78 research outputs found
Factors influencing the context and principles of ecosystem management
The earth\u27s population has grown eleven-fold in the last 300 years, therefore there are fewer resources and less space available for each individual, living thing: hence the biodiversity crisis. Human use of resources has increased at a greater rate than population growth. Agricultural and natural resources use and efficiency gains will be required to stop ecosystem degradation. All ecosystems have biological and physical limits, are complex and interconnected in space and time, are constantly changing in only partially predictable ways, and are renewable. Sustainable development, though a nebulous statement of intent, affirms maintaining healthy, productive land and natural resources. Ecosystem management can be defined as the process of seeking to produce (i.e., restore, sustain or enhance) desired conditions, uses, and values of complex communities or organisms that work together with their environments as integrated units. The working guidelines for implementing ecosystem management include the key steps of delineating ecosystems, statements of problems, assessing and understanding choices, and acting, learning, and adapting. The necessary steps are getting people involved; working within the scope of the processes; integrating information, technology, management, and research; revitalizing conservation education and interpretation; and, developing, monitoring, and evaluating vital signs of ecosystem health. Biological diversity, the variety of life, is valuable within an ecosystem for ecological, economic, educational, and aesthetic reasons and, thus, its conservation should be included in ecosystem management. To fully shape ecosystem perspectives in land and resource management, social, biological, and physical sciences must become better integrated. By using the working principles of the model known as adaptive management, ecosystem management can develop a new model for the scientific basis of conservation-interdisciplinary teams working with all constituencies to address both short-and long-term relationships between people and the land
Habitat Classification-Assessments For Wildlife and Fish
Comprehensive planning and management of natural resources require the assessment of existing and future conditions offish and wildlife. Fish and wildlife, hereafter referred to as wildlife resources, can be inventoried and assessed either in terms of animals or habitats. Both approaches are useful given certain management objectives. For example, population inventories in concert with other data, are often used to assess the impacts of hunting. In contrast, habitat inventories are used to evaluate the impacts of grazing, or other land and water uses, on wildlife resources. Our objective is not to compare or contrast the two approaches, but to focus on habitat assessments and the growing need for wildlife resource managers to more effectively influence the planning and management of land and water (i.e., habitats)
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Environmental indicators for the Oregon plan for salmon and watersheds
The INR worked with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to propose an integrated study design for collecting data on Native Fish, Indexes of Biotic Integrity and Water Quality, and Riparian Area Condition and Function. Estimated costs are provided at various scales. The reporting time frame will depend on the indicator and the sample design. A reporting time frame of 5–10 years would allow ecosystems to respond perceptibly to both natural disturbances and management activities and policies. Shorter reporting periods are likely to reveal very little change and yet increase costs
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Assessing the Need for a Natural Resources Digital Library
To guide the design, content, and development of a natural resources digital library, the Oregon State University Libraries commissioned a needs assessment. Interviews with citizens, policy makers, and scientists show that potential users want to quickly find, retrieve, integrate, and synthesize well organized and geo-referenced information on Oregon's natural resources, and they welcome the library's intent to develop such an information resource.Keywords: Natural Resources, Oregon Explorer, Digital Libraries, Needs Assessmen
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Developing the Oregon ExplorerTM -- a Natural Resources Digital Library
The Oregon ExplorerTM (www.oregonexplorer.info) strives to support informed decisions and actions by people concerned with Oregon's natural resources and environment. The Oregon Explorer's multi-media environment integrates archived digital documents, mapping and decision support tools, and finding aids for specific natural resource issues and topics. This paper presents the chronology of this purposeful and place-based natural resources digital library and the process which has evolved for new portal development within its framework.Keywords: Portal development, Digital libraries, Natural resources, OregonKeywords: Portal development, Digital libraries, Natural resources, Orego
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Needs Assessment and Partnerships: the Evolution of a Natural Resources Digital Library at Oregon State University
Paper presented at Information Interoperability And Organization For National And Global Forest Information Systems (IUFRO D4, D6), September 17-19, 2003 Satellite event of the XII World Forestry Congress.
Conference predates the naming of OSUL's "Oregon Explorer" but covers the collaboration and need for partnership building that was the hallmark of its developmental phase. Four case studies are used to emphasize how these partnerships differ from one another and highlight the need to address interoperability on a variety of levels.Keywords: Oregon Explorer (TM), Digital libraries, Collaboration, Needs assessmentsKeywords: Oregon Explorer (TM), Digital libraries, Collaboration, Needs assessment
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Integrated Landscape Assessment Project final report
The Integrated Landscape Assessment Project (ILAP) was a multi-year effort to produce information, maps, and models to help land managers, policy-makers, and others conduct mid- to broad-scale (e.g., watersheds to states and larger areas) prioritization of land management actions, perform landscape assessments, and estimate cumulative effects of management actions for planning and other purposes. ILAP provided complete cross-ownership geospatial data and maps on current vegetation, potential vegetation, land ownership and management allocation classes, and other landscape attributes across Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. State-and-transition models (STMs) were developed to cover all major upland vegetation types in the four states. These models incorporate vegetation succession, management actions, and natural disturbances to allow users to examine the mid- and long-term effects of alternative management and disturbance scenarios. New STM linkages to wildlife habitat, fuel treatment and community economics, above ground carbon pools, biomass, and wildfire hazard were developed and integrated at landscape scales. Climatized STMs were developed for focus areas in Oregon and Arizona to examine potential effects of climate change on potential future vegetation conditions.
The Pacific Northwest Research Station in conjunction with Oregon State University spent several years and considerable effort developing and supporting the Interagency Mapping and Assessment Project (IMAP), an interagency collaborative effort to transfer landscape assessment tools to land managers and others. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this 10-year IMAP collaborative effort was expanded to create the Integrated Landscape Assessment Project (ILAP) which was charged to identify and analyze areas within the states of Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, and Arizona that could inform economically viable fuel reduction and restoration activities.
Over the course of the past three years, ILAP has produced consistent, integrated vegetation data sets and models for millions of acres across the American Northwest and Southwest, allowing decision makers to explore possible changes in landscape conditions under different management scenarios across all lands. ILAP’s all-lands focus makes it particularly applicable, given that the complexity of natural resource management has grown well beyond ownership boundaries. ILAP has become known as an innovative tool for informing management decisions across all major upland vegetation systems at a watershed scale. Through user-friendly maps, graphs, and tables, ILAP creates a decision support framework for comparing different management scenarios. This kind of “what if” exercise provides a unique opportunity to understand the interactions among biophysical, social, and economic factors that determine the dynamic of a landscape.Keywords: climate, conservation, restoration, landscapes, wildlife, wildfire, data, rura
Introduction: Relationships Between Protected Areas and Sustainable Forest Management: Where are We Heading?
The relationship between protected areas and forest management has been one that has often been fraught with
conflict. New practices in the forest sector and new ecological insights have led more recently to better co-operation in some regions, although it is debatable to what extent cooperative approaches are desirable. In this introduction to the special section on the relationships between protected areas and sustainable forest management, we outline the history of the forestry and protected areas sectors in Canada, and the evolution of the relationships between them. We define key terms for the debate and offer a novel framework for understanding the relationship between the two sectors as management regimes that occur along parallel continua of sustainability. This framework is contrasted against real-world findings from across Canada, and with examples from elsewhere in the world
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The Oregon plan for salmon and watersheds: a perspective.
The Oregon Plan is a state-led strategy for restoring and conserving native salmonids and the watersheds within which they spend all or parts of their lives. It evolved from work that began in the 1980s on watershed health and salmon conservation and was propelled into high gear by proposed and eventual listings of native salmonids in Oregon under the federal Endangered Species Act during the mid-1990s. The Plan has expanded in scope and activities since then, and now encompasses all native salmonids and all watersheds in the state. It has spawned new commitments and investments from private landowners and generated significant improvements in state agency coordination related to salmonids and watershed health. The accomplishments of the Oregon Plan create an unparalleled foundation for state-led species conservation. The work remaining creates abundant opportunity for new leaders to add their embellishments to the fine work of others to date
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