  As more landowners and others
within an ecosystem collaborate, more activities are likely to be
coordinated and managed across the ecosystem to address ecological
and socioeconomic values and concerns. 


      MANAGEMENT NEEDS TO BE
      ADAPTED TO NEW INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.4

Just as ecosystems are continually changing over time, so, too, will
the understanding of their ecology and, by implication, the
management choices based on this understanding.  Scientists and
policy analysts generally recognize that their understanding of how
different ecosystems function and change and how they are affected by
human activities is incomplete.  For this reason, they see a need for
continually researching, monitoring, and evaluating the ecological
conditions of ecosystems and, where necessary, modifying management
on the basis of new information to better accommodate socioeconomic
considerations while ensuring that minimum or desired ecological
conditions are being achieved. 

This process, sometimes known as "adaptive management," has been
identified as a requirement for ecosystem management by both BLM and
the federal interagency team tasked to examine ecosystem management
in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.  It is also
reflected in the administration's principle to "use monitoring and
assessment and the best science available." Thus, applying this
principle will require (1) continually researching, monitoring, and
assessing ecological conditions as well as the effects of activities
on ecosystems and (2) modifying prior management choices on the basis
of this new information.  This fourth step underscores the
continuing, iterative nature of ecosystem management.  Figure 3.1 at
the beginning of this chapter illustrates the cycle of adaptive
management. 


BARRIERS IMPEDE THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
============================================================ Chapter 4

The administration's initiatives to implement ecosystem management
governmentwide face several significant barriers.  For example,
noncomparable and insufficient data--whose limitations stem from
uncoordinated, incomplete collection efforts--and scientific
uncertainty hinder the understanding of ecosystems' ecologies and of
the trade-offs among ecological and socioeconomic considerations. 
Also, the disparate missions and planning requirements statutorily
rooted in the federal land management framework hamper interagency
coordination of federal actions across ecosystems.  Moreover,
incentives, authorities, interests, and limitations embedded in the
larger national land and natural resource use framework constrain
effective collaboration and consensus-building among private and
government parties within an ecosystem but are often beyond the
ability of the federal land management agencies individually or
collectively to control or affect. 

The four pilot projects proposed in the administration's fiscal year
1995 budget afford an opportunity to identify these and other
barriers as well as statutory, regulatory, institutional, and
procedural options for resolving them.  In addition, ecosystem
management offers the potential to avoid or mitigate future
ecological and economic conflicts.  However, to adequately
demonstrate this potential, we believe that it will be necessary to
test the approach in geographic areas where problems or issues of
mutual concern have not become as intractable as they have at the
four pilot projects and where greater flexibility exists to
coordinate activities across ecosystems while still maintaining or
restoring their ecological health.  The Interagency Ecosystem
Management Task Force is considering additional projects that should
provide opportunities to demonstrate ecosystem management's potential
for avoiding or mitigating ecological and economic conflicts. 


   ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC
   DATA ARE INADEQUATE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1

Agency officials and scientists have noted that ecosystem management
will require collecting and linking large volumes of scientific data
about ecosystems' structures, components, processes, and functions at
several geographic scales to determine current conditions and trends. 
It will also require consistently collecting, organizing, and
analyzing large volumes of socioeconomic data in order to identify
important relationships between human activities and ecological
conditions and trends and making necessary or desired trade-offs
among ecological and socioeconomic values and concerns.  Currently,
available data are often not comparable, and large gaps in
information exist. 

In 1992, OTA found that the Forest Service does not have adequate
data to support full-scale ecosystem management.\1 CEQ also noted
that there are major gaps in knowledge about the status of plants,
animals, and ecosystems in the United States.\2

Although many of the data that federal agencies and others have
collected independently might be aggregated, organized, and shared
among them on an ecosystemwide basis, the data are not always
comparable.  For instance, as a federal interagency team found in
developing a plan for the old-growth forest ecosystem of the Pacific
Northwest, even the aggregation and sharing of available information
was difficult because many of the data had not been collected,
analyzed, or tabulated consistently and were therefore difficult to
compare.  A major effort was required to integrate noncomparable data
from various agencies' information systems.  The team also noted that
many of the available data important to ecosystem management are
collected by other federal and state agencies and by The Nature
Conservancy,\3 whose geographical and other data systems are also
often not comparable. 

Besides being noncomparable, empirical data are often insufficient. 
Inventories of many natural resources are incomplete or out of date. 
For example, the 1992 OTA study found that (1) many inventory data
are not available for many national forests, (2) the available data
are often classified on the basis of potential commodity production
rather than present vegetation, (3) the data may typically be updated
only every 10 or 15 years, and (4) the data are often inaccurate. 

Furthermore, scientific understanding of ecosystems is far from
complete, and there is still much uncertainty about how they
function.  This uncertainty contributes to strong differences in the
interpretation of scientific evidence, such as in the definition of
habitat requirements for the northern spotted owl and other species
in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. 

The socioeconomic data needs for implementing ecosystem management
are just now being defined, and the available data have not been
gathered with ecosystem management needs in mind.  Like the
ecological data, these data are often noncomparable, insufficient, or
uncertain.  Many of the existing data have been gathered by many
different federal, state, and local agencies and private researchers
for many different purposes.  Often organized and tabulated in a
variety of inconsistent formats, these data are difficult to
aggregate by ecosystem.  Furthermore, analysts continue to
substantially disagree on the conclusions that can be drawn from the
data about the socioeconomic effects of different alternatives that
might be chosen to maintain or restore an ecosystem's integrity and
functioning.  For instance, estimates have varied widely on how many
jobs might be lost in efforts to protect the spotted owl's habitat as
a part of restoring the Pacific Northwest old-growth forest
ecosystem, in part, because assumptions have differed.  These
estimates have varied from fewer than 12,000 to up to 147,000 jobs
and, when adjusted for differences in certain assumptions, have still
varied from 19,000 to 34,000 jobs. 

Finally, representatives of private industry and landowner groups
have noted that issues--such as the invasion of privacy and the use
of the data collected on ecological conditions and activities to
enforce regulations on private lands--are major concerns of some in
the private sector in considering the federal government's
prospective ecosystem management approach.  For instance, the
Department of Agriculture collects data on individual farm production
that would presumably be useful in analyzing conditions and
activities in the ecosystems where farms are located.  However, these
data are subject to stringent privacy controls established in
response to farm owners' concerns.  Participants at the October 1993
Yale Workshop on ecosystem management concluded that certain
guarantees must be established to allay private landowners' concerns
about the use of data collected on private lands.  Workshop
participants also concluded that a better system is needed for
gathering and sharing data on both public and private lands in
ecosystems.  They recommended that federal and state agencies agree
on a common and uniform data base format to facilitate information
sharing. 

While the newly established NBS will apparently be well positioned to
provide many of the ecological data needed for ecosystem management,
it is only a few months old and has not yet established a
comprehensive system for providing the agencies with data to support
their ecosystem management initiatives.  Thus, for the immediately
foreseeable future, inadequate data will hinder agencies in
developing their understanding of ecosystems' ecologies. 

Recognizing the formidable barrier posed by noncomparable and
insufficient data, the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force
has established a Science and Information Issue Area Subgroup under
its interagency work group.  This subgroup is to focus on developing
(1) the lessons to be learned about such problems from mature
interagency ecosystem-based activities, (2) ecoregional assessments
(see fig.  3.4 for a map of ecoregions), and (3) an ecosystem
management research agenda, with an initial reporting date of October
1994. 


--------------------
\1 Forest Service Planning:  Accommodating Uses, Producing Outputs,
and Sustaining Ecosystems, OTA-F-505 (Washington, D.C.:  Feb.  1992). 

\2 Linking Ecosystems and Biodiversity, undated reprint from the 21st
annual report of the Council on Environmental Quality (Washington,
D.C.:  May 8, 1992). 

\3 The Nature Conservancy is a conservation organization whose
state-by-state National Heritage Data Center network contains the
most comprehensive available information on rare plant and animal
species.  It is cooperating with NBS in a "Gap Analysis" project to
map biodiversity in relation to protected areas, such as wilderness
areas or wildlife refuges, as well as to nonprotected areas. 


   EXISTING FEDERAL LAND
   MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK HAMPERS
   FEDERAL INTERAGENCY
   COORDINATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:2

Virtually all analysts of ecosystem management note that the approach
will require unparalleled coordination of activities among federal
agencies managing lands in the same ecosystem.  However, federal land
management agencies are currently hampered in coordinating their
activities within ecosystems because of (1) disparate missions and
(2) separate, lengthy planning requirements--both of which are rooted
in the existing federal land management framework of laws, agencies,
and land units. 

Federal land management agencies have disparate missions and user
groups.  For example, the Forest Service and BLM have legislatively
based orientations and incentives toward producing resource
commodities, while the National Park Service and FWS have significant
statutorily defined conservation and protection mandates.  The effect
of these different missions is sometimes easily discernible where
these agencies' lands are next to one another, as they are along
sections of the boundary between Yellowstone National Park, where
timber harvesting is prohibited, and the Targhee National Forest in
Idaho, where large areas of trees were removed through clearcutting. 
(See fig.  4.1.)

   Figure 4.1:  Boundary Between
   Yellowstone National Park and
   Targhee National Forest

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

   Source:  Greater Yellowstone
   Coalition, courtesy of Tim
   Crawford.

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

In other instances, disparate agency missions lead to conflicting
views, such as those held by FWS, on the one hand, and by the Forest
Service and BLM, on the other hand, about the listing of species
under the Endangered Species Act.  For example, the Forest Service
opposed FWS' listing of the Jemez Mountains salamander as endangered. 
This pale brown amphibian, which is between 1-1/4 inches and 5-1/2
inches long, is found only in the Jemez Mountains of north-central
New Mexico.  The Forest Service believed that the listing would place
limitations on the agency's management of the Santa Fe National
Forest.\4 Similarly, the Forest Service did not comply with
requirements to protect the northern spotted owl in the Pacific
Northwest. 

Procedural requirements for long-range planning may also pose
significant barriers to interagency coordination.  For example, the
Forest Service under NFMA, the BLM under FLPMA, the Park Service
under the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978, and FWS under
its own authority, separately develop plans for each of their land
units, at different times, with disparate objectives, using
independently determined interpretations of ecological requirements. 
This barrier to coordination was noted in a July 1993 report by the
interagency team assigned to examine ecosystem management in the
forests of the Pacific Northwest.  The team further noted that under
the agencies' planning statutes, they had to consider requirements of
NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air
Act, and other laws.  They stated that (1) "the objectives of some of
these laws are not the same," (2) their "substantive and procedural
requirements are not uniform," and (3) "their interpretation falls to
different agencies." Even when interagency coordination is being
pursued aggressively, as it is in the Applegate River watershed in
southwestern Oregon, nonfederal participants have noted difficulty in
obtaining timely agreement on planning issues among Forest Service
and BLM officials because of separate agency processes and chains of
command. 

Furthermore, most agency officials agree that implementing ecosystem
management will likely require extensive conforming amendments or
comprehensive revisions to their long-range plans.  However,
completing a plan for an individual land unit usually takes a few
years, and revising or significantly amending a plan takes nearly as
long.  For example, in 1991, the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating
Committee, composed of the managers of seven national forests and two
national parks, developed a "Vision Statement" of desired future
conditions for the area to serve as the basis for revising the
individual units' long-range plans.  But nearly 3 years later, the
revisions have not been completed.  Similarly, revising forest plans
in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest to reflect the
administration's plan for restoring this ecosystem is likely to take
several years. 


--------------------
\4 See Endangered Species:  Factors Associated With Delayed Listing
Decisions (GAO/RCED-93-152, Aug.  5, 1993). 


   NATIONAL LAND AND NATURAL
   RESOURCE USE FRAMEWORK
   CONSTRAINS COLLABORATION WITH
   NONFEDERAL PARTIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:3

Although coordinating federal agencies' activities in ecosystems is
essential to implementing ecosystem management, it may not suffice to
maintain or restore the ecosystems' integrity and functioning.  Many
agency officials, scientists, and policy analysts agree that
ecosystem management will generally fall short of its goal if it is
limited to activities on federal lands.  Rather, for ecosystem
management to succeed in protecting natural resources and sustaining
long-term natural resource commodity production and uses, it will
require collaboration and consensus-building among federal and
nonfederal parties within the larger national land and natural
resource use framework.  Federal land management agencies face
significant barriers to achieving such collaboration and
consensus-building because of constraints inherent in this framework. 

Many nonfederal lands are privately owned.  Private landowners'
decisions are influenced by factors affecting the profitability of
their activities, including land-use regulatory or tax authorities or
financial or technical assistance programs.  Responsibility for these
authorities and programs often rests with states and localities or
with other federal agencies whose missions, budgets, authorities, and
operations are independent of the federal land management agencies. 

The central focus of the October 1993 Yale Workshop on ecosystem
management was on building effective partnerships across ownership
boundaries.  The participants concluded that federal, state, and
local regulatory agencies and tax authorities often operate in a way
that does not support, and in many cases impedes, ecosystem
management.  Specifically, they concluded that there was currently a

     spotty patchwork of many, often contradictory, laws and
     regulations.  Private landowners find it more and more difficult
     and costly to comply with the rules of multiple governments,
     multiple agencies, and multiple purposes--different authorities
     with competing, and often conflicting directives on protecting
     water quality, wildlife habitat, fish habitat, [and] .  .  . 
     air quality .  .  .  . 

They recommended that a more systematic approach be designed to
maintain ecosystems and noted that

     the mix of landowners and authorities (e.g., forestry agencies,
     fish and wildlife agencies, environmental protection agencies,
     local governments and planning commissions, private industrial
     and nonindustrial landowners) in the U.S.  poses tremendous
     institutional challenges to coordinated landscape-level
     management,

and that

     a voluntary approach to ecosystem management partnerships must
     not only recognize the effect of each law in isolation, but
     examine how and where laws interact and conflict, who is
     affected, and possible ways of reconciling priorities. 

For example, private landowners whose actions attract or sustain a
threatened or endangered species by protecting its habitat now run
the risk of having their other management activities curtailed in
order to avoid the illegal modification or degradation of the
habitat.  Meanwhile, others who actively eliminate suitable habitat
before it can be occupied are able to continue their management
activities unencumbered by the requirements of the Endangered Species
Act. 

Difficulties in building effective partnerships across ownership
boundaries encourage private landholders to take actions that may not
be consistent with protecting natural resources or sustaining
long-term commodity production and other natural resource uses.  For
instance, in our report on the Flathead National Forest in Montana
(cited in ch.  1), we reported that the Forest Service was prevented
from achieving planned harvest levels and minimum required ecological
conditions on its lands because it had not taken into account high
levels of timber harvesting on private lands.  Additionally, numerous
studies have shown that harvest levels on private lands both there
and elsewhere have often been designed to achieve short-term economic
goals rather than sustain long-term timber production. 

Participants at the Yale Workshop noted that private landowners do
not always act to support desired ecological conditions for an area
because incentives in the national land and natural resource use
framework often are neutral or contrary to achieving these
conditions.  In particular, they noted the following: 

  Federal and state income and inheritance taxes generally do not
     distinguish between landowners who undertake costly actions
     supporting desired ecological goals and those who do not.  This
     can create a disincentive to do so. 

  Technical assistance to individual landowners and cost-sharing
     assistance for coordinated management among multiple owners to
     support ecological goals are inadequate. 

  The excessive time and expense associated with exchanging the
     ownership of public and private lands--in order to shift areas
     with critical ecological values to public ownership and areas
     best suited for sustainable production of commodities to private
     ownership--can deter landowners from participating in such
     exchanges. 

  In the absence of market-based incentives (e.g., conservation
     credits or tradeable development rights) for influencing the
     level and distribution of human activities in an ecosystem to
     achieve minimum or desired ecological conditions, individual
     landowners currently undertake activities without regard to
     their cumulative impacts. 

  Provisions of federal and state antitrust laws and strictures
     imposed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C., app. 
     2, sections 1-15) do not facilitate and may limit stakeholders'
     participation in federal land management agencies'
     decision-making, nor do they foster the trust that is critical
     to cooperation. 

Unlike the barriers posed by inadequate data and the existing federal
land management framework, the barriers presented by the national
land and natural resource use framework are often beyond the reach of
federal statutory or regulatory action.  Many of these barriers can
be addressed only by states and localities.  Additionally, the Fifth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution prohibit the federal
and state governments from taking private lands for public uses
without just compensation.  Courts have ruled that certain government
regulations of land use have constituted takings requiring payment of
just compensation.  This requirement to pay compensation may limit
the willingness or ability of federal and state governments to
regulate certain land uses.  Moreover, private landholder
organizations and others maintain that the taking of private property
should generally be considered as against good public policy and
reserved only for isolated circumstances of extreme public necessity. 
Thus, efforts to establish effective collaboration and achieve
consensus with other federal and nonfederal parties in support of
ecosystem objectives will necessarily require an approach largely
based on voluntary cooperation and incentives. 


   PILOT PROJECTS SHOULD TEST
   ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT'S
   POTENTIAL TO AVOID OR MITIGATE
   CONFLICTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4

The four pilot projects proposed in the administration's fiscal year
1995 budget are directed at restoring ecosystems whose integrity and
functioning have been significantly altered by human activities. 
Because these projects are located in areas where ecological and
economic conflicts may have become intractable, they may afford less
management flexibility for accommodating activities because of the
deteriorated ecological conditions.  Furthermore, if ecological
conditions have already deteriorated and existing court orders have
already imposed specific requirements or limitations, there may be
less opportunity or likelihood for private and government interests
to reach agreement on such issues as (1) the desired future
ecological conditions, (2) the types, levels, and mixes of activities
that can be sustained, and (3) the distribution of these activities
over space and time among the various land units within the
ecosystems. 

In south Florida, for example, the administration, the state of
Florida, and some sugar cane and vegetable growers could not agree on
a plan to address the declining ecological health of the Everglades
and Florida Bay.  The administration announced an agreement in July
1993 in response to a court order, but this agreement was
subsequently rejected by one of the state's two largest sugar
companies, which controls about 30 percent of the state's sugar crop,
as well as by some small growers.  Although the state of Florida has
since enacted legislation adopting an agreed-upon plan to reconcile
many immediate concerns, a long-term ecological standard has not been
adopted. 

Various agency officials, scientists, and policy analysts have
suggested that the ecosystem management approach should be tested in
geographic areas where problems or issues of mutual concerns have not
become intractable.  Such areas would provide greater opportunities
for management to devise solutions for maintaining or restoring the
health of an ecosystem as well as for sustaining local economies and
communities.  Testing in these additional areas should provide a
better opportunity for demonstrating ecosystem management's potential
to avoid or mitigate ecological and economic conflicts--particularly
conflicts between species at risk of extinction and local
communities. 

In responding to a draft of this report, the Department of the
Interior indicated that the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task
Force intends to test ecosystem management in additional geographic
areas.  We believe that the additional areas being considered by the
task force should provide opportunities for assessing ecosystem
management's potential for avoiding or mitigating ecological and
economic conflicts. 


CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
============================================================ Chapter 5


   CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1

The administration's initiatives to implement a governmentwide
approach to ecosystem management, as well as the four primary federal
land management agencies' initiatives, reflect a growing recognition
that the current practice of managing individual politically or
administratively established land units and individual natural
resources is not adequately addressing two basic legislative
mandates:  (1) sustaining multiple uses of federal lands and (2)
protecting individual natural resources.  These initiatives are also
based on the desire to avoid or mitigate future conflicts between
long-term ecological and socioeconomic goals and shorter-term
socioeconomic values and concerns by providing greater flexibility to
coordinate activities over larger land areas while still maintaining
or restoring the areas' ecological health.  Therefore, ecosystem
management would not necessarily alter the federal land management
agencies' basic legislative mandates.  Rather, it would change these
agencies' approach to fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities
through a better scientific understanding of these mandates'
relationship to one another. 

Because ecosystems exist at several geographic scales, so, too,
should efforts to coordinate activities that affect them.  Thus, the
initiatives by the four primary federal land management agencies to
implement an ecosystem management approach within the existing
framework of laws and land units, as well as similar efforts by other
federal agencies, are important first steps in investigating and
experimenting with an ecosystem management approach and should be
encouraged.  The efforts of federal agencies to better coordinate
their activities in the same geographic areas and to develop
alliances and partnerships with nonfederal landowners are also
important to developing an ecosystem management approach.  The land
management agencies should continue to pursue these efforts wherever
possible because such efforts should help to (1) foster voluntary
cooperation among landowners in ecosystems and thereby help to
mitigate or avoid ecological and economic conflicts and (2) identify
barriers to interagency coordination and collaboration with
nonfederal parties and options for overcoming them. 

However, fulfilling ecosystem management's potential to protect
natural resources and sustain long-term natural resource commodity
production and other uses requires that the geographic areas to be
managed as ecosystems be large enough to (1) capture the complexities
and linkages among the components and processes of the ecosystems and
(2) allow for consideration of the effects on the ecosystems of
activities originating across ownership boundaries.  Hence, the areas
to be managed as ecosystems will generally have to be larger than any
one federal land unit or ownership, include private and other
nonfederal landholdings, and cross state boundaries. 

While the administration's fiscal year 1995 budget proposes to fund
the initial stage of a governmentwide approach to ecosystem
management, additional actions are needed.  These actions include
clarifying the policy goal for ecosystem management and taking
certain practical steps to apply the principles being considered by
the administration. 

Neither the administration's fiscal year 1995 budget document nor the
draft "Ecosystem Management Initiative Overview" prepared and
approved by the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force clearly
identifies the priority to be given to the health of ecosystems
relative to human activities when the two conflict.  Other
definitions leave no doubt that greater priority will have to be
given to maintaining or restoring a minimum level of ecosystem
integrity and functioning over nonsustainable commodity production
and other uses.  The practical starting point for ecosystem
management will be to maintain or restore the minimum level of
ecosystem health necessary to meet existing legal requirements. 

The principles being considered by the administration appear
appropriate, but implementing ecosystem management will require
translating these principles into certain practical steps that
clearly identify what must be done and which agencies and parties
must be involved.  These steps include (1) delineating ecosystems,
(2) understanding their ecology, (3) making management choices, and
(4) adapting management on the basis of new information. 

However, the results of federal ecosystem management initiatives to
date indicate that implementing ecosystem management governmentwide
faces several significant barriers, including the following: 

  Although ecosystem management will require greater reliance on
     ecological and socioeconomic data, the available data, collected
     independently by various agencies for different purposes, are
     often noncomparable and insufficient, and scientific
     understanding of ecosystems is far from complete. 

  While ecosystem management will require unparalleled coordination
     among federal agencies, disparate missions and planning
     requirements set forth in federal land management statutes and
     regulations hamper such efforts. 

  Although ecosystem management will require collaboration and
     consensus-building among federal and nonfederal parties within
     most ecosystems, incentives, authorities, interests, and
     limitations embedded in the larger national land and natural
     resource use framework--many beyond the ability of the federal
     land management agencies individually or collectively to control
     or affect--constrain these parties' efforts to work together
     effectively. 

  Moreover, while ecosystem management should provide a more
     scientifically informed basis for making policy decisions and
     more accurately predicting their consequences, it cannot provide
     scientific answers to what will always be essentially public
     policy questions, such as (1) the importance or relative
     priority of maintaining or restoring healthy ecosystems and (2)
     the types, levels, mixes, and distribution of activities over
     time among the various land units within an ecosystem. 

The four pilot projects proposed in the administration's fiscal year
1995 budget, as well as other ecosystem management initiatives,
afford an opportunity to establish outcome-oriented and measurable
objectives and milestones for identifying these and other barriers as
well as specific statutory, regulatory, institutional, and procedural
options for resolving them.  In addition, the increased funding and
flexibility that are to accompany these initiatives must be
accompanied by greater accountability to the Congress. 


   RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:2

To effectively implement a governmentwide approach to ecosystem
management, we recommend that the Director of the White House Office
on Environmental Policy, through the Interagency Ecosystem Management
Task Force, develop a strategy that

  clarifies a policy goal for ecosystem management that specifies the
     priority to be given to maintaining or restoring minimum levels
     of ecosystem integrity and functioning relative to
     nonsustainable short-term uses, including commodity production;

  translates the principles in the administration's fiscal year 1995
     budget into practical steps that clearly identify what must be
     done and which agencies and parties must be involved, including
     (1) delineating the boundaries of the geographic areas to be
     managed as ecosystems, (2) understanding their ecologies
     (including their structures and links to each other, their
     current ecological conditions and trends, the minimum level of
     integrity and functioning needed to maintain or restore their
     health, and the effects of human activities on them), (3) making
     management choices about desired future ecological conditions,
     about the types, levels, and mixes of activities that can be
     sustained, and about the distribution of activities over time
     among land units within the ecosystems, and (4) adapting
     management on the basis of new information; and

  identifies barriers to governmentwide implementation of ecosystem
     management and specific statutory, regulatory, institutional,
     and procedural options for overcoming them. 

We further recommend that progress in implementing this strategy in
the pilot projects and other ecosystem management initiatives be
collectively assessed and reported as part of the yearly budget and
appropriations process. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS AND OUR
   EVALUATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:3

The Forest Service and the White House Office on Environmental Policy
agreed with both of our recommendations:  The Forest Service stated
that the recommendations need to be addressed if agencies are to
succeed in fulfilling ecosystem management's potential, and the White
House Office on Environmental Policy stated that the recommendations
are consistent and compatible with the core components of the
administration's ecosystem management initiative.  Interior agreed
with our first recommendation and the intent of the second
recommendation.  However, Interior said it would prefer to see the
collective assessment and reporting of progress in implementing
ecosystem management included in the interagency task force process
rather than in the yearly budget and appropriations process. 

While Interior's preference would meet the executive branch's need
for a collective assessment of federal agencies' progress in
implementing an ecosystem management strategy through pilot projects
and other initiatives, it would not make federal agencies as
accountable to the Congress as our recommendation.  In our view, the
greater flexibility in at least some of the agencies' budget
structures, which the agencies believe ecosystem management requires,
needs to be balanced or offset by greater accountability to the
Congress for the agencies' ecosystem management expenditures.  We
believe that this accountability can be better ensured by assessing
and reporting progress toward achieving measurable performance
objectives as part of the yearly budget and appropriations process. 
These objectives should focus on end results and improvement in
resource conditions, rather than on near-term commodity output levels
(outcomes rather than outputs).  BLM agrees, stating in its comments
that fiscal accountability mechanisms and on-the-ground performance
measures must be critical components of the new BLM budget structure. 

The agencies' comments and our responses are presented fully in
appendixes I through III. 




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix I
COMMENTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF
THE INTERIOR
============================================================ Chapter 5



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)

See comment 5. 

See comment 6. 

See comment 7. 

See comment 8. 

See comment 9. 

See comment 10. 

See comment 11. 



(See figure in printed edition.)

See comment 12. 

See comment 13. 

See comment 2. 

See comment 14. 

See comment 15. 

See comment 16. 

See comment 2. 

See comment 2. 

See comment 17. 



(See figure in printed edition.)

See comment 18. 

See comment 19. 

See comment 2. 


The following are GAO's comments on the Department of the Interior's
letter dated June 7, 1994. 


   GAO'S COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:4

1.  While Interior's preference would meet the executive branch's
need for a collective assessment of federal agencies' progress in
implementing an ecosystem management strategy through pilot projects
and other initiatives, it would not make these agencies as
accountable to the Congress as our recommendation.  In our view, the
greater flexibility in at least some of the agencies' budget
structures that ecosystem management requires needs to be balanced or
offset by greater accountability to the Congress for the agencies'
ecosystem management expenditures.  We believe that this
accountability can best be ensured by assessing and reporting
progress toward achieving measurable performance objectives as part
of the yearly budget and appropriations process.  These objectives
should focus on end results and improvement in resource conditions,
rather than on near-term commodity output levels (outcomes rather
than outputs).  BLM agrees, stating in its comments that fiscal
accountability mechanisms and on-the-ground performance measures must
be critical components of the new BLM budget structure. 

2.  We have revised the report to include the recent achievements of
the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force, including its most
recent draft of the "Ecosystem Management Initiative Overview." In
addition, we have revised the section in our draft report and the
corresponding conclusion and recommendation dealing with the need for
testing the approach in other geographic areas.  We believe that the
criteria being used by the task force to select additional pilot
projects, together with the specific examples cited in the
observations and comments by the four primary federal land management
agencies, are sufficiently diverse to permit adequate testing. 

3.  We agree that the effectiveness of ecosystem management depends
on establishing open and collaborative relationships with key
stakeholders in an ecosystem and that the elaborate and costly
procedural requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)
may actually deter effective ecosystem management.  This concern was
clearly stated in chapter 4 of our draft report and is addressed in
our recommendation on the need to identify statutory barriers to
governmentwide implementation of ecosystem management. 

4.  We understand the importance of developing the staffing and skill
mixes needed to implement ecosystem management and recognize that
some agencies may not have the specific skills needed to properly
implement the approach.  We also note that CRS' April 1994 report on
federal agencies' ecosystem management activities identified staffing
and skill mixes as limits to the implementation of ecosystem
management by other federal agencies.  While this limitation could
well prove to be a significant barrier to implementing ecosystem
management governmentwide, we did not gather enough information to
discuss it in any detail in this report.  We have, however, revised
the report to make it clear that other barriers, in addition to those
we identified in our report, must be addressed. 

5.  We have revised the report to delete any reference to the type of
system under which lands are used for mineral development. 

6.  We have revised the report to state that the National Park
Service is required to develop general management plans under the
National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978. 

7.  We have revised the report to state that ecosystem management
recognizes that (1) managing natural resources to meet the needs of
humans and other species will require both natural and altered areas
and (2) both kinds of land uses can continue while ecosystems are
being maintained or restored. 

8.  We have revised the report to (1) recognize the working group
established by the National Park Service to develop its ecosystem
management policies and strategy and (2) cite the efforts of the more
than 20 national parks located within the Colorado Plateau to share
information, develop cooperative programs based on the ecology of the
area, and seek partnerships with interested organizations as examples
of the Service's efforts to develop regional partnerships. 

9.  We have revised the report to state that the Interagency
Ecosystem Management Coordination Group has been meeting since 1992
and that it has been exchanging information and ideas on areas of
interest, including training and the delineation of ecosystem
boundaries across the nation. 

10.  We have revised the report to recognize that (1) the efforts of
some federal agencies to coordinate their activities across unit
boundaries have occurred in response to the agencies' concerns and
(2) efforts by the National Park Service and the Forest Service to
better coordinate management goals and standards and activities in
the greater Yellowstone began in the early 1960s. 

11.  We have revised the report to (1) add the National Park Service
as a participant in the Sierra Nevada cooperative program, (2) make
clear that the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere program is
a U.S.  program that has been designated by the United Nations as
part of the international network of biosphere reserves, and (3) add
the Mammoth Cave National Park area as another example of a biosphere
reserve. 

12.  We have revised the report to state that (1) in the United
States, 47 areas have been designated as part of an international
network of 323 biosphere reserves and (2) 12 federal departments and
agencies participate in the U.S.  national committee and more
participate in the biosphere reserve programs. 

13.  We have revised the report to avoid suggesting that federal
participation in the coordinated strategy to address the diversity,
ranges, and numbers of native plant and animal species in California
is limited to the local level. 

14.  We have revised the report to recognize that the "Gap Analysis"
project has been transferred to NBS. 

15.  We agree that humans are a biological component of ecosystems. 
We believe that this issue is adequately addressed in chapter 1 of
the report. 

16.  We agree that the four primary federal land management agencies
also have financial and technical assistance programs and have
qualified our statement by adding that these agencies are "often"
unable to control or affect the larger national land and natural
resource use framework. 

17.  We agree that voluntary cooperation among landowners in
ecosystems helps to avoid ecological and economic conflicts and have
revised the report to make clear that such cooperation is desirable. 

18.  We make clear in chapter 1 that the approximately 77 million
acres managed by the National Park Service and the approximately 89
million acres managed by FWS are primarily for the conservation and
protection of natural resources and that legislation creating
incentives to produce specific levels of certain natural resource
commodities and uses are confined to Forest Service and BLM lands. 
However, previous GAO reports have made clear that both parks and
wildlife refuges are "multiple-use" lands.  For example, in our
report entitled National Wildlife Refuges:  Continuing Problems With
Incompatible Uses Call for Bold Action (GAO/RCED-89-196, Sept.  8,
1989), we state that virtually all refuges host many
nonwildlife-related uses, including public recreation, mining, and
livestock grazing. 

19.  We have revised the report to recognize that a stated purpose of
the Endangered Species Act is to provide a means for conserving the
ecosystems upon which endangered and threatened species depend.  We
have also noted that the National Environmental Policy Act speaks to
concerns closely related to ecosystems.  However, we note that
neither act defines or delineates ecosystems or requires any agency
to take specific actions for maintaining or restoring ecosystems as
such. 

20.  The degree to which the disparate missions and planning
requirements statutorily rooted in the federal land management
framework will hamper interagency coordination of federal actions
across ecosystems is still unknown.  As we state in our report, we
believe that the four pilot projects proposed in the administration's
fiscal year 1995 budget, as well as other mature and new initiatives
to implement ecosystem management, provide opportunities to identify
this barrier and specific statutory, regulatory, institutional, and
procedural options for resolving it. 




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix II
COMMENTS FROM THE FOREST SERVICE
============================================================ Chapter 5



(See figure in printed edition.)


The following are GAO's comments on the Forest Service's letter dated
June 30, 1994. 


   GAO'S COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:5

1.  We have revised the report to recognize that (1) the efforts of
some federal agencies to coordinate their activities across unit
boundaries have been in response to the agencies' concerns and (2)
efforts by the National Park Service and the Forest Service to better
coordinate management goals and standards and activities in the
greater Yellowstone area began in the early 1960s. 

2.  As CRS' April 1994 report on federal agencies' ecosystem
management activities shows, ecosystem management initiatives are
being undertaken throughout the federal government.  As we stated in
discussing our report's objectives, scope, and methodology, we
limited our work primarily to relevant activities of the four primary
federal land management agencies.  The roles of the Office of Science
and Technology Policy, the National Academy of Sciences, and other
organizations and agencies were, therefore, beyond the scope of our
review. 

3.  As we state in chapter 3, understanding an ecosystem's ecology is
one of four practical steps that need to be taken to implement the
principles of ecosystem management being considered by the
administration.  We have revised chapter 4 of the report to recognize
the establishment of the Science and Information Issue Area Subgroup,
its focus, and reporting milestone. 

4.  We have revised the report to recognize that the issue of
ecological classification systems is currently being addressed by the
Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Group. 

5.  We are aware that there is general agreement that various
ecological classification systems should be used in combination at
various scales.  We are also aware, however, that there is growing
consensus that a governmentwide approach to ecosystem management may
ultimately require agreement on delineating ecosystem boundaries
across the national landscape. 

6.  We agree that the role of nonfederal lands in helping to maintain
and restore the health of ecosystems is a critical element for the
future.  Our report emphasizes that ecosystem management will
generally fall short of its goal if it is limited to activities on
federal lands and that efforts to establish effective collaboration
and achieve consensus with nonfederal parties in support of ecosystem
objectives will necessarily require an approach largely based on
voluntary cooperation and incentives. 




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix III
COMMENTS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
OFFICE ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
============================================================ Chapter 5


The following are GAO's comments on the White House Office on
Environmental Policy's June 10, 1994, letter. 


   GAO'S COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:6

1.  We agree that ongoing and new initiatives to implement ecosystem
management will serve as important guides in the development of an
overall national framework that is well grounded in practical field
experience.  As we state in our report, we believe that the four
pilot projects proposed in the administration's fiscal year 1995
budget, as well as other initiatives to implement ecosystem
management, provide opportunities to address barriers and identify
statutory, regulatory, institutional, and procedural options for
resolving them. 

2.  We agree that major improvements in natural resource management
must involve better integration of government activities at all
levels, as well as enhanced coordination among public and private
endeavors.  The importance of interagency coordination and federal
and nonfederal collaboration and consensus-building are emphasized
throughout our report. 


MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix IV


   NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
   ISSUES
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:1

Carole J.  Blackwell
Charles S.  Cotton
Ralph J.  Domenick, Jr.
Brian W.  Eddington
Elizabeth R.  Eisenstadt
Chester M.  Joy

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