Ecosystem management Farquharson

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular

area, as well as all the nonliving, physical components of the environment with which the

organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight. It is all the organisms in a given area,

along with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with which they interact; a biological community and

its physical environment.

Ecosystem management  Farquharson

Ecosystem management is a process that aims to conserve major ecological services and

restore natural resources while meeting the socioeconomic, political and cultural needs of current

and future generations. The principal objective of ecosystem management is the efficient

maintenance, and ethical use of natural resources. Ecosystem management acknowledges that the

interrelation of socio-cultural, economic and ecological systems is paramount to understanding

the circumstances that affect environmental goals and outcomes. It is a multifaceted and holistic

approach which requires a significant change in how the natural and human environments are

identified. Several approaches to effective ecosystem management engage conservation efforts at

both a local or landscape level and involve: adaptive management, natural resource management,

strategic management, and command and control management.

To maintain hierarchical patterns of biological diversity as well as the processes and functions

supporting the phenomena that spawned them. Grumbine suggests that ecosystem management is

based on three observations: to protect biological diversity the processes that produced it must be

protected as well: species richness alone is not a good measure of management success and

management must be planned for the long-term, possibly even for the indefinite future,

ecosystem management is intended to result in both a sustainable system and a set of sustainable

management activities

Wilcove (2010) discussed ecosystem management and suggested that it encompass four goals

within which human activities are to be accommodated: “(1) maintain viable populations of all

native species; (2) protect representative examples of all native ecosystem types across their

natural range of variation; (3) maintain evolutionary and ecological processes (example.

disturbance regimes, nutrient cycles); and (4) manage landscapes and species to be responsive to

both short-term and long-term environmental change”. Sound ecosystem management is key to

sustained resource utilization, healthy regional economies, and long-term maintenance of human

populations in situation.

Characteristics of Ecosystems Farquharson

Ecosystems are some of the components that constitute the biosphere the complete assembly of

the Earth’s ecosystems. Ecosystems also include habitats, places where the plants and animals of

an ecosystem live. For example, mussels are usually associated with a rocky shore habitat that is

subjected to tidal currents and waves. Pandas live in bamboo forest habitats. Flamingos are

usually found in shallow wetland and lake habitats. Wildebeest are found on African grasslands.

Very large, easily recognized, groups of ecosystems possessing same overall general character

constitute biomes. Examples are deserts, tundra, evergreen tropical rainforests, boreal coniferous

forests, coral reefs and mangroves.

The ecosystem management is a tool to use when planning the management of natural habitats.  

This Ecosystem Management optimizes the cohabitation between the various components of the

mission, allows adequate and appropriate management, and designs and implements different

activities for users. It helps better understand the dynamics of the environments and landscapes

of nature parks. Moreover, it provides a framework and vision for making informed decisions by

focusing on the conservation and protection of natural habitats. In this way, no choice of action is

taken lightly. 

Objectives of Ecosystem Management Farquharson

To ensure the protection and enhancement of the natural heritage

To maintain plant and animal bio-diversity

To detect changes in biophysical resources

To identify concrete solutions to the consequences of human development or natural causes

on the ecological value of environments

The reason of managing ecosystems is to conserve natural heritage, and, if possible, to increase

the value of the different interventions. It is also indispensable for maintaining or increasing the

ecological value of a high-quality environment or even for restoring deteriorated environments or

preventing future degradation.

There are two main components of the Ecosystem Management

In order to attain these objectives, the ecosystem management program has two separate

components:

First Planning component

Take inventory of natural resources: wildlife and plants

Evaluate the ecological characteristics of environments. The result: maps that give an overview

of knowledge and ecological value

Draw up a plan specifying the orientations for zones in each park

Second Management component

Intervene to attain specific objectives, for example, increasing the quality of part of a park

through planting

Maintain the integrity of ecosystems through various monitoring activities

The development of Ecosystem management plan has four distinct phases, these phases are as

follow:

Determining the current status and threats,

Identifying the biologically achievable management goals,

Characterizing societal factors that in influence the choice of management goals, and

Establishing management goals.

The ecosystem management plan, ask yourself whether you see evidence of: (1) integrated and

balanced goals, (2) inclusive public involvement, (3) stakeholder influence, (4) use of consensus

groups, (5) collaborative stewardship, (6) monitoring and adaptive management, (7) use of

multidisciplinary data, and (8) economic incentives.

Current status and threats

In order to manage a system you have to know what its characteristics are. An ecosystem that

means knowing its current status and the threats that it may be facing. That means doing at least

two things

Determining the boundaries of the ecosystem to be managed and the types of habitat

within it that are to be managed and

Developing a conceptual model of human influences on the ecosystem.

Biologically achievable management goals

Once you've figured out what the system is that you're trying to protect and you've indented the

threats to the system, you have to figure out what endpoints are biologically achievable. To

identify what things are possible it is necessary to:

select appropriate measures for the \health" of various ecosystem components,

Harwell (2009) doesn't state explicitly what measures he adopted for ecosystem health, but we

can figure at least some of them out from what he said about what features of the system are

inadequate given current management and agreed, if not yet implemented, management

scenarios.

Lack of dynamic storage space to capture water releases

. Abnormal water depths and altered sheet flow patterns.

Seepage losses to the east.

Loss of a substantial portion of the original core area of the Everglades.

An implicit part of dining biological achievable management goals is that the goals are

sustainable for the indianite future.

Societal factors

Human and societal influences his extent that they pose a direct threat to the species we were

trying to protect. One of the premises of ecosystem management, well-illustrated by example is

the conservation initiatives may sometimes be needed at a very broad scale, and at that very

broad scale humans are part of the system. That means that if the system is to be managed

sustainably, attention must be given not only to the needs of non-human organisms in the system

but to those of humans as well.

There are three different ways in which it is necessary to assess societal factors:

The human activities that lead to substantial influences on or domination of ecosystems

must be indented and understood.

The legal, economic, institutional, political, and other societal factors that aect the

frequency and scale of those activities must indented and understood.

The values and preferences of relevant interest groups with an influence on the ecosystem

must be characterized.

Establishing management goals

With all of that in place, all that is necessary is to establish ecological sustainability goals in

terms of ecological endpoints and human values." If you are a biologist participating in such a

process, your expertise will be particularly important in dining what endpoints are. While

biological expertise is needed to dine the range of the possible, choosing among possible

endpoints is a question of values. The endpoint chosen for south Florida involves a large core

area (whose characteristics are \de need by ecological characteristics of the predrainage and

substantial changes in agricultural practices. Biologists have no special competence allowing us

to choose one outcome over another. We can describe the consequences of different choices, but

we don't necessarily have any special standing to choose one set of consequences over another.

In a discussion about choosing among endpoints, what biologists can do is to make sure that

everyone discusses only scenarios that can be achieved and that everyone understands the trades

among them. To point out, decisions about design and implementation of an ecosystem

management program lie along a continuum:

Societal values will have a dominant role in determining the outcome of those that are

predominantly concerned with dining the management goals

Scientific expertise will have a dominant role in determining the outcome of those that

are predominantly concerned with measuring how the system responds.

Societal values and scientific expertise will have equal roles in determining the system

endpoints that will be measured to determine whether management goals are being

achieved.

The term Ecosystem services is which that describes the benefits humans derive from ecosystem

processes. The value of a few of these services can be measured in monetary terms, but many of

these services are invaluable and priceless. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment defines four

types of ecosystem services—provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting.

Provisioning: These are natural resources, including products that humans get from ecosystems,

such as

Alternative energy resources (derived from wind, waves, tides, algae)

Fiber (seaweeds)

Food (fish, shellfish, seaweeds)

Fresh water

Genetic resources (for drugs and other uses)

Mineral resources (oil, gas, diamonds, salt, sand)

Regulating: These are benefits to humans that arise from how the ocean regulates processes,

resources and ecological systems, such as

Controlling levels and incidence of human and animal disease

Regulating the world's climate

Supplying the world with fresh water

Cultural: These are non-material benefits that humans enjoy, including

Cognitive development

Culture

Economic growth

Recreation

Reflection

Spiritual enrichment

Supporting: These are processes in the ocean that are required to provide the other three

services to humans and all other life on earth, including

Biomass production (the production of fish, shellfish, algae and all other organisms in the

food web)

Formation and maintenance of habitats (reefs, beaches, kelp beds and more)

Nutrient cycling (carbon, nitrogen and others)

Production of the oxygen we breathe

Resilience to human impacts, including climate change

Water cycling

The importance of ocean science on wealth and employment creation (Farquharson)

Ocean science is the study of the global marine environment, from the icy wastes of the polar

seas to the tranquil lagoons of coral islands: from the still blue depths of the Pacific to the busy

and polluted waterway of an urban estuary. Ocean science combines direct observation of this

environment with a systematic search for understanding of the processes that control it. So ocean

scientists are explorers as well as scientists, and much of the world's ocean is yet to be explored.

Ocean Science covers the following fields:

physical oceanography: waves, currents, air-sea interaction, ocean modeling, coastal

processes, water masses

biological oceanography/marine biology: plankton, benthic organisms, fish, ecology,

taxonomy, molecular biology)

chemical oceanography/marine chemistry: Trace elements, Isotopes, Nutrients, Organic

substances, Gases

geological oceanography/marine geology: geophysics, sedimentology, paleontology,

paleogeopraphy, sediment dynamics

marine pollution: pollutants analysis and monitoring, fates of contaminants, aquatic

toxicology, ecotoxicology .

Ocean Chemistry and

Coastal and shelf edge processes;

The resources of the open ocean, coasts, coastal watersheds, and great gakes generate

tremendous benefits and opportunities. The ocean is a source of food, minerals, and energy and

is used for transportation, recreation, and tourism. The ocean preserves a record of the nation’s

cultural past. The ocean remains a vast, unexplored realm with the capacity to provide new

pharmaceuticals, industrial products, and energy sources. At the same time, its resources are

subject to many pressures, such as overfishing, habitat destruction, and competition with

invasive species. To unlock the full resource potential of the open ocean, coasts, coastal

watersheds, and Great Lakes, society must improve understanding of these resources and balance

their health and use.

Marine recreational activities (MRAs), such as recreational fishing and whale watching, are

being enjoyed by more people than ever and can have significant economic benefits. However,

they have historically been overlooked in ocean resource management efforts even though these

activities depend upon healthy marine ecosystems. To incorporate MRAs effectively into marine

resource management plans, managers need to be able to quantify a full range of the benefits and

impacts of MRAs. Some estimated the level of participation in these activities worldwide, how

much people spent to participate and how many jobs were supported. Theirs is the first study to

assess the socioeconomic value of MRAs on a global scale. Found that MRAs were enjoyed by

roughly 121 million people worldwide, generated $47 billion* in expenditures annually and

supported more than 1 million jobs. They also pointed out that the growth of these activities

could exacerbate their potential ecological impacts, such as whale watching that disturbs

breeding or feeding animals. Therefore, the effect of MRAs should be considered like any other

activity with ecosystem impacts, such as commercial fishing, and included in a comprehensive

resource management plan. This Pew Ocean Science Series report is a summary of the scientists’

findings.

The authors collected 2003 MRA participation, expenditure and employment data from 144

maritime countries. These data were used to measure the socioeconomic benefits of recreational

fishing, whale watching and diving. Recreational fishing was defined as fishing where the main

motivation is recreation and not to sell the catch or consume it for subsistence. Whale watching

also included watching other animals such as sea lions and dolphins from above the water.

Diving included both snorkeling and scuba. Expenditures were costs associated with

participating in one of these activities, including equipment, accommodations, tickets or licenses,

Marine recreational activities (MRAs), such as recreational fishing and whale watching, are

being enjoyed by more people than ever and can have significant economic benefits. However,

they have historically been over-looked in ocean resource management efforts even though these

activities depend upon healthy marine ecosystems. To incorporate MRAs effectively into marine

resource management plans, managers need to be able to quantify a full range of the benefits and

impacts of MRAs. They estimated the level of participation in these activities worldwide,

Marine Protected area (MPAs) and fisheries management Farquharson

In recent years, MPAs are increasingly being considered as an important tool for achieving

effective fisheries management. Marine conservationists and fisheries managers have begun to

re-assess the exclusive value of conventional management measures, such as gear regulations

and catch quota adjustments for sustaining fish stocks (Carr & Raimondi (2008), and to add

effectively designed and managed MPAs as a tool within an integrated and ecosystem-based

approach to both marine conservation and fisheries management (Willis. 2003) and that they

have positive effects for fisheries.

People in coastal countries depend on healthy fisheries for their livelihoods. Gross

revenue globally from marine fisheries has been estimated during the last decade at

$80 billion to $85 billion annually. This estimate, however, reflects only the

landed, or market, value of the fish as they first leave the boat, and it

underestimates the full economic impact of fisheries. A more accurate accounting

of the value of the fishing industry to the global economy would incorporate the

indirect effects on related industries that depend on well-managed fisheries.

To estimated the total global economic activity supported by marine fisheries

(example non-aquaculture, ocean fisheries). They found that by considering the

economic impacts of fisheries on other sectors such as boat manufacturing or

canning industries, the total global value is approximately $240 billion annually, as

calculated from 2003 data nearly three times the landed value. To conclude that

considering only the direct value of fisheries underestimates the true economic

impact of marine fisheries worldwide. This Pew Ocean Science Series report is a

summary of the scientists’ findings.

MPAs provide a range of benefits for fisheries, local economies and the marine environment

including:

• Conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems;

• Halting and possibly reversing the global and local decline in fish populations and productivity

by protecting critical breeding, nursery and feeding habits;

• Raising the profile of an area for marine tourism and broadening local economic options;

• Providing opportunities for education, training, heritage and culture; and

• Providing broad benefits as sites for reference in longterm research.

Properly designed and managed MPAs play important roles in:

• Conserving representative samples of biological diversity and associated ecosystems;

• Protecting critical sites for reproduction and growth of species;

• Protecting sites with minimal direct human impact to help them recover from other stresses

such as increased ocean temperature;

• Protecting settlement and growth areas for marine species so as to provide spill-over addition in

adjacent areas;

• Providing focal points for education about marine ecosystems and human interactions with

them;

• Providing sites for nature-based recreation and tourism; and

• Providing undisturbed control or reference sites serving as a baseline for scientific research and

for design and evaluation of management of other areas.

The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected.

The ocean affects every human life. It supplies freshwater (most rain comes from the

ocean) and nearly all Earth’s oxygen. It moderates the Earth’s climate, influences our

weather, and affects human health.

From the ocean we get foods, medicines, and mineral and energy resources. In addition,

it provides jobs, supports our nation’s economy, serves as a highway for transportation

of goods and people, and plays a role in national security.

The ocean is a source of inspiration, recreation, rejuvenation and discovery. It is also an

important element in the heritage of many cultures.

Much of the world’s population lives in coastal areas.

Humans affect the ocean in a variety of ways. Laws, regulations and resource

management affect what is taken out and put into the ocean. Human development and

activity leads to pollution (point source, non-point source, and noise pollution) and

physical modifications (changes to beaches, shores and rivers). In addition, humans have

removed most of the large vertebrates from the ocean

Coastal regions are susceptible to natural hazards (tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones, sea

level change, and storm surges).

Everyone is responsible for caring for the ocean. The ocean sustains life on Earth and

humans must live in ways that sustain the ocean. Individual and collective actions are

needed to effectively manage ocean resources for all.

SOCIETAL BENEFITS

Satellite missions that enhance safety, operations, or economic return to individuals,

governments or industries are a benefit to society. It is in the general interest of society to

promote advanced technological tools that aid in understanding natural systems, observe

changing conditions on Earth, and monitor climate and weather systems that may affect

population centers. The TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason missions are among a suite of ocean

altimeter projects that provide critical data to support these benefits to society. Weather and

climate sensitive industries account for approximately 30% of the U.S. gross domestic product

(GDP), or $3 trillion1. Agriculture, construction, energy distribution and outdoor recreation

account for another 10% of the GDP. (Leben, 2005).

Worldwide agricultural benefits of better El Niño forecasts are at least $450 to $550 million per

year.

The use of technologically advanced satellite systems results in potential savings in expenses

related to natural disasters.

• Drought is estimated to result in average annual losses to all sectors of the economy of $6 to 8

billion annually.

• Fire season 2000 resulted in 7 million acres burned and estimated $2 billion in damage costs.

• A significant increase in warning lead times for El Niño and La Niña climate events has led to

decreases in deaths and injuries and provides significant cost savings.

• The annual economic return to the U.S. economy of NOAA’s El Niño ocean observing and

forecast system is between 13 and 25 %1.

Leben, R. (2005). Societal benefits of ocean altimetry data. Retrieved from; http://earth.esa.int/workshops/venice06/participants/787/paper_787_srinivasan.pdf

Harris, W. (2o09). How Ocean Power Works. Retrieved from;

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energproduction/

Mumba, M., Munnang, R. and Rivingion, M (2010). Ecosystem management: the need to adopt

a different approach under a changing climate. Retrieved from;

http://www.worldresourcesreport.org/responses/ecosystem-management-need-adopt-

different-approach-under-changing-climate-0

http://www.sos.bangor.ac.uk/about/what.php.en?catid=&subid=3986