follow

Ecosystem management "ecosystem management" has a new understanding, but its significance is still controversial. To prove these problems, IUCN interviewed three experts.

Dr. Christina, Dr. vogt

Dr Christina vogt is the co-author of The Balance between Science and Management.

Gerardo Budowski lived and worked in Venezuela as an expert on tropical land use in Costa Rica,1969 65438+February-1June, 976. He was the chairman of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and is currently the vice chairman of the IUCN Ecosystem Management Committee. Sir Martin Holdgate, a British ecologist, is currently the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forestry of the United Nations, and served as the president of the European Union from 1988 to 1994.

The following is Ricardo bayon temple (RB) from Washington Dialogue Office and IUCN.

Rb: First of all, I want to talk about the meaning of "ecosystem management". According to the definition of people I know, it is still controversial. Dr. vogt, I think you are very interesting. Your book, in order to realize it, we don't need to define "ecosystem management". Can you explain it?

Vogt: I think people have spent a lot of time defining this word. Assuming it is a broad concept, when we only pay attention to the components of the system, its advantage is that we can give up our sometimes narrow attention value. Ecosystem management should be based on a lot of knowledge we have learned. It is still not perfect to seek the operation of natural systems. With a narrow view and a lack of understanding of the ecosystem, we always regard "the crux of the problem, as I said, such as pollution and species extinction" as an all-encompassing thing. Review the meaning of the whole ecosystem, understand the whole system to tell the system, the key factors that affect the change, and those factors that will not affect all system changes. One of its meanings is that it is difficult to define technical terms such as ecosystem management, for example, it varies from person to person. However, the significance of this point is still unclear, and it will not affect our ecosystem management. That's why in this book, we all object to technical terms that take too much time to define, but forget its true meaning and purpose. Dr. Geraro Budovski

Budovski: "Ecosystem management" is hard to define in two words. "Ecosystem" is an ancient word, which was first used by Tansley in 1935. It involves the dynamic and complex interaction between animals and plants and the natural environment. According to the definition, you will consider the ecosystem of production, island ecosystem, forest ecosystem and even the ecosystem of bio-industry. Adding "management" includes social and economic issues, so things are further complicated. The combination of these two words refers to the complex interaction between social and biological components. If we understand a wide range of technical terms, you shouldn't waste too much time looking for a more precise definition.

Rb: Mr Martin, first of all, I want to ask if you agree. Secondly, if we don't define what an ecosystem is, how can we manage it? If the ecosystem defined above may only refer to a nest where trees, plants and insects interact, can it also be connected to 10 national basins? Therefore, we don't need to know the long-term interaction between plants and animals. In other words, we don't need to know our working hours and spatial scales?

The concept of Holdgate: (original) is very clear. According to Tansley's average, what is essentially the interactive nature of system boundary division? There is a hypothetical component system in which the interaction between biological and natural environment components is greater than that between adjacent environments.

When we discuss the discussion process of ecosystem management, it involves social, economic and other important management concepts and actions, rather than discussing Tansley's management concept of ecosystem. I like to use the term "ecosystem-based management", although it is difficult to define it.

Sir Martin Holdgate

In a word, I agree with Dr. vogt. We all know that we must use the knowledge of ecology and other disciplines to understand the protection of the earth and the sustainable utilization of biological resources, as well as the all-round interests of all aspects of society.

Rb: So, how do you determine the best scope of work?

Holdgate: This can only be realistic. Sometimes, our job is to adapt to a certain environment and adopt a special regional management plan. This area may be a mangrove forest or a small lake. Sometimes, our work needs to broaden our horizons and consider one of the known biota, a considerable area, including Tansley, an ecosystem under all different concepts. We must realize that ecosystem management needs the strength of the whole society, and the choice of social management goals depends on the characteristics of our work scope, system characteristics and the purpose of human social management.

Rb: Dr. vogt, would you mind commenting on the space and time range? one

Vogt: We need a unique system. The problems we find now have problems in the past. We entered a forest or farm, and we defined it as an analysis unit. Sometimes, it is very important to broaden our thinking. For example, we find that all the ecosystems we call "heritage" are traces left in the system by past land use activities. This means certain things, the legacy we do, and how to learn. This land used to be a forest, but it has been used as farmland for many years, so the existing soil conditions do not allow it to have the functions of the past forest. In the system to be managed, we need to consider this legacy phenomenon.

Another example: In the United States, natural resources conservation organizations bought all the grassland farmland around them. They found that this grassland is just a fancy, and it is impossible to manage land, because there are many-some of us call it "the influence of this grassland surrounded by farmland." If we only look at the grassland, we will completely ignore the system. Therefore, every system must be regarded as a unique system, which will make management difficult, but it is the only way to achieve our goal.

What happened within the scope of moderate management? According to our research, this can be controlled.

/& gt； A moderate range depends on the importance of the social composition of our research object, that is, the importance of social components. To determine the object of our research and what we need from the system, we can determine some logs or trees that are the most widely managed, or something bigger, maybe a hole. One problem with Tansley's concept is to try to define a clear boundary as a set of interrelated ecosystems. The world of ecosystem can't be like running. Now we know that we must understand what is happening outside the system (expanding space) and the scope of recent land use activities (expanding).

The problem is, a strange phenomenon is that every time the scope is expanded, the information needed to predict what is happening in the system actually becomes less and less. In other words, the wider you study, the less important everyone's change factors are. What is really needed to predict the function of ecosystem in sufficient space and time scale is to understand the climate. But knowing the climate, you really know what is happening in the system. I don't think so.

When we only study the changes of one or two main factors, we cannot assume that they must know all aspects of these systems.

Budovski: It depends on why you manage this system. This system can be managed on a global scale, so the whole land of the earth is an ecosystem. Or you can manage a small area, for example, a house near your garden. These two ecosystems, however, come from their completely different management purposes.

RB: You said that ecosystem management depends on the purpose of ecosystem management, but who decides the purpose of using the ecosystem?

Holdgate: The short answer is that who belongs to the region will decide how to use it. Usually you need to consider people who have a special interest in this land in the future. You need to consider a wide range of social realities, which are very complicated. Interests and what happens in the system are sometimes far from the recognition of people's interests and meaning system. Although I didn't hear the jargon, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forestry thought: "Considering all the managed resources, it is very cautious and flexible to weigh the interests of all kinds of people.

Bo Dovski: I think the most important issue is not only who should be decided, but also the process of solving the problem. I also think that we should try our best to absorb the opinions of resource custodians, not only the opinions of contemporary resource custodians, but also the opinions of future resource custodians. I realize that this is a very complicated process, but it is necessary. We need a long-term perspective to coordinate short-term interests. In any case, we are eager to get short-term benefits from ecosystem management, even if it will lead to a certain degree of ecosystem degradation. I only hope that even in this case, we must consider the long-term prospects.

For the sake of human value, ecosystem management is the first.

Vogt: Resource trusteeship brings us the core problem of ecosystem management. Sooner or later, we need to understand biology/ecology, considering that our management will not delay the solution. I strongly feel that human values and the purpose of ecosystem management are the main ones. First, we evaluate a specific system or resource, and then decide how to use them. If we evaluate wood, we can manage the ecosystem. If we evaluate endangered species, we may manage the ecosystem from a completely different perspective. You will find that in any specific laws and policies, ecosystem management is not forced by people's desire to protect species, but by people's desire to strengthen a special resource. Therefore, perhaps the most important task of ecosystem managers appointed by legislators and policy makers or decision makers is to explain the potential impact of their actions. People need to realize that everything they do has a short-term, medium-term or long-term (usually harmful) impact on ecosystem functions. Most human behavior will have a serious impact on the ecosystem, and scientific decision-making will inform the possible impact.

Holdgate: I agree that some groups in any particular ecosystem can bring short-term benefits to mankind, and those who benefit from the system have a very unrealistic desire. Therefore, free users should pay attention to an important function of science. Free use of its ecosystem is a limited natural process. Although you can't tell them how to do it, you can help them, provide them with the necessary information, and let them choose the most suitable management method, ecosystem management, within their natural range. Meanwhile, we also need to balance many competing interests. For example, many people live in tropical forest areas and get multiple benefits from these forests. They still exist outside the formal economic system in the form of forests. Other natural resources of the trustee, including the central government, are also interested in the hard currency income of these forest areas. This is mainly exported to developed markets through asset collection and recording. This means that we need a referee or some kind of conflict resolution system, a scientific way, a system that combines short-term and long-term interests and is widely accepted by all relevant departments as a part of the social structure system.

Rb: Brdowski, do you think there is a difference between terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic organisms and marine ecosystem management?

Ecosystem management needs the participation of social resource trustees.

Beautiful Temple of Hope River in Oslo, Nigeria. What are the religious values? Promote ecosystem management.

Budovski: No, at least not the way. They have different environmental factors and many sports to consider, but the overall method is the same.

I agree. It is very difficult to monitor and measure the trend of ship system, because the necessary parameters change quickly. One of the problems of ecosystem management is that the most critical change factors determine the useful substances of a specific system. For example, should we pay attention to nutrient flow or content, or should we know some other variables, such as diversity, heredity, or others? With such a flow system, the problem is to find the correct change factor, but it is still the same in the end.

Holdgate: When you think deeply about how to connect Tansley's conceptual system, there is a problem. In this sense, the marine system is different, because many marine species in the system eventually form a role firmly attached to marine larvae because of the flowing water mass. At the same time, the chemical changes are very great, and so on. Is there any way to set a map-like boundary on the land in the ocean? Or use the same standard ecological principles. You need to take the system as a whole and observe the interaction between subnets. The principle is the same, but the application is different.

Rb: With the passage of time, how will our concept of ecosystem management change?

Mangroves that threaten the world. Icon mangrove forest of Kamagu Middle School in palawan island, Philippines.

Fundamentally change our understanding of ecology. Compared with the definition of 1935 in Tansley's ecosystem, so far, the characteristics of many of our ecosystem processes have a completely different understanding. People often have to consider the ecosystem as a whole, especially the vegetation composition. The so-called inheritance is a high-level orderly and almost predictable succession order. Once at the top, we think that the ecosystem-tropical rain forest, temperate forest, whatever it is-is the same under uncertainty. If you feel uneasy, it's easy to get back to that peak. We no longer believe this statement. We now believe that the system is dynamic and constantly changes in this form. In a word, we think that ecosystems are unpredictable. Therefore, we have a very strict ecosystem and a fixed concept that is losing its application. In other words, the ecology itself has also changed.

Rb: Some scientists suggest that in order to determine the necessity of paying attention to ecosystems, we should compare ecosystems to determine which ones are more fragile and dangerous. What do you think of this view?

Vogt: I think this is a very unparalleled ecosystem. We tend to observe two ecosystems and assume that they have the same component species and roughly the same age. We can say that they are the same ecosystem. They may look exactly the same, but they are often different. In fact, they may be completely different. Because the former experienced some form of land use activities, or because of the interaction between different species.

Rb: Do you think the threat of one ecosystem is greater or less than that of another?

Holdgate's: It can be said that these two threats are obvious, both of them have been destroyed, leaving only remnants. Brazil's Atlantic coastal forest, Mata Atlantic is a well-known example. Only 3% of the virgin forest area is highly threatened by the ecosystem. Similar examples occur on many ocean islands. On the other hand, it is used for other purposes. It may be hard to say, because the threat is not obvious, prestige helps to be subtly called because of opposing destructive creatures or something like that. In my opinion, no matter which ecosystem we want to compare, it has always been a meaningful and challenging job. I'm not saying that this comparative ecosystem can't or shouldn't be done, but I think it's a very difficult task.

Vogt: Not to mention that the comparative ecosystem is threatened, we need to understand the limitations of the ecosystem. In other words, it is to what extent the system function is lost, or it does not work normally or cannot work according to our will. Obviously, different systems and different system components have different tolerances. Once we understand these limitations, it will improve our ability to predict whether to restore system degradation, and also promote better system classification and comparison.

Easier said than done, we can know the tolerance limit of a certain part of the system? Can you give some examples?

Vogt: I'm talking about a system exposed to extreme threats. When the limit is exceeded, the system will collapse. Now, these restrictions, species and species are different, and we need to determine them.

For example, we are all caught up in how to manage the production of sugar maple syrup in American Woods. Our wish is to expand production. Sugar maple is planted in an ecosystem where sugar maple cannot grow normally. There are many sugar maples in 30% to 95% forest system. Recently, due to drought, we began to find sugar maple trees in woodland, with a high mortality rate. Obviously, these systems have exceeded the maximum exposure to the threat of unbearable changes in climate conditions. We need to fully understand these limitations and how to explain the limitations of the rapid changes in human suffering.

Ecosystem management is a very old profession.

Rb: What about the concluding comments?

Holdgate: I think it is very important to remember that ecosystem management is a very old profession. From the perspective of human influence, because of its surrounding environment, they have been engaged in ecosystem management. According to their own wishes, they deliberately interfere with and change the structure of animals and plants to serve their own interests. Sometimes their defects are sometimes completed. Therefore, the principle of ecosystem management is deeply rooted in human civilization and generations. So from this perspective, almost from the beginning, human beings have been the managers of ecosystems in human history.

We must acknowledge today's challenge. The human biosphere is more dominant than in the past. This challenge gives us greater responsibility, yes, but you should apply the ecological knowledge of ecosystem functions. This knowledge shows that ecosystems or mosaic communities (usually we look at the latter) are potential structures and potential benefits of potential productivity. We see the impact of change, for example, because climate change interferes with the biosphere. I believe, fantasy, these choices may be some special types of communities, or they may be interested in the interests of special resource custody. I think it is necessary to study the relationship between ecological and sociological scientists in a narrow sense.

Therefore, some ecologists ask questions without using their own ideas. One thing that IUCN should remember is that they can't do it. IUCN needs to initiate a collaborative network of ecologists, sociologists, economists, agronomists and forest farmers in different disciplines, as well as traditional land management work, so as to ensure the preservation of resources, and anyone can obtain as detailed information as possible.

In a word, we can't salvage by ecology, but must rely on the combination of ecology and other natural and social sciences.

Vogt: At the same time, ignoring the influence of social factors on these systems, we still lack the commitment of ecologists to ecosystem management. Ecosystem management does not depend on the proposal of biological information management plan. These are far from enough. But I don't want to put all the weird biologists. Sociologists work together, and I also think this is purely a social problem. If the biological constraint is released directly, it will not be conducive to the system operation, but it will not succeed.

Budovski: We support this important point. In my opinion, ecosystem management needs an interdisciplinary approach, and sociologists, economists and ecologists work together to find solutions to problems. As we mentioned above, it is necessary to consider that all relevant resource custodians are interested in viewing managed systems. Obviously, this will require some form of consultation. Only by combining society and biology can we truly achieve the purpose of ecosystem management.

(Translated by Fu Yanfeng, Wang Siyu University World Nature Conservation 97(3): 19-22)