Lackey, Robert T

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46Challenges to Using Ecological Risk Assessment to Implement Ecosystem ManagementRobert T. LackeyEnvironmental Effects Research LaboratoryCorvallis, OregonIntroductionTwo concepts currently dominate discussions over thefuture of natural resource management and ecologicalpolicy:  ecosystem management and ecological riskassessment.   Both concepts have many, often vocal,champions so it is not surprising that there are manyefforts to adapt ecological risk assessment to helpimplement ecosystem management.  In many respects theconvergence of the two, somewhat related, concepts is anexpected development.  However, I contend that there areserious challenges to confront before there will bewidespread, if not credible, use of ecological riskassessment to implement ecosystem management.  Some tout ecosystem management as a revolutionaryparadigm that will fundamentally change public policy(Grumbine, 1994), but others argue the entire concept islittle more than smoke and mirrors (Fitzsimmons, 1996). Still others contend that it is simply another stage in theevolution of our basic management paradigm -- aparadigm that society and natural resource professionalshave followed for a hundred years (Lackey, 1997).  Thereare competing visions of ecosystem management,arguments over fundamental assumptions, debates overwho should set goals and objectives, and interminablehaggling over exact definitions.  The concept is evolvingrapidly, but for my purposes I will use the followingdefinition of ecosystem management:  The application ofecological and social information, options, andconstraints to achieve desired social benefits within adefined geographic area and over a specified period(Lackey, 1997).  This and most other definitions ofecosystem management do not appear radical until termssuch as “desired social benefits” are defined (Freemuth,1996).The second concept is ecological risk assessment.  Riskassessment has been used effectively in many fields  (i.e.,automobile, casualty, health, and life insurance, floodmanagement, nuclear accidents)  as an aid in decisionmaking.  It is used to estimate the likelihood of an eventoccurring that is clearly recognized as adverse.   Itstypical use in decision making with regard to ecologicalissues is similar:  estimating the likelihood of a certain,defined event occurring (e.g., the event of a species goingextinct, as is outlawed by the Endangered Species Act).The key requirement is that the consequence is adverseby definition, which enables the analyst to conduct therisk assessment.  In classical risk assessment thisassumption of what is adverse is relatively easy to justify:a nuclear accident is universally accepted as adverse, asis an automobile fatality, a skiing injury, a heart attack,or an airplane crash.  Achieving consensus on theanalogous adverse event in ecological risk assessment hasproved to be more elusive. Ecological risk assessment also has enjoyed widespreadsupport and become a commonly used tool in policyanalysis (Molak, 1996), but its use continues to becontroversial (O’Brien, 1995).  Opinions are diverse;they range from fervent support to caustic dismissal.Much of the controversy with using risk assessment inecological policy analysis revolves around defining theinitial policy question or problem to be assessed (Karr,1995), rather than technical details.   Like all analytical techniques used to assist management,ecological risk assessment has strengths and weaknesses;it is used appropriately in some circumstances, but not inothers.  Proponents, opponents, and those occupyingvarious positions in a vast middle ground have presentedopinions in the scientific and policy literature and atmany conferences and symposia.  The emergingconsensus appears to be that ecological risk assessmentwill be useful in management for at least a certain classof policy questions:  those dealing with the effects ofchemicals, especially where there is a legislative or policybasis for defining what is “adverse” ecologically.Problems of DefinitionTo be technically tractable and credible, the risk“problem” must be defined in fairly narrow policy andscientific terms.  Even defined in fairly narrow terms, theanalysis may be technically quite complex and require47sophisticated scientific information.   Most often thenarrowing is done by a legislative policy mandate.  Therisk problem then becomes relatively simple analytically[e.g., one chemical (or at most a few) is the stressorcausing effects on a few biological components;  theeffects, if present, are “adverse” by definition].   Toskeptics the vast majority of ecosystem management“decision” problems appear to be simply too complicatedto be addressed by traditional risk assessment methodswithout resorting to arguable assumptions about societalvalues and preferences or technical simplification thatshrouds the essence of the decision or policy issue.   Eventhe traditional requirement of risk as a probability ofoccurrence of a defined, adverse event has been relaxedto merely predicting the response of a component of anecosystem to a stressor of concern.It would be easy to create a long list of challenges toconfront, including needed research, for using ecologicalrisk assessment to implement ecosystem management.Most of the individuals or groups creating such lists havestrong “natural science” backgrounds and, notsurprisingly, lists of research needs and priorities tend toreflect such an orientation.   An implied premise ofcreating such a list is that insufficient research is themain limitation to "better" management or at leastconducting better ecological risk assessments.  It is not.Ecosystem management deals with policy problems thatare every bit as challenging as those in welfare andeconomic issues.  This is not to say that additionalresearch on ecosystems, watersheds, and plant and animalcommunities would not be useful, but rather that lack ofthis information is rarely the primary limitation on usingrisk assessment.  What is needed most is to better linkresearch and technical information to the way societymakes decisions in general, and how ecosystemmanagement is implemented in particular.The traditional risk analysis approach needs to bemodified for maximum use in ecosystem management toreflect the realities of decision making:  the concept ofrisk applied to natural resources will only work for anarrow set of problems where there is a clear public (andlegal) consensus, and on issues where there is an agreed-upon time frame of interest (are benefits and risks definedover 10 years or 10 centuries?).   In ecosystemmanagement, a probability (of cause and effect orecological change) is neither good nor bad, it is only aprobability;   ecological change or condition becomes riskonly when someone defines the change or condition asadverse.  Thus, the resolution of many ecosystemmanagement decision problems is not limited by lack ofscientific information, or technical tools, but by theconflict of fundamentally different values and socialpriorities (e.g., cheap food vs. irrigation water use;  cheappower vs. free flowing rivers).  If we are dealing with anecological problem that is at an impasse because some ofthe stakeholders do not accept a shared set of values,much less preferences, we should not be surprised whenrisk assessment is of little use in resolving the issue.  Onemodification that might help is to drop the concept ofecological risk and conduct ecological consequenceassessment.  This is not a magical solution but it doestend to focus debate over ecological values and prioritiesoutside of the assessment process.Many of the criticisms of ecological risk assessment applyto other tools used to assist decision makers.  Whether ornot it turns out that ecological risk assessment is usefulfor only the simplest ecological policy questions inimplementing ecosystem management, it is important tocome to a consensus.  Right now there is a lack ofconsensus on its proper role.  Some even argue thatecological risk assessment has little or no constructive usein ecosystem management because policy debates arealmost always clashes over values and priorities and “theprobability of an adverse event” is irrelevant untilsomeone defines what is adverse.  Even the definition of“ecosystem” is context and policy specific.  What ananalyst considers to be the ecosystem of concern must bedefined and bounded by the policy or managementquestion being assessed.  Challenges to ConfrontSeveral specific and imposing technical challenges mustbe overcome before ecological risk assessment can servea significant role in implementing ecosystemmanagement.  The challenges summarized below are notthe only technical problems to be sure, but are the onesthat currently limit the acceptance and use of ecologicalrisk assessment. First, the concept of ecological health needs to be betterdefined and understood by politicians and the public.Although fraught with serious conceptual, scientific, andsemantic issues, ecological health is at the core of allvisions of ecosystem management.  The fundamentalchallenge with the use of ecological health is not lack oftechnical information, although scientific questionsabound, but what is meant by health.  Is a wilderness areadefined as the base or preferred level of ecological health?Is the degree of perturbation by human activity themeasure of ecological health?  The concept of ecological48"degradation" is strictly a human (and value-based) one; the concept of ecological "alteration" is a scientific (andvalue-neutral) one.  The identical ecological conditioncould be either “healthy” or “degraded” depending on thejudgment of the person doing the valuing.  Further, if welook at the consequences of cyclic climate change andchaotic events to ecosystems, what is "natural?"  Withoutanswers, it is impossible to define scientifically what is“adverse,” thus hampering use of ecological riskassessment in ecosystem management, at least as it ispresently formulated.Second, we need better ways to use expert scientific andtechnical opinion.  Most of the policy-relevant problemsin ecosystem management are too complex for easy orrapid scientific experimentation or analysis.   Toparaphrase an old rule in policy analysis:   if somethingcan be easily and quickly measured with precision, it isprobably irrelevant in ecosystem management.  Ifmanagement and policy problems are simplified to thepoint of making them scientifically tractable, then theresult may lack policy relevance.  Expert opinion must beused with all the pitfalls of bias, credibility, and chargesof elitism, especially in defining who will be consideredan expert.  For example, how does the assessorincorporate “scientifically derived data” vs. observationalinformation from long-term residents?  Computer-generated maps and computer-assisted models may beelegant, but for many decisions in ecosystemmanagement, only observational and judgmentalinformation is available. Third, we need to credibly evaluate and measure publicpreference and priorities to frame ecological (ecosystemmanagement) issues.  Public opinion polls consistentlyshow that the public is very supportive of the"environment," as it is of "peace," "freedom," and"economic opportunity."  More specifically, numerouspolls document that the public is similarly sympathetic topreserving biological diversity.  What does this mean?Preserving all species throughout some historic range?Preserving the ecological function of ecosystemcomponents?  Preserving certain highly prized species? Without specifying public preferences and priorities withgreater precision, analytical tools such as risk assessmentare of limited utility.  Many of the decision issues inecosystem management are exactly of this type.  It may bethat tools to credibly evaluate and measure publicpreference and priorities presently exist and they merelyneed to be applied; or it may be that innovative ormodified tools need to be developed.Fourth, there is a critical need to develop better ways topresent options and consequences to the public, policyanalysts, and decision-makers.  Society is not well servedby statements such as "it is a complicated problem andyou need to have an advanced degree in ecology tounderstand it," or "you can select this option withoutsignificant cost to society" when there will be costs tosome people.  The main take-home message in riskassessment, in all decision tools for that matter,  must bethat there are no free lunches, and that decisions must beclearly framed as decision alternatives.  Ecosystemmanagement will not overcome the unpleasant fact thatmanagement decisions result in winners and losers, costsand benefits.  The value of risk assessment or any otherdecision tool in ecosystem management is whether it canfocus policy debate (and decision making)  around costsand benefits, winners and losers, and accurately predictthe ecological consequences of the range of decisionoptions.ConclusionRisk assessment has been successfully used in many fieldsto assist in decision making, particularly in insurance,industrial operations, and business management.Application of risk assessment to ecological problems hasbeen limited to certain types of narrowly constrainedproblems (usually associated with assessing theprobability of adverse consequences of manmadechemicals).  The principal technical limitation to wideruse of risk assessment in ecological policy is to betterdefine societal values and preferences in credible ways.To help overcome this limitation, four specific researchneeds are proposed:  (1) to develop procedures to defineecological health;   (2) to improve ways to use expertopinion; (3) to develop methodologies to measure publicvalues, preferences, and priorities;  and (4) to develop orimprove ways to present decision consequences to thepublic in a decision-neutral mannerREFERENCESFitzsimmons, Allan K.  1996.  Sound policy or smokeand mirrors: does ecosystem management make sense? Water Resources Bulletin.  32(2):  217 - 227.Freemuth, John.  1996.  The emergence of ecosystemmanagement:  reinterpreting the gospel?  Society andNatural Resources.  9: 411 - 417.49Grumbine, R. Edward.  1994.  What is ecosystemmanagement?  Conservation Biology.  8(1):  27 - 38.  Karr, James R.  1995.  Risk assessment:  we need morethan an ecological veneer.  Human and Ecological RiskAssessment.  1(4): 436 - 442.  Lackey, Robert T.   1997.  Seven pillars of ecosystemmanagement.  Landscape and Urban Planning. [Accepted].Molak, Vlasta, editor.  1996.  Fundamentals of riskanalysis and risk management.  CRC/Lewis Publishers,New York, NY, 472 pp.O’Brien, Mary H. 1995.  Ecological alternativesassessment rather than ecological risk assessment: considering options, benefits, and dangers.  Human andEcological Risk Assessment.  1(4): 357 - 366.  Robert T.  Lackey is Associate Director for Science atthe Western Ecology Division, National Health andEnvironmental Effects research Laboratory, Corvallis,Oregon, and courtesyu professor of fisheries scienceand adjunct professor of political science at OregonState university.  The views and opinions expressed arethose of the author and do not necessarily representthose of the Environmental Protection Agency or anyother organization.

Challenges to Using Ecological Risk Assessment to Implement Ecosystem Management

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Challenges to Using Ecological Risk Assessment to Implement Ecosystem Management

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