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O
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
1990 CEQ Annual Report: Chapter Four
Linking Ecosystems and Biodiversity
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Outline
I.
Introduction
A.
Loss of Biodiversity--A Domestic Concern
B.
An Emerging Solution--Ecosystem Management
II. Diversity, Ecosystems, and Biological Health
A.
Values of Biodiversity
1. Species and Genepools
2. Ecosystem Services
B.
Causes of Loss
1. Conversion
2. Fragmentation
3. Simplification
III. Evolution in Management Scale
A.
Current Management Approaches
1. Species Management
2. Project Impact Management
3. Management by Area Not Impact
B.
The Next Step
1. Ecosystem Management--An Approach, Not a Formula
2. The Broader View
IV. A Sampling of Current Approaches
A. Off-Site Maintenance
1. National Plant Germplasm System
2. Center for Plant Conservation
3. American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums
4. American Type Culture Collection
B. On-Site Management
1. Protected Areas
a. Biosphere Reserves
b. Federal Natural Areas
2. Multiple-Use Lands and Waters
a. The New Forestry
b. National Marine Sanctuaries
3. Geographically Targeted Management
a. National Estuary Program
b. River Corridor Program
C. Planning for Wetlands Protection
d. Habitat Conservation Planning
C. Science, Information, and Inventory
1. A Biotic Base
2. Integrating and Filling Gaps
V. A Strategy for Conservation Tomorrow
A.
An Evolution in the Conservation of Natural Resources
B.
Ecosystem Management and Biodiversity in Policymaking
1. A National Goal
2. Continuing Evolution
3. A National Biotic Inventory
4. A National Network of Bioreserves
5. A Global Concern
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Lead-in
In his 1940s conservation classic, A Sand County Almanac,¹ the
American forester and ecologist Aldo Leopold memorialized those
early settlers who grew hay in meadows adjoining Wisconsin marshes:
Man and beast, plant and soil lived on
and with each other in mutual toleration,
to the mutual benefit of all. The marsh
might have kept on producing hay and prairie
chickens, deer and muskrat, crane music and
cranberries forever.
But the next wave of settlers began to drain and fill the marshes:
They did not include soil, plants, or birds
in their ideas of mutuality. The dividends of
such a balanced economy were too modest. They
envisioned farms not only around, but in the
marsh.
The Sand County farms failed, the prairie chickens died out, and
the cranes are today endangered.
1
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
I. Introduction
Plant and animal communities, such as Leopold's crane marshes,
are valuable national assets. Managing such communities as integral
parts of functional ecosystems may be the most efficient--and cost-
effective. way to assure survival for cranes and thousands of other
U.S. species currently at risk. The long-term wellbeing of
ecosystems can be ignored only at a nation's great peril.
Domestically and worldwide, it is a healthy environment that makes
wealth possible. And ecosystems--the functional units formed by
plant and animal communities as they interact with their physical
environment²--are the key to ecological health.
Since the first settlers began clearing the wilderness,
conversion of undeveloped lands to human use has been a part of
American culture. Beginning with Yosemite and Yellowstone in the
last century, the United States has set aside more and more areas
to preserve America's natural heritage, but scientists now
recognize that ecological health depends on maintaining a diversity
of living forms on developed lands as well. The current task is to
manage not only scenic set-asides, but the larger regional
ecosystems that such sites occupy along with developed areas. By
using natural or semi-natural areas as models to understand how
ecosystems function, the nation can ensure that human actions
remain compatible with ecological health.
With new knowledge about ecosystems, the nation is moving from
managing isolated fragments of the landscape toward an ecological
2
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
treatment of the whole. Viewing the American landscape as an
intricate pattern woven from a diversity of living forms-with
developed and undeveloped areas intertwined--will help meet the
needs of humans and of other species on which humans ultimately
depend.
Biodiversity encompasses not only the variety of distinct
species and the genetic variability within them, but also the
ecosystems they inhabit. Changing the thinking of the nation on
the place of biodiversity in the U.S. landscape will involve
tradeoffs and adjustments. But policies that encourage humans to
maintain biodiversity across the U.S. landscape will sustain
ecosystems that in turn sustain the human species. The issue of
biodiversity is that simple, and its loss can be that devastating.
The United States is a leader among nations in numbers of
plant and animal community types--from tropical rainforests in
Hawaii and Puerto Rico to freshwater marshes in the Midwest to
arctic tundras in Alaska. Today, however, the biological wealth
of the United States is in decline, as is such wealth in other
nations. Loss of biodiversity is thus both a domestic and a global
concern. The United States can continue its tradition as a world
leader in conservation by demonstrating a commitment to
biodiversity at home as well as abroad.
This chapter focuses on the nature and value of biodiversity.
It also explores how ecosystem management can help fulfill the
diversity mandates of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
3
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
and other U.S. laws written to assure a healthy and functioning
environment.
A.
Loss of Biodiversity--A Domestic Concern
Mass extinctions of species and destruction of ecosystems are
not problems restricted to the Tropics. A close-up look at U.S.
plant and animal communities reveals the following somber facts:
o
In the nearly 500 years since Columbus sailed to the New
World, approximately 500 plant and animal species are known to have
become extinct. 5 Today that rate--already unnaturally high--is
rapidly accelerating.
o
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
Marine Fisheries Service currently list nearly 600 U.S. plant and
animal species as threatened or endangered, and another 4,000
species await consideration (see Table 4-1). Within the past
decade, at least 34 species have become extinct while being
considered for federal protection. Other estimates place the number
of plants alone facing extinction within the next decade at 700.6
o
A recent 50-state inventory suggests that a total of
9,000 U.S. species may be currently at risk.⁷ The problem is
national in scope, with every region of the country reporting
losses of native species (see Table 4-2). More than species are
being lost. Whole plant and animal communities--integrated,
resilient systems--are threatened.
o
Hawaii, California, Texas, and Florida-- the nation's most
biodiverse states--are all experiencing declines. In Texas, nearly
4
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
one-third of the plant and animal communities recently inventoried
are at risk; as are over one-fifth of such communities in
California and nearly half in Florida. Hawaii faces the loss of
over half of its natural communities.⁸
Old-growth forests and tallgrass prairies--two diverse
and resilient communities that once dominated the U.S. landscape
--survive now only in isolated fragments. 9
o
The ecological health of the Florida Everglades is in
jeopardy (see Everglades Case Study).
The lower 48 states have lost more than half of their
wetlands to conversion and construction, with seven states losing
more than 80 percent of original wetlands. 10
Polluted sediments from rural and urban runoff are
degrading vital U.S. watersheds such as the Chesapeake, where
striped bass and American shad are reduced and aquatic vegetation
is restricted to a fraction of its original range. 11
O
Commercial landings of fish and shellfish along
Southeastern coasts have decreased by 42 percent since 1982, and
between 1972 and 1988, habitat destruction and incidental bycatch
reduced bottomfish levels in the Gulf of Mexico by 75 percent. 12
The Southeast is losing not just species but whole groups
of freshwater mussels that serve as key elements in aquatic food
chains. 13
Populations of estuarine-dependent fish species off U.S.
coasts are at an all-time low, and 30 percent of the freshwater
5
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91-- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
Table 4-1.--Federal listings,* recovery plans, and critical
habitats for threatened and endangered U.S. plant and animal
species plus candidate species, 1990.
Category
Endangered
Threatened
Total
Species with
recovery plans
Mammals
53
8
61
29
Birds
74
11
85
69
Reptiles
16
17
33
25
Amphibians
6
5
11
6
Fishes
54
33
87
44
Snails
3
6
9
7
Clams
37
2
39
29
Crustaceans
8
2
10
5
Insects
11
9
20
12
Arachnids
3
0
3
0
Plants
179
60
239
120
Total
444
153
596**
351***
Total endangered U.S. species 443 (265 animals, 179 plants)
Total threatened U.S. species 153 ( 93 animals, 60 plants)
Total listed U.S. species
596 (358 animals, 239 plants)
Total U.S. species with
designated critical habitats 108 ( 83 animals, 25 plants)
Total candidate species
3,700 (1,600 animals, 2,100 plants)
* Maintained by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and
Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA
National Marine Fisheries Service, in compliance with the
Endangered Species Act.
** Separate populations of the following species listed both as
endangered and threatened are tallied twice: gray wolf, grizzly
bear, bald eagle, piping plover, roseate tern, green sea turtle,
and olive ridley sea turtle. For purposes of the Endangered
Species Act, the term "species" can mean a species, subspecies,
or distinct vertebrate population. Several entries also
represent entire genera or even families.
*** of the 276 approved recovery plans, some cover more than one
species, and a few species have separate plans covering different
parts of their ranges.
Source: Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, Endangered Species Technical Bulletin 15 (11) :16
(November 1990).
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fish in North America, north of Mexico, are considered at risk. 14
O
Waterfowl populations have declined by 30 percent overall
since 1969; and mallards and pintails, while not federally listed
as threatened or endangered, are down by half or more since mid-
century. 15 In 1990 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated
Florida's dusky seaside sparrow as an extinct species. T h i S
wetlands-dependent bird was a victim of pastureland conversions.
o Among the many U.S. bird species experiencing sharp
population declines or local extinctions are Kentucky warblers,
wood thrushes, and scarlet tanagers. The global aspect of
biodiversity becomes evident, as birds that summer in the United
States lose their winter habitats in the Caribbean or Central
America. Fragmentation of U.S. habitats and related effects are
also major factors in the decline of songbirds.¹⁶
At the same time that development raises the standard of
living, it can contribute to a biosimplification capable of
threatening that very standard. No nation can afford to lose its
biological wealth--that panoply of individual species, of genetic
variation within species, and of distinct physical settings each
with its own complement of biota. 17 The declines described above are
indicators of malfunctioning ecosystems that bode ill for the
nation and for the world.
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Table 4-2.--Top 20 U.S. threatened and endangered animal species
and top 20 plant species in order of federal and state
expenditures* for recovery, 1989.
Species
Status
Historic
U.S. Range
Animals
1. Bald eagle
E,T
43 states
2. Brown or
grizzly bears
T
48 states
3. Red-cockaded
woodpecker
E
South
4. American
peregrine falcon
E
Alaska, West
5. Gray wolf
E,T
47 states
6. Whooping crane
E
Rocky Mountains to North
7. Southern sea
Carolina and South Carolina
otter
Washington, Oregon, and
T
California
8. Florida manatee
E
Southeast
9. Black-footed
ferret
E
West
10. Piping plover
E
11. Kirtland's warbler
Great Lakes to Caribbean
E
West Indies
12. Least Bell's
vireo
E
California
13. Florida panther
E
Louisiana-Arkansas and East
14. Puerto Rican
to South Carolina-Florida
parrot
E
Puerto Rico
15. California
condor
E
16. Humpback chub
Oregon and California
E
West
17. Mississippi
sandhill crane
E
18. Colorado River
Mississippi
squawfish
E
West
19. Bonytail chub
E
West
20. Atlantic ridley
sea turtle
E
East Coast
Note: E=endangered, T=threatened.
* For the top 20 animal species, recovery expenditures ranged from
$750,000 to $3 million per species; for the top 20 plants, the
range was from $19,000 to $1 million per species.
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
Table 4-2.--Continued.
Species
Status
Historic
U.S. Range
Plants
1. Tumamoc
globe-berry
E
Arizona
2. Western prairie
fringed orchid
T
Midwest
3. Northern wild
Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio,
monkshood
T
and New York
4. Eastern prairie
Midwest, Virginia,
fringed orchid
T
Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
New York, and Maine
5. Prairie bush-
Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota,
clover
T
and Wisconsin
6. Aleutian
shield-fern
E
Alaska
7. Missouri
bladderpod
E
Missouri
8. Blowout
penstemon
E
Nebraska
9. Arizona
cliffrose
E
Arizona
10. Santa Ana River
woolly-star
E
California
11. Minnesota
trout lily
E
Minnesota
12. Todson's
pennyroyal
E
New Mexico
13. Rhizome
fleabane
T
New Mexico
14. Texas
bitterweed
E
Texas
15. Mesa Verde
cactus
T
Colorado and New Mexico
16. Palmate-bracted
bird's beak
E
California
17. Large-flowered
fiddleneck
E
California
18. Slender-horned
spineflower
E
California
19. Knowlton cactus
E
Colorado and New Mexico
20. Swamp pink
T
Georgia to New York
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife
Service, Federal and State Endangered Species Expenditures: Fiscal
Year 1989, (Washington, DC: DOI Fish and Wildlife Service, 1990).
9
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B. An Emerging Solution--Ecosystem Management
Natural resource management, even where piecemeal, has slowed
the degradation of ecosystems, and the Endangered Species Act has
rescued some species from extinction, but the loss of biodiversity
continues. A vigorous response to the decline of individual
species--based on the Endangered Species Act--remains essential,
but the nation also needs new strategies to protect natural
communities and U.S. biodiversity.
One such strategy is to manage sites not as isolated parcels
but as part of a larger ecosystem. Such management considers the
impacts of human actions on multiple scales--for instance, on an
immediate site, within a larger ecosystem, and across a larger yet
region of the country (see Figure 4-3). Public agencies are
exploring this approach, as are conservation groups and private
industries (see Private Lands Case Study). Increasingly natural
resource managers are coming to view heavily altered, semi-natural,
and natural areas as interdependent parts of large regional
ecosystems.
Ecosystem management strives to maintain the integrity of the
basic ecological unit. Piecemeal management--ignoring the
interdependence of parts of an ecosystem separated by political
boundaries or by lines of land ownership--can lead to environmental
decline and biological impoverishment.
This phenomenon is occurring not only on lands open to
development, but in America's most cherished protected areas. An
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Case Study
The Florida Everglades: A Divided and Endangered Ecosystem
The Everglades is a prime example of the need to manage an
ecosystem as a functional unit to maintain the integrity of its
various parts. The freshwater swamp, located at the southern tip
of the Florida peninsula, stands last in line in a 250-mile long
watershed whose headwaters rise in the central part of the state.
The Everglades has been subject to manipulation that has diminished
and polluted waterflow, threatening plant and animal species and
the future of the swamp itself. Conversion of land and diversion
of water--without considering downstream consequences--has led to
a malfunctioning of the entire ecosystem.
The watershed begins south of Orlando in a series of spring-
fed lakes that drain into the Kissimmee River, which originally
meandered 100 miles through marshland to the vast shallow Lake
Okeechobee. Periodic lake overflow sent a 50-mile-wide sheet of
water seeping through the Everglades, which originally began on the
southern banks of the lake. Before the turn of the century,
developers began draining the swamp, and farmers were soon calling
vegetables.¹⁸ the muck soil "black gold" for its high yields of sugarcane and
With more of the swamp disappearing each year,
conservationists led by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas called for
preservation of the remaining wilderness, and in 1947, the
Everglades National Park was dedicated. The state set aside acreage
between the park and the lake as water conservation areas.
Throughout this century, increasing population pressure brought
increased demands for flood control. Canals and levees were built
to divert water from now-settled areas, and in 1961 the Corps began
a project to replace the Kissimmee River with a wide straight
canal. Flood protection encouraged additional development.
Runoff from new farms and pastures in the area added nutrients
and other pollutants, and without marshlands to act as filters, the
runoff flowed directly into Lake Okeechobee. When excess nutrients
began to cause algal blooms in the lake, the state diverted water,
which eventually reached wildlife refuges and the national park.
In 1988 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park
Service sued the state over resulting environmental damage. The
state has countersued. Meanwhile severe droughts have added to
wildlife declines in the Everglades.
As Florida's population continues to grow, so does the
interdependence of people and parks. A regional ecosystem view,
including such efforts as reflooding the Kissimmee's former
riverbeds and wetlands to restore the hydrological cycle and the
purchase by the federal government of 106,000 additional acres for
Everglades National Park, may help restore the ecological stability
upon which the prosperity of the state depends.
11
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example is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, renowned for
the biological richness of its forests and other plant communities
--but today under siege. European wild boars, escaped from a
private game preserve, have invaded the park and are damaging the
forest understory and displacing native species. Further, the park
is home to a healthy breeding population of black bears, but when
the bears venture outside the protected boundaries, they are
subject to intense hunting pressure that could threaten the
population.
Park managers may confer with state officials on such
management techniques as hunting seasons and licenses, but they
have lacked a mechanism that would allow cooperative management of
the regional ecosystem in which the park is located. This situation
is changing. In 1988 Great Smoky Mountains National Park joined
with other federal agencies to form the Southern Appalachian Man
and the Biosphere Cooperative (see Table 4-4). Within a general
zone of cooperation (Figure 4-1), public and private land and water
managers can now share in joint decisionmaking on an ecosystem
scale. For example, they plan to reintroduce the locally extinct
red wolf, whose diet will likely include young wild boar.
Reintroduction of a predator with an extensive home range would not
be possible without the cooperation of all natural resource
managers in the ecosystem.
Today scientists, policymakers, regulators, and natural
resource managers are recognizing that managing isolated parts of
12
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
an ecosystem is ineffective. In response they are advocating
cooperative management of regional ecosystems by public and private
partners. Their motivation is clear:
O Neither public lands nor protected areas alone can
maintain biodiversity." Public lands constitute a third of the
total land base in the United States, but many plant and animal
community types are still not adequately represented,20 and those
that are do not necessarily have protected status. Even within
protected areas, such as national parks and wildernesses,
management can not be effective without considering the
interactions between protected and multiple-use areas--public and
private. Until biodiversity becomes a recognized value across large
regional ecosystems, biosimplification will proceed.
o Development is reaching the borders of protected areas.
In the past, undeveloped land surrounded many of the nation's parks
and preserves, and thus entire ecosystems remained undisturbed.
Today many protected areas are becoming isolated nature islands in
a sea of development.
o Piecemeal environmental management does not adequately
protect ecosystems. Separate government programs address land use,
non-point source pollution, major point sources, wetlands, and a
host of other environmental concerns. Failure to integrate such
programs makes it difficult for land and water managers to achieve
their goals.
Arguments that the nation must manage lands and waters both
13
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for human needs and for those of other species are compelling. As
plant and animal communities interact, they form diverse, stable,
and resilient ecosystems that provide a sustained flow of
beneficial services. Intensively managed systems, such as
agriculture and forestry, can simplify the biota of a site. They
can also be costly to maintain and subject to collapse under
environmental stress, yet the nation depends on them. A landscape
view of biodiversity can accommodate a range of land uses,
including intensive management. Regional approaches that recognize
the continuous interactions between altered and natural areas can
help maintain biodiversity.
For many years now Congress has recognized the value of
diversity and the critical role of ecosystems. The National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) provides the broadest such
mandate, by requiring that the federal government "maintain,
wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity m21
In addition to NEPA, 28 other federal laws relate to
maintaining diversity²² and a host of others to conserving
ecosystems. Among these are the following three examples:
O
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 includes in its
purpose "to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which
endangered species and threatened species depend may be
conserved
" 23
o
The National Forest Management Act of 1976 requires that
management plans for the national forests "provide for diversity
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of plant and animal communities, 1124 and
O
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977
states that mining operations shall "establish ... a diverse,
effective, permanent vegetation cover of the same seasonal variety
native to the area of land to be affected. ,,25
II. Diversity, Ecosystems, and Biological Health
In the 1960s as scientists studied the growing problems of
pollution, their respect for the resilience of natural plant and
animal communities increased. They began to seek ways for humans
to benefit from such communities without destroying them--for ways
to use natural resources to meet human needs without disrupting the
basic functioning of ecosystems. In this effort, ecologists have
studied the interactions within plant and animal communities and
between such communities and the environment. They have identified
the diversity of living forms that facilitates these interactions
across a range of scales:
o
Genetic Diversity. Variation occurs between individuals
and populations of the same species, based on the genetic traits
they inherit.
O
Species Diversity. The component parts of ecosystems are
not only large and conspicuous plants, birds, fishes, and mammals
but also less conspicuous species such as insects, mosses, algae,
fungi, and bacteria.
Ecosystem Diversity. A variety of plant and animal
communities and their distinct physical settings exist across the
15
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Figure 4-1.--The Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve,
established in 1988.
WEST
VIRGINIA
KENTUCKY
Roanoke
VIRGINIA
Bristol
TENNESSEE
Johnson City
Oak Ridge National
Environmental Research Park
Knoxville
NORTH
CAROLINA
Asheville
Great Smoky
Mountains
National Park
Coweeta Hydrologic
Chattanooga
Laboratory
SOUTH
CAROLINA
GEORGIA
Atlanta
Legend:
General Zone of Cooperation
Designated Biosphere Reserve Unit
Source: Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Cooperative,
"The Man and the Biosphere Program," (Gatlinsburg, TN: SAMAB,
1990).
16
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Case Study
Private Lands: Industry Acts to Protect Biodiversity
In 1990 Waste Management, Inc., a large multinational waste
management firm, issued a policy statement declaring the company's
commitment to "no net loss of wetlands or other biological
diversity on the Company's property. 1,26 The firm's Executive
Environmental Committee, in consultation with public agencies and
with the assistance of the World Wildlife Fund/Conservation
Foundation, has developed operational procedures for its local
managers. The company has employed an environmental consulting firm
to prepare conservation plans for several sites.
In preparing recommendations, these consultants compiled data
on the geology, hydrology, soils, environmental conditions, and
ecological characteristics of the sites prior to making field
inventories. Local ecologists are assisting the company in carrying
out conservation plans. Two pilot sites are in the United States:
o Port Arthur, Texas. This 5,000-acre site contains a
closed 442-acre hazardous waste disposal facility and one of the
world's largest operating hazardous waste incinerators. It also has
large expanses of freshwater marsh and pasturelands and is located
in a central flyway for migratory birds. State and federal wildlife
refuges are nearby, and various wading birds and the fulvous
whistling-duck frequent the site. The company's conservation
options for the site include protecting wetlands, managing grazing,
and planting to improve wildlife habitat.
o Ft. Myers, Florida. On the southern half of a 600-acre
site, Waste Management, Inc., operates an active sanitary landfill
with a life expectancy of two years. The property is adjacent to
a cypress slough preserve, and the northern half is a mix of
cypress swamp, slash pine, saw palmetto, early successional shrub,
and pasture. The company's conservation options for the Ft. Myers
site include improving habitat for endangered species such as the
red-cockcaded woodpecker and the bald eagle, controlling exotics
such as Brazilian pepper and melaleuca trees, and expanding cypress
communities.
Waste Management, Inc., and The World Wildlife
Fund/Conservation Foundation also are seeking new ways to manage
private lands for biodiversity. An upcoming report will emphasize
strategies which private sector managers may use to:
o
identify properties with fragile ecosystems that should
not be acquired for development, and
o identify ecosystems on currently owned industrial
properties that warrant specific management for biodiversity.
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nation and the globe.
As scientists advanced the world's understanding of the value
of biodiversity, the need to promote and protect it gradually
became evident. In 1990 a number of federal agencies took part in
a dialogue on biological diversity, organized by the Keystone
Center. The dialogue resulted in a recognition of the value of
biodiversity to the nation and on the need to manage regional
ecosystems for it.2⁷
A. Values of Biological Diversity
Advocates for protecting biodiversity often cite pragmatic
reasons for their positions, and the practical consequences of
biodiversity loss do promise to be severe. However for many
Americans, ethical and aesthetic reasons are just as compelling.
Respect for the wonder of creation and a sense of moral
responsibility are strong American values, and enjoying the beauty
of nature is a national pastime. Americans increasingly demand a
stewardship of the environment to maintain the nation's ecological
soundness.
1. Species and Genepools
Biodiversity encompasses a vast numbers of species--plants,
animals, fungi, and microorganisms--many of which provide direct
benefits to the nation. For example, a diversity of species here
and abroad serves U.S. agriculture by providing a reservoir of
genetic traits that crop and livestock breeders may need urgently
in the future. The shrinkage of plant genepools available to crop
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scientists may be one of the most immediate threats posed by the
loss of biodiversity. Yet, even within the United States, the vast
majority of domestic plants have not been examined in any
systematic way for potential benefits.
Native species provide valuable products in addition to
commodities such as wood and paper and crops such as cranberries
and pecans. For example, in 1990 the American Cancer Society
supported efforts by environmental groups to nominate the Pacific
yew, an evergreen native to the Pacific Northwest, for listing
under the Endangered Species Act.28 The yew shows promise in the
treatment of several types of cancer, yet its dependence on forest
types under rapid conversion has led to its decline.
The yew is not an anomaly. In 1984 Americans purchased $8
billion worth of prescriptions with active elements extracted from
higher plants. Human dependence on diversity goes beyond the
obvious. In addition to medicines, plant and animal species provide
fibers, gums, spices, dyes, resins, and oils. 30 Americans also
benefit directly from the productivity of coastal and estuarine
systems. These ecosystems that are essential to the survival of
living marine resources have an annual economic value to society
approaching $14 billion, including $5.5 billion in commercial
landings alone. 31 Without doubt, threats to biodiversity threaten
human welfare.
Biodiversity also affords flexibility in the face of
environmental change and variation. Genetic diversity can bestow
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this flexibility on both managed and unmanaged systems. A
genetically diverse population has a number of ways to cope with
environmental change, 32 and even rare species and genes have
survival value. With environmental changes unpredictable, an
individual or even a species just getting by under existing
conditions might thrive should those conditions change. 33 Diversity
is also beneficial in stable situations. For example, different
strains of ponderosa pine or Douglas-fir thrive on north-facing
slopes, while other strains thrive on south-facing slopes.
Genetic uniformity associated with population decline can
threaten the survival of some species. As remaining individuals
interbreed, genetic defects may result that further weaken the
population. Captive breeding programs to rescue endangered species
now recognize this problem. A program to breed the endangered
Puerto Rican parrot succeeded in increasing the numbers of
individual birds, but forest managers observed genetic defects in
parrot offspring. 34
The technologies that produce genetically uniform organisms
such as hatchery fish or clonal fruit and timber trees offer the
benefits of controlled productivity but also the risks of uniform
susceptibility to disease and changing environmental stresses.
Controlled breeding and, more recently, advances in biotechnology
have the capability of producing genetically diverse organisms as
well, although such techniques have not been widely applied.
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2. Ecosystem Services
Aside from the value of any single species or the benefits of
any single product, healthy ecosystems--either natural or altered
systems that retain their basic functional integrity--collectively
provide life-support services free-of-charge for the nation and the
planet. A sampling of these services follows.
o
Soil Building. Soil is a living community, formed by
plants, animals, and microorganisms as they move, take in food,
release wastes, and reproduce--creating soil from parent rock and
their once-living bodies.35 Both managed and unmanaged ecosystems
can build soil, although intensive agriculture and forestry can
change soil structure and reduce fertility over time.
o
Erosion Control. Protecting soil, the sine qua non of
terrestrial life, is critical. Rainfall--the primary mechanism of
erosion--loses its destructive force when captured by leaves or
needles, cushioned by ground litter, or slowed by the thick mass
of roots in ecosystems such as forests or grasslands. 36 Rainfall on
exposed ground runs off directly, carrying away valuable topsoil.
o
Nutrient Availability. Without the actions of countless
organisms, many of them microscopic, the cycling of nutrients from
air through living creatures and back again through soil and water
could not occur. Two examples follow.
Most plants depend on intricate associations between their
roots and certain soil fungi for the transfer of nutrients
essential to growth. These associations, or mycorrhizae, allow the
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plants to absorb far more nutrients than they could unaided. Land-
use practices such as monocropping and clearcutting can disrupt
these systems, making it impossible for plant communities to
maintain themselves.
Nitrogen is a major plant nutrient, and shortages often limit
plant growth. However, nitrogen gas in the atmosphere is useless
to living organisms, until it is fixed, that is, incorporated into
nitrogen-containing compounds. Healthy, diverse ecosystems contain
a variety of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, in nodules on plant roots,
scattered throughout the soil, and in certain lichens. These
bacteria are responsible for the availability of all nitrogen
except that supplied by fertilizers, and the maintenance of natural
communities depends on them.
o
Carbon Storage. Recent concern over the rate of addition
of carbon to the atmosphere, based on predictions of resulting
global climate change, has focused attention on the carbon-storage
properties of plants. Plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere and
release oxygen, and plant communities, such as forests and
grasslands, store significant amounts of carbon in the form of both
standing biomass, fallen leaves, litter, dead and downed trees,
and underground root material--both alive and dead. Existing
forests with their standing biomass, as well as reforestation and
afforestation can provide carbon sinks to help control atmospheric
carbon.
o
Hydrological Cycles. Plants absorb water through their
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roots and leaves and transpire it through their pores, creating a
critical link in regional moisture regimes. Forests, grasslands,
and wetlands regulate streamflow, filter water, and control
flooding. Natural ecosystems tend to minimize both drought and
flooding, and examples abound where human development has disrupted
this balance with unhappy results, for instance, in the Everglades.
o
Pest Management. Natural systems characteristically have
mechanisms that control pest outbreaks; mechanisms that are missing
from intensively managed systems. For instance, the majority of
insects found in young forests are destructive leaf-eaters, but
old-growth forests support a greater diversity of insect species,
among them insects that feed on leaf-eaters. Insect-feeding birds
are also most numerous in older forests.37 With the decline of old-
growth forests, the nation may be losing a reservoir of insect and
bird species that feed on damaging insects. For these reasons, the
removal of hedgerows and woodlots in agricultural regions may lead
to less rather than more crop production.
Linkages. Ecosystem services are the products of networks
of relationships, not all of equal strength, and not all direct and
linear. Some species--decomposers in particular--are critical links
about which little is known. Others, called keystone species, play
leading roles in regulating the abundance of other species in the
same community. For example, starfish and sea otters have shown
dramatic shifts in populations upon removal of a single species
from their communities."
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B. Causes of Loss
Humans have had large-scale impacts on the environment with
corresponding consequences for biodiversity. All of the following
factors are significant in the decline of U.S. biodiversity," but
physical alteration is currently the most pervasive:
Direct Taking, such as the large incidental fish bycatch
associated with shrimp trawling;
Chemical Stress, including acid deposition and excesses
of ozone, nutrients, and pesticides;
Plastics in the Marine Environment that trap or are
ingested by fish, birds, and mammals;
Introduction of Exotic Species that invade natural
communities and displace native species; and
Physical Alteration of the Environment both on land and
in coastal and near-shore areas.
U.S. biodiversity is being threatened at all levels--genetic,
species, and ecosystem. Narrowing of genetic bases and species loss
often go hand in hand, and both are increasingly caused by
ecosystem conversion, fragmentation, and simplification. These
three forms of human alteration constitute major threats to
biodiversity, both domestically and worldwide.40
1. Conversion
Human development has usurped places where native plants and
animals once lived. Farms and subdivisions have replaced more
diverse plant and animal communities; and construction and
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roadbuilding have divided wildlands into smaller and smaller
fragments. Conversion to farms and shopping centers has an obvious
effect on biodiversity, but two kinds of partial alteration--
fragmentation and simplification--are also of concern.
2. Fragmentation
Dividing a biodiverse ecosystem into isolated patches creates
barriers. When a river is dammed to create a reservior, fish
migrations are blocked or, at best, slowed. Clearcuts within a
forest create open areas, with differing temperature and moisture
regimes and reduced cover. Such alterations can function as
barriers to dispersal and population mixing of some species.
Fragmentation also exposes the interiors of remaining patches to
external physical and biological factors called edge effects that
can benefit some species but harm others. Species diversity is
usually reduced not increased by fragmentation, since species
adapted to conditions found in the interior of larger patches are
often lost.41
Songbirds in newly created edge areas are subject to nest
predators and brood parasites that occur in higher densities near
the edge of forests than in the interior. The Kirtland's warbler,
a bird that requires deep woods, has been driven to near extinction
as forests are cleared in patches, allowing the edge-tolerant
brownheaded cowbird to invade the forest and lay its eggs in the
warblers nest.42
Land and water managers can alleviate detrimental edge effects
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by retaining large contiguous blocks of habitat, and they may be
able to mitigate some effects of fragmentation by linking separate
areas with nature corridors or bridges (see Figure 4-2). In the
Southwest, the Bureau of Land Management is protecting and
restoring riparian corridors along streams, seeps, lakes, marshes,
and large springs to connect key habitats for wildlife.43 Ensuring
the retention of such corridors and, where necessary, restoring
lost linkages are emerging techniques in managing for biodiversity.
3. Simplification
Simplification is, by definition, loss of diversity. Variety
in an ecosystem can take many forms: more species, more complex
food webs, greater three dimensional structure. For example, a
forest with many plant species can support a diversity of
associated animal life.44 Simplification can result from direct
human action such as removal of fallen trees. Fragmentation also
contributes to simplification, for instance, by reducing the
differences between deep forest and open field. Finally conversion
often equals simplification, if it involves selecting for one or
a few species. Table 4-3 illustrates the loss of diversity that
results from converting an old-growth forest to an intensively
managed tree plantation. The comparison contrasts extremes; many
managed forests are more diverse than tree plantations, and young
natural forests may be less diverse than old growth.
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Figure 4-2.--Pinhook Swamp Corridor purchased by The Nature
Conservancy and the USDA Forest Service to provide a 15-mile land
bridge between Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia and
the Osceola National Forest in Florida.
OKEFENOKEE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
PINHOOK SWAMP
Sol
Wil
OSCEOLA NATIONAL FOREST
Wildlife; printed with permission.
Source: Illustration by M.R. Clark; copyright 1990 Defenders of
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Table 4-3.--Comparison of attributes of old-growth forests and
intensively managed tree plantations.
Attribute
Old-growth forest
Tree plantation
bard
structure
Canopy
Uneven; many gaps
Even; dense
Tops
Often broken
Most Unbroken
Cavities in trunks
Many
Few or absent
Height of dominant trees
Uneven; often taller
Even; often shorter
Girth of dominant trees
Uneven; greater
Even; smaller
Subcanopy trees
Various heights
Absent or small
Shrub layer
Uneven; dense in
Even; often sparse or
clumps
absent
Herb layer
Uneven
Even; often sparse
Moss layer
Uneven
Even; sometimes
sparse
Epiphytes
Abundant on trunks
Sparse or absent
and large branches
Perched soils
On large branches
Absent
Snags
Uneven; small to large
Even; few or no large
snags
Logs
Uneven sizes; many
Even; few or no
large, many decay
large logs except
classes
possible remnants
Cof natural forest
Overall structure
Complex; multiple,
Simple; fewer
indistinct layers;
butmore distinct
heterogencous;
layers; homo-
much coarse woody
geneous; little
debris
coarse woody
debris
Carbon storage
Higher
Lower
Microclimates *Ind)
Light level at forest floor
Uneven; sunny in light gaps
Even; low
Snow depths on forest floor
Uneven: shallower
Even; deeper
Temperature and moisture on
Uneven
Even
forest floor
Species diversity
Trees
Higher
Lower; often one
species
Understory plants
Higher
Lower
Animals
Higher
Lower
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Table 4-3.--Continued.
Old-growth forest
Tree plantation
Attrik
Higher
Lower
Fung-ty
Higher
Lower
thways
fixation by epiphytes
ATEM
Exceeds atmospheric inputs
Little or none
ann's
rom early successional
High
rubs
Absent due to
vegetation
management
ient flow
Cyclical; many sites of
Linear; in absence
nutrients capture and
of capture and
storage
storage sites,
nutrients leak from
ce regime
system
mage
Individual trees
Individual losses FJU,
large-scale<
blowdowns more CORINEN
age from insects and
Usually individual trees
logenic fungi
Epidemics can affect
or small groups
whole stands or
larger areas
erall pattern of
disturbance
More frequent;
scattered trees
Less frequent; whole
stands
reans
Structure (streams)
Logs in streams
Many; some large
Few; none large
Gradient
common
Uneven; stair-stepped;
channel habitats
Even; riffle and Piiit Iomine
predominate
Sediments
Diverse, from silts to
Uniform
cobbles
Overall habitat diversity
Higher
Lower
Species diversity (streame)
Invertebrates
Higher
Lower
Salmonid fishes
Higher
Lower
Amphibians
Higher
Lower
Overall species diversity
Higher
Lower
Source: Norse, E.A., Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest,
(Washington, DC: The Wilderness Society, 1990), pages 158-159.
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Natural systems can absorb a certain amount of conversion,
simplification, and fragmentation. Such activities are not, in the
abstract, unacceptable. It is possible, though, to overload a
system.
III. An Evolution in Management Scale
Natural resource management and environmental protection have
produced two recurrent trends--an increased understanding of how
human actions affect the environment⁴⁵ and a maturation in how
society controls those effects.
Early settlers recognized the damage caused by unconstrained
market hunting when game became harder to find. Later on, city
dwellers could see that uncontrolled coalburning had direct effects
on human health and wellbeing.
Responses were likewise direct--states enacted bag and creel
limits and restricted hunting and fishing to certain seasons.
Cities adopted limits on burning, especially during certain weather
conditions. Game limits were complemented by state-wide game
management programs and, later, by adoption of the Endangered
Species Act. Increasingly analytical and technological
sophistication led governments--federal, state, and local--to adopt
air pollution standards, at first designed to address direct, local
effects. More recently society has come to recognize--and now
respond to--acid rain.
With the recognition of such potentially catastrophic problems
as loss of biodiversity, climate change, and ecosystem degradation,
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society finds itself face to face with global issues that challenge
human knowledge and creativity. The scope of human effects on the
environment often overwhelms project-by-project attempts to
understand or reduce impacts."
The history of environmental protection is one of continued
recognition of the value to human existence of a clean, healthy,
and functioning environment. It is also the history of continued
creativity in developing solutions. Even in the contentious field
of endangered species management, accommodation has been possible
in the vast majority of cases.47 Creativity and the will to put
solutions to work are essential traits if the United States is to
reverse losses in biodiversity.
A. Current Management Approaches
Today natural resource managers are designing programs that
consider the wellbeing of multiple species within an ecosystem.
Environmental policies also are taking a regional focus with
geographically targeted programs that address a number of issues
within a particular region.
1. Species Management
The original focus of wildlife management was popular,
harvestable game species. Threatened and endangered species
received attention as more and more plant and animal species became
extinct. 48 Although foreshadowed by the Lacey Act and the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act,49 the Endangered Species Act was the first formal,
national recognition that each species has a unique contribution
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to the tapestry of life on this planet, and that the nation should,
when possible, avoid contributing to the tearing of that fabric. 50
Clearly, endangered species programs form an essential part of
biodiversity protection.
The act recognizes the value of habitat and the need to manage
at an ecosystem scale. It authorizes designation of critical
habitat--areas essential to the preservation of endangered species
and in need of special management -- and calls for the preparation
of recovery plans for listed species (see Ash Meadows Case Study).
However such plans are not enforceable. 52
The endangered species problem is daunting. At present rates,
it would take 50 years to list those U.S. species now considered
to be in danger. The program has financial limitations as well.
Full recovery for all currently listed threatened and endangered
U.S. species would cost an estimated $4.6 billion, yet annual
funding has been less than $10 million. 53
The Endangered Species Act comes into play when options and
alternatives are limited. Species eligible for listing are, by
definition, either dangerously reduced in number or subject to
strong forces that will result, if unchecked, in their extinction.
Frequently, habitat for such reduced populations exists only in
isolated fragments that cannot support long-term viable populations
of a species. Loss of genetic diversity and lack of suitable
habitat limit captive recovery efforts.
The act also comes into play when human options are limited.
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Projects are often already well-defined and represent substantial
program or financial investments before sponsors can identify
impacts on threatened or endangered species. Lack of a
comprehensive source of information on the habitat needs of
endangered species means that such reviews will be undertaken on
a case-by-case basis, and thus late in project development.
The nation also has devoted a great deal of effort to
protecting and propagating game species. Fees on hunting and
fishing equipment fund game and fish enhancement projects and
statewide wildlife planning. 54 Without careful review, such projects
could expand the range of game species without regard for
detrimental effects on non-game species. Congress passed the Fish
and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980,55 also known as the Non-Game
Act, in response to concerns over the fate of species not valued
for their recreational potential. The act authorizes federal
support for state-based wildlife planning, but without an ear-
marked excise tax or a constituency comparable to hunters and
anglers, it has never been funded.
Both endangered species protection and game management have
value in protecting biodiversity. The Endangered Species Act, in
particular, is crucial as it preserves the basic elements of
species diversity--distinct and unique species.
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Case Study
Ash Meadows: An Ecosystem Recovery Plan
Named for the ash trees that distinguish it from surrounding
creosote-bush communities, Ash Meadows is a spring-fed oasis in
the midst of the Mojave Desert. Its 50,000 acres straddle the
California-Nevada border northwest of Las Vegas. A series of
natural springs, active since prehistoric times, supports an
isolated relict biota.
The meadows' most famous inhabitant, the endangered Devil's
Hole pupfish, averages about an inch in length and was the center
of a controversy that led to a Supreme Court decision. Devil's
Hole is an Ash Meadows spring located in a network of limestone
caves that in 1952 was dedicated as the Devil's Hole National
Monument, managed by the National Park Service.
In addition to the Devil's Hole pupfish, Ash Meadows is sole
habitat for 27 other unique plants and animals of which 13 species
are federally listed as threatened or endangered.
In the 1970s when a ranching operation in the area caused a
decline in discharge from Devil's Hole, the National Park Service
brought legal action. The case went to the Supreme Court, which in
1976 ruled in favor of protecting the national monument from
groundwater pumping. The ranch subsequently ceased operations, but
municipal development in the area continued to alter springs not
protected by the Park Service. In 1984 The Nature Conservancy
purchased acreage, which it resold to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service for the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The Bureau
of Land Management also set aside public lands for the refuge.
Today an Area of Management Concern consists of 23,094 acres,
encompassing most of the habitat of the threatened and endangered
species. The refuge includes lands managed by the Bureau of Land
Management (9,243 acres), the Fish and Wildlife Service (12,438
acres), the National Park Service (40 acres), and private lands
(1,371 acres). The Ash Meadows Recovery Plan, completed in 1990,
considers the entire ecosystem, rather than focusing on each of the
13 threatened and endangered species. The first step in recovery
was to secure the water-dependant habitat. Other steps include
removing exotic plants and animals that have invaded the area,
controlling herds of wild horses, and protecting the meadows with
fencing, stream barriers, and interpretive signs. Captive breeding
programs for the endangered species will supplement on-site
ecosystem management.
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2. Project Impact Management
Congress passed NEPA and a host of specific laws to ensure
that federal agencies could both understand and control the
environmental effects of human actions. While the emphasis of most
such laws and regulations is on abating or avoiding specific
impacts, NEPA requires that managers look at the entire array of
environmental effects of their projects. By requiring such analysis
along with public involvement, NEPA has fostered a greater
understanding of the magnitude of human effects on the environment.
Most environmental laws focus on controlling pollution in one
specific context--air, water or the disposal of waste, for example.
Despite the overarching, inclusive NEPA framework, the narrow focus
of these laws combined with competing interests and multiple
objectives leads most project sponsors to focus on statute-driven
lists of impacts. This case-by-case, issue-by-issue approach often
leaves pervasive values--such as biodiversity--unprotected. In
addition, lack of comprehensive information on the distribution,
abundance, representation, and degree of destruction of species and
natural communities in the United States significantly hampers
comprehensive analysis.
3. Managing by Area Not Impact
The limitations of species-based management and narrowly
focused project-by-project, permit-by-permit analysis have led to
the development of geographically targeted approaches. Based on
watersheds or other ecological units, rather than political
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boundaries, such approaches provide the tools and conceptual
structures for ecosystem management. Geographically targeted
management programs often involve different levels of government
with private conservation and development interests, and focus on
full characterization of an area and on a variety of protective
mechanisms for it.
B. The Next Step
An evolution is occurring in the scale of analysis and
understanding of environmental concerns. The corresponding shift
in management rests on the conclusion--reached in programs as
diverse as game management and water pollution control--that, while
everything may not be hitched to everything else, a narrow
conception of an issue can lead managers to ignore essential
elements of the system in which the issue is embedded. The result
of such narrow conceptions is often avoidable impacts and
unintended consequences. The ecosystem approach is proving more
useful for predictive and management purposes⁵⁶ than the more
narrowly focused approaches that preceded it (see the Yellowstone
Case Study).
To understand human impacts on the environment, ecologists are
recommending that resource managers conduct analyses at a scale
sufficiently large to include the ecological boundaries of an
issue. By basing risk assessments on functionally defined regions,
they can account for the physical and biological processes that
affect or will be affected by a human action. 57
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Case Study
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Regional Management in Action
Yellowstone National Park, with its geysers, spectacular
landforms, abundant wildlife, wilderness areas, and developed
recreation sites is one of the jewels of the national park system.
It has been designated both a Biosphere Reserve and a World
Heritage Site by the United Nations Scientific, Educational and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
But Yellowstone is not an island. The Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem, comprising the contiguous mountain region in and around
Yellowstone Park, is nearly 19 million acres, of which only 2.5
million acres are national park lands. The rest includes portions
of six national forests and lands owned and managed by the Bureau
of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, the states of
Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and private individuals.
Nor can Yellowstone be managed as an island. In the early
1960s the Park Service and the Forest Service each recognized the
limits of their ability to meet statutory mandates without the
cooperation of their neighbors, and formed the Greater Yellowstone
Coordinating Committee. Other agencies participate regularly in
discussions on policy for the region.
Management of the Yellowstone elk herds that cross
administrative boundaries as they move from summer to winter range,
coordination of grizzly bear and wolf policy, ensuring the
integrity of the geothermal deposits that create "Old Faithful,"
managing transportation and recreation, and the need to ensure a
healthy and diverse economic base motivated creation of the
committee.
Managing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem requires balancing
the diversity of land ownerships, the variety of management
objectives, and the difficulty in gaining acceptance of proposals
that reduce management prerogatives. But a common vision and a
common base of information can guide independent decisionmakers
toward the goals of ensuring ecosystem integrity and maintaining
biodiversity, while integrating these objectives into the fabric
of economic life.
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1. Ecosystem Management--An Approach, Not a Formula
Ecosystem management has aspects of both process,
"conceptualization in a systems framework, "59 as well as substance,
"ensur[ing] that all plants and animals are maintained at viable
populations in native habitats and that basic ecosystem
processes. are perpetuated. "60
The core concept of the approach is management in an ecosystem
context. Such an approach requires that human actions--whether
programs to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay or plans for
timber harvest in Mount Hood National Forest--account for the basic
ecological context in which they take place. That context includes
ecological composition, structure, and function--the defining
elements of an ecosystem.
Employing the concept involves consideration of scale.
Individual actions have effects both on an immediate site, for
example, a forest stand, and as part of larger patterns of change,
for example, in a watershed. Likewise, patterns of change within
a watershed will have consequences for the regional landscape.
Ecosystem management requires that decisionmakers at all scales--
site, ecosystem, and region--be cognizant of effects of their
actions in the larger scheme61 (see Figure 4-3).
38
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Figure 4-3--Scale in ecological decisionmaking.
Region
Landscape
Watershed
Stand/Site
Source: Adapted from Salwasser, H., "Conserving biological
diversity: a perspective on scope and approaches," Forest Ecology
and Management 35(no.) :79-90 (Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1990).
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Just as delineating the boundaries of an ecosystem depends in
large measure upon the issue under analysis, so does the definition
of what will be studied or managed. Basic to the ecosystem
management approach is placement of the immediate concern in a
larger context. By way of example, looking at the larger context
could involve the following changes in management perspective:
O
Broadening Horizons. Managers can track changes in
ecosystems rather than merely focus on target species. For example,
forests can be grown as crops, but the crop can be the forest
ecosystem,62 not merely young trees of a single age class. Or,
monocultural plantations might be more fully integrated into
diverse and healthy regional ecosystems. A broader view also can
provide perspective on the relative occurrence or rarity of a
particular species or community, in a local, national, or even
global context.
o
Integrating Efforts. Managers can make greater efforts
to integrate protection programs. As an example, wetlands managers
are finding that they need to integrate federal and state
regulatory programs, state floodplain and water quality programs,
and local zoning, planning, and sensitive area protection. Why?
Because wetlands have various landowners--public and private--and
unless integrated, actions and programs can neglect key influences
or even work at cross purposes.
2. The Broader View
Managers in such programs as national forest planning,
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endangered species recovery, and wetlands protection have good
reasons for initiating and embracing techniques that require more
analyses, involve more people and agencies, and integrate agency
objectives with those of others. The regulated community, including
many developers, likewise is embracing such approaches. For
example, developers in California have welcomed the initiation of
habitat conservation plans for multiple endangered species as a
means of reducing the need for eleventh-hour efforts.63 And the
National Wetlands Policy Forum64 endorsed state and regional/local
wetlands planning efforts, in response to developers' needs for
greater certainty in the permitting process.
The trend toward ecosystem management signals a developing
consensus that a broadening of perspectives is essential to
success. Whether success is framed as the ability to run a program
without constant controversy--a factor that drives at least some
endangered species and wetlands planning efforts--or the ability
to plan development without surprises, ecology is overtaking
narrowly focused decisionmaking.
Current land-use decisions involve different agencies and
different levels of government--each with its own sphere of concern
and corresponding area of expertise. Each of these units exerts
independent authority over proposals by developers and agencies in
a sequential fashion. The process is unpredictable and invites
conflict and fragmented decisions. 65 Ecosystem management, by
considering both natural factors and human institutions, can bring
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together multiple decisions in a single framework.
Reliance upon broader, more inclusive decisionmaking will
neither solve nor preclude all conflicts over allocation of
resources. As the participants in the Keystone Dialogue noted,
although federal multiple-use lands must continue to meet human
needs, the extent, timing, and location of uses may need to change
to conserve biodiversity.66
The threat of biodiversity loss may change the daily
operations of land and water managers. The situation requires a
quantum leap in cooperation and communication between interests
and across sectoral lines--public/private, science/management,
preservationist/developer, federal/state/local, and inter-agency.
Currently such cooperation is time-consuming, difficult, and until
participants gain more experience, of uncertain outcome. Statutory
and regulatory frameworks--some established under earlier, narrower
conceptions of the workings of the natural world--also constrain
broad-view approaches. The nation may need to update management
systems to ensure that meeting human needs in the short run does
not preclude achieving ecological objectives vital to human
wellbeing in the long run.
IV. A Sampling of Current Approaches
Though the term biodiversity may be relatively new, the
recognition that native species of plants and animals are worthy
of conservation is a trademark of U.S. natural resource policy.
And though techniques for managing natural resources may change
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with new ecological knowledge, some techniques that protect
ecosystems and promote biodiversity are already in use. Not all
approaches aim to preserve biodiversity across all scales, nor do
they all focus on ecosystem management. Rather, efforts may be
targeted toward maintaining a particular scale of diversity--
genetic, species, or ecosystem. Such techniques may be categorized
as either off-site or on-site,67 and ecosystem management has
evolved in a number of these programs.
Off-site approaches such as seed and embryo banks, zoological
parks, botanical gardens, and captive breeding programs involve
intensive intervention to maintain species or communities outside
their natural environment. Off-site approaches serve conservation
by, for example, providing convenient storage of germplasm for
breeding programs and allowing access to samples of wild species
for research and for propagating endangered species.
On-site approaches may have broad objectives, as in
maintaining entire ecosystems, or focused objectives, as in
ensuring the habitat of a single species within an ecosystem or
perhaps across several ecosystems. In addition, some scientists and
mangers are developing techniques to restore ecosystems and
communities, allowing for restoration of reduced biodiversity.
The following section reviews a sampling of off-site and on-
site programs and several geographically targeted programs.
A. Off-Site Maintenance
Efforts to maintain species or communities off-site support
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on-site management techniques, such as ecosystem restoration.
1. National Plant Germplasm System
The Agricultural Research Service in the U.S. Department of
Agriculture administers the National Plant Germplasm System to
provide plant breeders and research scientists with continued
access to reserves of genetic material essential to maintaining the
nation's major crops.68 The system is the world's largest
distributor of plant germplasm, and each year supplies more than
230,000 samples from its collections to more than 100 nations.69
In addition to storage, the program plants seeds on a regular basis
to maintain a fresh supply. In 1990 Congress enacted new
legislation to expand the scope of the National Plant Germplasm
System with a National Genetic Resources Program to preserve a
broader range of genetic resources, including those from animals,
insects, and microbial organisms.⁷
2. Center for Plant Conservation
The Center for Plant Conservation is a private consortium of
botanical gardens and arboreti, established in 1984 to rescue
native plants. The Center maintains a growing national collection
of over 400 species of threatened and endangered native plants and
cooperates with the Agricultural Research Service on seed storage.
It maintains this collection through the cooperation of member
institutions, each of which has agreed to bring into cultivation
and place into seed storage the most highly endangered plant
species of their particular region of the United States.
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3. American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums
This network of U.S. and Canadian ZOOS and aquaria conducts
a Species Survival Program for native and exotic wild animals.
Until the 1960s zoos and aquaria were consumers of wildlife--when
an animal died, they just ordered another specimen from the wild-
-but today, with species at risk around the world, zoos and
aquariums have become major wildlife producers. Of 156
institutional members, 128 have Species Survival Plans for
threatened and endangered animals. Member institutions cooperate
with public agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on
captive breeding programs for native species including the black-
footed ferret, California condor, red wolf, thick-billed parrot,
whooping crane, and Puerto Rican crested toad. 71
4. American Type Culture Collection
The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) is a gene library
and a national repository for microorganisms. Governed by a board
representing 21 scientific societies, the institute collects,
propagates, preserves, and distributes cultures of microorganisms,
cell lines, animal and plant viruses, and special gene and cellular
products. Over 42,000 strains of microorganisms--freeze-dried or
in live culture--are available for use in education, research, and
various scientific and industrial applications. The ATCC provides
technical information and other services to microbiologists
worldwide, publishes a catalogue of its holdings, and maintains a
computerized on-line database. 72
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B. On-Site Management
Both public and private sectors are managing properties in
ways that can help--or hinder--biodiversity maintenance. Public
land managers achieve a variety of objectives, from explicit
biodiversity and ecosystem protection to broader multiple-use
management that also includes strip mining, intensive forest
management, grazing, military training, and nuclear energy
research.
1. Protected Areas
Natural areas--public and private--help maintain U.S.
biodiversity. Among the larger private programs are The Nature
Conservancy reserves with over 1 million acres in 50 states and
the National Audubon Society wildlife sanctuaries with 150,000
acres in 19 states. Many individual private landowners also expend
considerable time, effort, and money to protect and carefully
manage their land in ways that promote biodiversity. Some
conservation groups and states offer registry programs that
recognize private efforts and provide technical assistance. Most
states and a number of cities manage state and municipal forests
and parks, but the federal government is the largest single natural
area manager.
a. Biosphere Reserves
One of the few programs to have biological diversity as a
primary goal, biosphere reserves are part of a global network
administered by the United Nations' Man and the Biosphere Program
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(MAB). The MAB Secretariat in the State Department oversees
administration of the 46 U.S. biosphere reserves (see Table 4-4)
that include federal land, state land, university property, and
private reserves. Total acreage in reserves exceeds 27 million
acres. The original qualifications for designation--a core of
wilderness, a buffer of limited human use, a transition area of
mixed uses, a history of scientific work, and educational outreach-
-still apply but with the realization that management must extend
across boundaries to a regional ecosystem. Biosphere reserves began
as a designation program to identify outstanding natural areas and
to encourage their protection, but the program may be entering a
more active stage, for the network has potential to serve as
monitoring sites in such fields as biodiversity and climate change.
b. Federal Natural Areas
Federal lands managed primarily for natural values include
national parks and monuments, wilderness and primitive areas, and
wildlife refuges. Objectives of individual units may not always
coincide with protection of biodiversity. For example, the impetus
for establishing many national parks was scenic beauty rather than
ecological function, and the parks have a dual mandate for
conservation and recreation. Many wildlife refuges operate under
game management objectives that can conflict with the wellbeing of
other plant and animal species, and the boundaries of many
wilderness areas were established based on wilderness character
rather than ecosystem functioning or biodiversity.
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Federal agencies have long recognized the value of setting
aside areas for the study of natural processes. For instance, the
National Science Foundation administers 640,000 acres of Long-Term
Ecological Research sites; the Department of Energy has 580,000
acres of National Environmental Research Parks; and the Forest
Service has 224 Research Natural Areas that average 1,100 acres in
size and represent most U.S. forest community types.
Although many designated natural areas are small and thus
prone to detrimental edge effects and catastrophic natural events,
they are nonetheless valuable elements in a conservation strategy.
Federal agencies set aside natural areas designated by more than
100 different names, including the following:
Research Natural Areas,
National Environmental Research Parks,
Experimental Forests and Ranges,
Experimental Ecological Reserves,
Ecological Research Areas, and
Long-Term Ecological Research Sites.
2.
Multiple-Use Lands and Waters
The previous section described areas set aside for
preservation in their natural state, but most lands and waters--
public and private--are not managed for this purpose. For instance,
the Forest Service (USDA) and Bureau of Land Management (USDI)
jointly manage 343 million acres or 47 percent of the federal
estate under a multiple-use mandate. The Department of Defense
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Table
ed Nations Biosphere Reserves (46) in the United States, 1990.
Admini-
cation
stration
Area
Biome
acres
AK
USDI/FWS
110,943
Tundra Communities and
AZ
Barren Arctic Deserts
USDA/FS
111,300
Warm Deserts and Semi-
deserts
TX
USDI/NPS
283,247
Warm Deserts and Semi-
deserts
TX
USDI/NPS
34,217
Temperate Broadleaf
.nges
CA
Forests or Woodlands
USDA/FS
107,600
Temperate Rainforests
USDI/BLM,NPS
TNC,CA,U.OfCA
Humboltst.U.
th Atl.:
GA,SC
USDI/NPS, FWS
NS and
490,405
NC
Temperate Broadleaf
GA,SC,NC
id units
U.OfGA,U.ofSC
Forests or Woodlands
EF and
earch Area
OR
USDA/FS
lif. Coast:
7,051
CA
Temperate Rainforests
USDI/FWS,NPS
NP + 7 other
964,000
Evergreen Sclero-
DOC/NOAA, CA
.nd federal units
San Francisco
phyllous Forests,
Gulf Coastal Plain FL
Scrub, or Woodlands
FL
16,402
Temperate Broadleaf
1 Plains ER
CO
.ain-Adirondack
USDA/ARS
Forests or Woodlands
6,210
NY,VT
Temperate Grasslands
USDA/FS
10,378,200
Adirondack Park
Temperate Broadleaf
Channel Islands NP
Agency
CA
USDI/NPS
Forests or Woodlands
Coram EF
7,440
MT
USDA/FS
Mixed Islands System
3,019
Mixed Mountain and
Denali NP and Preserve
AK
USDI/NPS
Highland Systems
782,000
Temperate Needleleaf
Desert ER
UT
USDA/FS
Forests or Woodlands
22,513
Cold Winter Deserts an
Everglades NP
FL
Semi-deserts
USDI/NPS
566,800
Temperate Broadleaf
Fraser EF
CO
Forests or Woodlands
USDA/FS
9,328
Mixed Mountain and
Glacier Bay-
AK
Highland Systems
Admiralty Island
USDA/FS
3,285,284
Temperate Rainforests
Glacier NP
USDI/NPS
MT
Guanica Commonwealth For.
USDI/NPS
410,058
PR
Temperate Grasslands
PR
H.J. Andrews EF
4,000
OR
USDA/FS
Mixed Island Systems
6,100
Mixed Mountain and
Hawaiian Islands
HI
Highland Systems
Hubbard Brook EF
USDI/NPS
257,832
NH
USDA/FS
Mixed Island Systems
3,075
Temperate Needleleaf
.e Royale NP
MI
Forests or Woodlands
Jornada ER
USDI/NPS
54,144
NM
USDA/ARS
River and Lake Systems
78,297
Warm Deserts and Semi-
deserts
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Table 4-4.--Continued.
Admini-
Reserve
Location
stration
Area
Biome
acres
Konza Prairie RNA
KS
TNC, KSU
3,487
Temperate Grasslands
Luquillo EF
PR
USDA/FS
11,340
Tropical Humid Forests
Mammoth Cave Area
KY
USDI/NPS
52,420
Temperate Broadleaf
Forests or Woodlands
Mojave and CO Deserts
CA
USDA/FS
2,627,000
Warm Deserts and Semi-
CA St.Parks
deserts
New Jersey Pinelands
NJ
Pinelands
940,000
Temperate Broadleaf
Commission
Forests and Woodlands
Niwot Ridge
CO
USDA/FS
1,200
Mixed Mountain and
Noatak NP
Highland Systems
AK
USDI/NPS
3,035,200
Tundra Communities and
Olympic NP
Barren Arctic Deserts
WA
USDI/NPS
363,379
Temperate Rainforests
Organ Pipe Cactus NM
AZ
USDI/NPS
133,278
Warm Deserts and Semi-
deserts
Rocky Mountain NP
CO
USDI/NPS
106,710
Mixed Mountain and
San Dimas EF
Highland Systems
CA
USDA/FS
6,947
Evergreen Sclero-
phyllous Forests,
San Joaquim ER
Scrub, or Woodlands
CA
USDA/FS
1,832
Evergreen Sclero-
phyllous Forests,
Sequoia-Kings Canyon NP
Scrub, or Woodlands
CA
USDI/NPS
343,000
Mixed Mountains and
South Atlantic
Highland Systems
SC
USDI/NPS
6,125
Coastal Plain
Temperate Broadleaf
Southern Appalachian:
Forests or Woodlands
NC,
USDA/FS
Temperate Broadleaf
Great Smoky Mountains NP
USDI/NPS
521,140
and other federal units
Forests or Woodlands
DOE, TVA
Stanislaus-Toulumne EF
CA
USDA/FS
601
Mixed Mountain and
Three Sisters Wilderness
Highland Systems
OR
USDA/FS
80,900
Mixed Mountain and
Univ. Michigan Bio. Stn.
Highland Systems
MI
U.of MI
4,048
U.S. Virgin Islands NP
River and Lake Systems
USVI
USDI/NPS
6,130
Virginia Coast Reserve
Mixed Island Systems
VA
TNC
35,000
Temperate Broadleaf
Yellowstone NP
Forests or Woodlands
WY
USDI/NPS
898,347
Mixed Mountain and
Highland Systems
Note: Biome=largest ecological unit, EF=experimental forest, ER=experimental
range, EW=experimental watershed, NM=national monument, NP=national park, NS=
ional seashore, NWP=national wildlife preserve, RNA=research natural area.
Source: U.S. Man and the Biosphere Secretariat-U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC, 1990. Biome types are based on a classification by M.D.F.
Udvardy, 1975.
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manages 18.7 million acres of wildlands (see Public-Private
Partnership Case Study) and the Department of Energy manages 2.1
million acres of land, 95 percent of it undeveloped. Decisions
regarding multiple-use lands can be among the most controversial
in the natural resource field. Meeting conservation objectives such
as biodiversity, while at the same time meeting other human needs,
may require difficult tradeoffs and new management techniques.
a. The New Forestry
Although intensive forest management can simplify ecosystems,
other forestry practices can maintain their integrity. The USDA
Forest Service conducts research on the impacts of a range of
management practices from wilderness management to tree
plantations, as well as strategies that involve complete or partial
harvest and the maintenance of patches of undisturbed forest.
Forest Service scientists at the Andrews Ecosystem Research
Group in Oregon are advocating what they call the New Forestry."
Their focus is on maintaining complex forest ecosystems and not
just on regenerating trees. To prevent soil erosion and to benefit
wildlife, they recommend that standing dead trees (snags) and
fallen trees remain on harvested sites, along with large living
trees left to prevent erosion, supply beneficial insects to young
trees, conserve soil microorganisms, and provide seedstock for
regeneration. The New Forestry suggests that humans can use natural
systems for commodity production in ways that maintain ecosystem
health.
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Case Study
Public-Private Partnerships:
Biodiversity and National Defense Lands
In 1988 the Department of Defense (DoD) and The Nature
Conservancy (TNC) signed an agreement "to identify, document and
maintain biological diversity on Defense installations. The two
groups are now sharing natural resource information and developing
automated databases and related geographic information systems. DoD
agreed to provide TNC access to Defense facilities and to evaluate
the conservation group's recommendations regarding a natural
resource inventory and monitoring guidelines. TNC studies and
inventories on a host of DoD facilities have led to discoveries of
rare or threatened plants, animals, and natural communities.
Because training maneuvers can require large buffer areas, military
lands are often the largest unfragmented properties in a region.
Within the security of the military installation, species and
natural communities that have been eliminated by development in
surrounding areas survive.
Vandenberg Air Force Base, with 100,000 acres on the coast of
southern California, is a missile testing facility that requires
vast stretches of open land to minimize possible hazards from
aborted missiles. More than two-thirds of the base is in a natural
state, and the DoD-TNC cooperative effort has documented several
endangered animals, 41 rare plant species, including 15 candidates
for federal listing, 350 bird species, 5,000 acres of wetlands,
9,000 acres of undisturbed coastal dunes, relict stands of native
bunchgrass, and the largest existing remnant of a globally rare
plant, the Burton Mesa chaparral.⁷⁵ New management plans include
protection for this diverse biota. As ecologists provide the tools
for ecosystem management, federal land management agencies--even
those with multiple-use objectives as demanding as the Department
biodiversity. of Defense--are doing their part to maintain the nation's
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b. National Marine Sanctuaries
The 1972 Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act⁷⁶
authorized the Secretary of Commerce to designate national marine
sanctuaries. The program protects areas of special significance in
coastal and ocean waters, submerged lands, and the Great Lakes. In
1990 two new designations. the Florida Keys and Monterey Bay--
brought the total to ten sanctuaries, ranging in size from less
than 1 to over 1,000 square nautical miles. The NOAA Marine and
Estuarine Management Division manages the sanctuaries that include
nearshore, open water, and benthic ecosystems in temperate and
tropical areas. Work is proceeding on several additional
designations.
3. Geographically Targeted Management
Geographically targeted programs focus not on political
boundaries, such as federal agency regions, states, counties, or
municipalities, but rather on ecological units--estuaries, river
basins, corridors, or the critical habitat of a species or group
of species. Often not aimed explicitly at biodiversity protection,
they nonetheless offer a model for such efforts.
a. National Estuary Program
In 1988 Congress established the National Estuary Program to
recognize the difficulty of managing water quality in major
estuaries, especially ones that border more than one state. The
law authorizes the EPA Administrator to designate "estuaries of
national significance" in need of additional pollution control.
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The goal is to ensure the "restoration and maintenance of water
quality", and "a balanced indigenous population of shellfish, fish
and wildlife ,,77 Intergovernmental and potentially international
management conferences assess the health of an estuary and plan
for its recovery. Conferences depend on input from the public and
private sectors. The program has had a promising start, with strong
public-private cooperation in such areas as Narragansett Bay, Puget
Sound, Buzzards Bay, and Long Island Sound.
b. River Corridor Management
In 1968 Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act⁷⁸ to
recognize the need to protect rivers of outstanding scenic,
recreational, fish, wildlife, and other values. The act complements
national dam-building programs and other river management. The Wild
and Scenic River System now includes over 9,278 river miles on 120
rivers. A cooperative effort, the system relies on the actions of
private individuals and groups, as well as all levels of
government, with assistance from federal agencies. 79 Rather than
setting priorities beforehand, the program elicits goals from those
involved. Resulting plans recommend protecting valued environmental
features, but they also recognize local needs such as housing and
economic development.
C. Planning for Wetlands Protection
Wetlands are valued environmental features frequently subject
to intense land-use pressure and various environmental threats. The
Clean Water Act addresses this issue with its Section 404 wetlands
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permitting program. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
the Army Corps of Engineers, as co-managers of the program, have
recognized the limitations of a permit-by-permit approach. In
response, they have borrowed the concept of "special area
management planning" from the Coastal Zone Management Act, and are
using geographically focused planning to provide a more predictable
and protective regulatory process. 80 By adding an ecosystem focus
and connections with other pollution control and development
planning efforts, the agencies are applying a broader view to the
permitting program.
The Coastal Zone Management Act indicates that a special area
management plan (SAMP), in which many interests participate to
resolve environmental and development concerns, should "provid[e]
for natural resource protection and reasonable
economic growth 81
in a specific geographic area. While the SAMP process was designed
for coastal areas, the Corps and EPA are using a similar process
at inland sites.
SAMPs are often combined with a process called advance
identification, in which EPA and the Corps examine wetlands within
an area experiencing strong development pressure to determine the
ecological significance of the site. The agencies may decide that
certain sites are unsuitable for filling, while others may be
filled with little overall harm to the ecosystem.
At present, a combined SAMP/advance identification planning
process in the Hackensack Meadowlands area of New Jersey is
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addressing issues including wetlands use, Superfund cleanups,
transportation infrastructure development, and regional housing
needs.
d. Habitat Conservation Planning
The drafters of the Endangered Species Act recognized that,
at times, the needs of endangered species would conflict with
otherwise legal activities. Section 10 (a) of the act allows the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries
Service to issue permits for "incidental" taking⁸² of endangered
species, as long as the action is otherwise legal, and the
applicant provides a "conservation plan," often called a "habitat
conservation plan" (HCP). The secretaries of Interior and Commerce
may not approve such a taking without a plan showing that the
action will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival, the
applicant will minimize and mitigate to the maximum extent
practicable (including review of alternatives), and the
conservation plan has an assured funding mechanism.
By 1990 only about 30 habitat conservation plans were
completed or in progress. The first and perhaps best known was the
San Bruno Mountain plan that resulted in setting aside 87 percent
of the habitat of several rare butterflies, including the federally
listed Mission Blue Butterfly, in a heavily urbanized area south
of San Francisco.83
In spite of the relatively few examples, the agencies
increasingly recognize that plans need to address all or most of
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a habitat for listed species in a region, encompassing a range of
possible threats rather than focusing on the effect of a single
development proposal. The Fish and Wildlife Service recommends that
HCPs also address other species that may be listed as threatened
or endangered in the future. 84
HCPs have the potential to become vehicles for identifying--
and thus encouraging--all development that could occur without
clearly causing a species to become extinct. The HCP process does
begin with the application for an incidental take permit--a request
to in some way harm individuals of an endangered species--rather
than a species recovery program. The possibility of HCPs evolving
into species reduction plans rather than species protection plans
calls for monitoring of the program.
C. Science, Information, and Inventory
To measure the success of ecosystem and biodiversity efforts,
the scientific community must know what species, populations,
communities, and ecosystems the nation has. Much data is missing,
and the considerable amount that already exists needs national
coordination to make it accessible.
1. A Biotic Base
The nation needs a basic understanding of the biota of the
United States to ensure successful biodiversity protection efforts.
That understanding does not exist.
O
The United States has no comprehensive list, even of
vascular plants and vertebrates. 85 Data on other less visible and
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less known species are even more scarce. Beyond simple listing and
identification of species, information on the abundance,
distribution, and habits of the majority of species is lacking.
o
The nation has no comprehensive listing of natural
communities and no one scheme for cataloguing and naming these
communities.
Significant gaps exist in current knowledge of linkages
between ecosystem and landscape processes. 86
o
Current understanding of the ways in which species
interact to form ecosystems is inadequate, as is knowledge of the
limitations of managed systems to sustain a diverse flora and
fauna.87
O
The nation lacks even regional databases of species of
concern or other key ecological variables, and the tools for
describing landscape patterns are experimental. 88
The lack of a consensus on a single community or ecosystem
classification system provides but one example of the problems
encountered in this area. The USDA Forest Service uses a forest
cover type system developed by the Society of American Foresters
that classifies land by the type of natural forest actually growing
on it. Another approach, known as the Kuchler system, uses
potential vegetation types to describe the type of vegetation that
would ultimately grow on a site if left undisturbed.
No classification system is perfect, and one system varies
from another by the objectives of those collecting the data, but
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the lack of consensus means continued fragmentation of effort. Gaps
in genetic information also hamper conservation efforts, as
demonstrated by the unsuccessful captive breeding program for the
dusky seaside sparrow.89 However new information on genetic
relationships is resulting from work in the field of genetic
engineering, including recombinant DNA research.
In short, the United States lacks the fundamental elements
necessary to ensure that the nation's actions are in consonance
with managing ecosystems and biodiversity.
2. Integration and Filling Gaps
Despite the gaps, biotic information abounds. For centuries,
scientists have developed a considerable, although far from
complete, body of information on the biota of the United States.
That information exists in museums, universities, and other
systematic institutions. Each federal land-management agency
maintains information on the natural resources it manages. States
maintain similar information. Private firms collect information as
part of their efforts to comply with federal, tribal, state, and
local laws and regulations. Private conservation organizations
collect data on areas or species of concern to them.
But, no one knows what it all adds up to. No one has
integrated the available information or undertaken a comprehensive
effort to identify gaps in existing knowledge. Different groups and
agencies use different procedures to collect data and different
categories and names, even for the same phenomenon. The nation
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spends large sums to assess specific projects and land-use
practices. Such efforts could be more efficient and effective if
supported by an accessible source of information on the nature,
distribution, abundance, and interactions of organisms and
communities.
An example of synthetic work that could support better
decisionmaking is the Flora of North America program, now being
coordinated at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The project will
result in a 12-volume inventory of the plants of the United States,
Canada, and Greenland, coupled with a digest of expert opinions and
a database on plant characteristics.
As valuable as information and inventories might be,
scientists, public and private planners, policymakers, and land and
water managers must be able to locate, gain access to, manipulate,
and present that data in ways that suit their particular
objectives. Data sharing requires a full partnership among the
thousands of individuals and institutions studying and gathering
information on specific organisms or communities. Such a
partnership would encompass a full range of public and private
institutions--universities, museums, government efforts, and
private programs such as the Natural Heritage Program established
by The Nature Conservancy. Such a partnership would strengthen
decisionmaking at all levels.
Scientists are developing a number of promising uses for
computer technology, for example, geographic information systems
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(GIS). A GIS-based technique called gap analysis enables biologists
to integrate information regarding location, density, and diversity
of species with information on factors relevant to conservation,
such as planned development and protected areas. Such integration
presents--in a readily understandable format--opportunities for
improving protection.
V. A Strategy for Conservation Tomorrow
Conserving America's rich biological heritage is a vital
responsibility, for the nation's health, wealth, and scenic beauty
are at issue.
A. An Evolution in the Conservation of Natural Resources
Maintaining biodiversity requires attention to a broader array
of elements within the environment and allows--perhaps forces--the
nation to manage cooperatively larger units of the natural
landscape. This imperative coincides with the trend in conservation
toward working with ecosystems in a landscape context.
The goal of the Endangered Species Act is a grand and vital
one--to prevent species from becoming extinct--but the species
approach has been likened to a "911 distress line for life forms
teetering on the edge"" or "emergency room care,"91 with species
of concern in dire straits. Most non-endangered or non-game species
have no programs to monitor their condition or to avoid placing
them in dire straits.
Suggestions that the United States take steps to protect
biodiversity are not simply calls for a super endangered species
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program--a mandate to identify and manage or to one-by-one restore
every living thing on Earth--or even in the United States. Such a
task would be daunting, indeed overwhelming. The situation calls
for a different strategy. Preserving species--the purpose of the
Endangered Species Act--is a major element in maintaining
biodiversity, yet the law itself mandates the management of
ecosystems on which the species depend.
Failure to address the ecosystem scale of human impact means
that an increasing number of species--adapted to specific habitats-
-will become threatened and endangered as those habitats become
damaged, isolated, or fragmented. Without adequate habitat,
recovery of species now on the endangered list is difficult if not
impossible. Ultimately it is not species that humans will need to
manage but habitat. To accomplish the objectives of the Endangered
Species Act, the nation will need to develop the ecosystem-based
approach called for therein.
An integrated strategy to conserve biodiversity at all levels
will include the following elements:
o
Techniques that allows managers to work with a relatively
small, manageable number of elements, yet achieve the broad goals
of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. Resource managers
need techniques for measuring simple properties that integrate
ecological processes over large areas. For example, focused
research may allow the condition of an entire watershed to be
monitored by measuring specific water quality parameters in a
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particular stream. 92
o
An information base that is readily available in a form
and at a scale that managers can use; and
o
Techniques applicable to both natural and managed
landscapes. Protected lands are critical to biodiversity
protection, but the landscape in which humans live, work, and play
also can be diverse and ecologically healthy.
o
Finally efforts to ensure the nation's continued
ecological health require identification, and where feasible,
restoration of elements and linkages that have been degraded or
converted to other uses.
B. Ecosystem Management and Biodiversity in Policymaking
Many of the elements necessary for improving environmental
management are in place.
o
Scientists know much about how ecosystems work; far more
collectively than is put to use.
Natural resource managers know much about managing
natural systems.
o
Analysts grow increasingly sophisticated at predicting
how the effects of human actions will ripple through ecosystems.
The United States has incorporated strong environmental
protection objectives into national decisionmaking.
O
Significant federal resources are contributing, directly
or indirectly, to the conservation of biodiversity. Efforts such
as managing protected areas, surveying and monitoring, managing
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species and ecosystems, maintaining germplasm banks, and
biodiversity research contribute in a direct fashion. Many
regulatory efforts, including the Clean Water Act's Section 404
program, conserving multiple-use lands, programs of museums and
botanical and zoological gardens, and public education also
contribute.
A strategy to conserve biodiversity in the United States will
involve all of these elements, each of which exists to some degree
in the current federal system.
But critical gaps remain.
1. A National Goal
Many U.S laws mandate conservation of some aspect of
diversity, from the broad mandate of NEPA to the more specific
mandates of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act or the National
Forest Management Act. Many federal agencies are integrating the
concept of biodiversity into day-to-day activities, ranging from
staff training" to land management planning and assessment.
Although found in many places within the federal government, these
programs and statutes do not form a coherent, comprehensive
framework for assessing or assuring progress toward a common goal,
in part because no one has heretofore articulated such a goal.
Biodiversity is a national asset for both present and future
generations that requires wise use and sustainability. Both public
and private sectors in the United States have a role in maintaining
and restoring biodiversity for its intrinsic worth, for healthy
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ecosystems, and for human wellbeing."
Such a goal need not conflict with a robust, growing economy.
In the long run, a healthy economy is impossible without a healthy
environment. The techniques and examples of management discussed
in this chapter suggest that these two goals do not present
irreconcilable conflicts.
2. Continuing Evolution
As public and private land and water managers attempt to
incorporate ecosystem management and biodiversity into their
planning and operations, it becomes increasingly evident that a
comprehensive national biological inventory would facilitate their
efforts. Such efforts can continue in its absence, however.
As private firms develop their next strategic business plan,
as government program managers consider their next round of
planning, and as land managers in both sectors prepare the next
unit management plan, they can--within the limits of existing
information--consider the broader systems within which their
actions take place. They can cultivate connections between adjacent
landowners. They can integrate their programs--formally or
informally--to sensitize decisionmakers to the effects their
actions will have on other programs.
Federal land managers and program administrators can enhance
their contacts with tribal, state, and local governments and with
the private sector to minimize duplication of effort, lack of
attention to necessary factors, and conflict between goals,
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objectives, and strategies of different participants.
Every landowner need not attempt to resolve, singlehandedly,
the nation's problems of ecosystem fragmentation, conversion, and
simplification. But individual decisions can either minimize or
exacerbate such problems. Understanding regional patterns and
recognizing that, in the long run, maintaining healthy, diverse
ecosystems is vital to the wellbeing of all Americans will go a
long way toward reducing conflict and improving environmental
quality.
3. A National Biological Inventory
Information is critical to conservation. Without an adequate
understanding of the status, numbers, distribution, and types of
species extant in the United States and of the community
associations on which they depend, inevitably, human actions will
result in additional loss of biodiversity.
A national biotic inventory will require a more complete
knowledge base than presently exists. While biological databases
and the expertise they represent in institutions around the United
States are impressive, major gaps remain in current knowledge.
Deficits exist in understanding even major and relatively well-
known groups of organisms, in addition to whole categories about
which scientists know very little.
Despite the limitations of existing knowledge, cataloguing
available information would be useful. Creating such a "database
of databases"⁹ would entail identifying and linking existing
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information from public and private sources. This would provide
access to the best information on a subject, even if that
information is, as yet, uncertain and incomplete.
Far more important, however, is a commitment to identify gaps
in knowledge and set priorities for filling those gaps, which
include the following:
Species Classification. With only 1 percent of domestic
species characterized, additional systematics research is
essential; and
Basic Ecological Research. Also needed is fundamental
information on the distribution, abundance, and ecological
relationships of domestic species and a comprehensive inventory and
classification of ecosystems.
A national biological inventory would provide a mechanism to
survey the millions of dollars being devoted to biodiversity in
research and management. Only in this way, can the nation perform
the following tasks:
Identify and ensure adequate resources for investigations
in areas where information is lacking;
o
Monitor biodiversity programs; and
o
Link public and private databases, laboratories, and
field investigations.
4. A National Network of Bioreserves
Federal agencies have hundreds of designated natural areas
that can contribute to a conservation strategy. Many private
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landowners also expend considerable resources to conserve their
lands. But no national effort to coordinate public actions or to
identify and encourage private stewardship is currently in place.
In the 1960s land-management agencies established the Federal
Committee on Research Natural Areas⁹⁷ to build a system of reserves
representing the nation's natural land and water ecosystems. In
1974 the National Science Foundation and the Council on
Environmental Quality joined the effort and the group became the
Federal Committee on Ecological Reserves with 21 federal agency
members. The goal was to establish and maintain a network of
protected field sites representing a full array of the nation's
terrestrial, freshwater, and aquatic ecosystems, but in recent
years the committee has been inactive.
Each ecosystem contributes in its own way to the well-being
of the nation, and in the closing years of the 20th century, no
U.S. ecosystem should become extinct. Today, the potential loss of
thousands of domestic species, primarily because of habitat
alteration, demands a revitalized effort to inventory public and
private natural areas across the nation, to identify gaps and,
where necessary, to provide technical assistance and encouragement.
Over the coming year, the Council on Environmental Quality will
initiate a dialogue with committee members regarding the benefits
of revitalizing this effort.
5. A Global Concern
Concern over U.S. biodiversity can not occur in a vacuum.
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Around the world, scientists, policymakers, and the public are
coming to understand the value of the wealth of life that surrounds
and supports all human endeavor and the global threats to it.
Unless the international community can reverse the current trend
in global biodiversity loss, the rate of extinction worldwide over
the next few decades could rise to 1,000 times the normal
background rate. The result could be the loss of up to half the
species on Earth.98
The United States is a world leader in meeting environmental
challenges; biodiversity need be no different. With the knowledge
and willpower Americans have devoted to other environmental
matters, the United States can be in the vanguard of nations facing
this critical global challenge.
VI. Notes and References
1. Leopold, A., A Sand County Almanac, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1947), pages 99-100.
2. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies to
Maintain Biological Diversity, OTA-F-330 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, March 1987), pages 38, 314. The term
ecosystem refers less to a specific area or location than to a
functional delineation--more goes on within an ecosystem than
across its boundaries. The classic example of an ecosystem is a
lake, which has both inputs and outputs--springs may feed into it
and a stream may flow out. A lake may receive deposition from the
atmosphere and detritus carried by animals, yet it functions as a
discrete unit. At the other end of the spectrum, scientists are
studying large marine ecosystems--discrete oceanic areas in which
recurring currents and patterns of nutrient cycling delimit
functional units that are more closed than open. The lines of
demarcation are not absolute, and defining where one ecosystem ends
and another begins may depend on the subject of concern. An
ecosystem may be as small as a log or as large as the Chesapeake
watershed that extends south into Virginia and north to the
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headwaters of the Susquehana River in upstate New York. A system
like the Chesapeake may consist of many smaller ecosystems--logs,
lakes, and the bay itself.
3. OTA, page 3.
4. MAB Secretariat, Division of Ecological Services, Biosphere
Reserves, map, (Paris, France: UNESCO MAB, 1987).
5. Chadwick, D.H., "Mission for the 90s: The biodiversity
challenge," Defenders, Special Report, (Washington, DC: Defenders
of Wildlife, 1990), page 3.
6. U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Inspector
General, Audit Report: The Endangered Species Program, U. S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, Report No. 90-98 (Washington, DC: DOI Office
of the Inspector General, September 1990); Center for Plant
Conservation, "Task force meetings help set priorities," Plant
Conservation 5(2):1 (Summer 1990).
7. The Nature Conservancy, Washington, DC, December 1990 Database
on Natural Heritage programs, which are state-administered efforts
that identify and catalog species and natural communities at the
state level. Originally established by The Nature Conservancy and
transferred to state governments for management, Natural Heritage
programs now operate in all 50 states.
8. Data on the number of Florida species at risk, as of December
7, 1990, are from the Florida Natural Heritage Inventory, a
computerized database managed by the State of Florida; data on the
number of Texas species at risk are from the Texas Natural Heritage
Program, a similar state-managed database; data on California
communities at risk are from the Natural Diversity Database
Geographic Information System, California Natural Heritage
Division, Department of Fish and Game. The authors use the term "at
risk" for the database categories of "globally rare" and
"imperiled;" data on Hawaii is from author, title, National
Geographic 178(1) :pages (July 1990).
9. Salwasser, H., "Conserving a regional spotted owl population,"
pages 227-247 in National Research Council, Commission on Life
Sciences, Committee on the Applications of Ecological Theory to
Environmental Problems, Ecological Knowledge and Environmental
Problem-Solving, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1986);
and Madson, J., "On the Osage," Nature Conservancy 40(3):10
(May/June 1990).
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10. Dahl, T.E., Wetlands Losses in the United States 1780s to
1980s, (Washington, DC: DOI Fish and Wildlife Service, 1990), 21
pages.
11. Comis, D., "Reviving the Chesapeake Bay," Agriculture Research
38(9):4-11 (September 1990); and Chesapeake Bay Program, Monitoring
Subcommittee, The State of the Chesapeake Bay, Third Biennial
Monitoring Report--1989, (city:publisher, date), page X.
12. Chambers, J.R., "Habitat Degradation and Fishery Declines in
the U.S.," (Silver Spring, MD: DOC/NOAA National Marine Fisheries
Service, Office of Protected Resources, 1991); Eno, A., Needs
Assessment of the National Marine Fisheries Service, (Washington,
DC: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, 1990); and U.S.
Department of Commerce, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration, "Title of article," NOAA Environmental Digest
vol(no) :page (September 1990).
13. Palmer, S., "Some extinct mollusks of the U.S.A.," ATALA, The
Journal of Invertebrate Conservation 13(1):1-7 (1986).
14. Master, L, "The imperiled status of North American aquatic
animals," Biodiversity Network News 3(3):1-5,7-8 (1990); and
Williams, x., et al., "Fisheries of North American endangered,
threatened or of special concern," Fisheries 14 (no.) :2-20 (1989).
15. U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service,
1990 Status of Waterfowl and Fall Flight Survey, (Washington, DC:
DOI, July 1990).
16. Terborgh, J., Where Have All the Birds Gone, (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1989).
17. Norse, E.A., et al., Conserving Biological Diversity In Our
National Forests, (Washington, DC: The Wilderness Society, 1986),
pages 2-3.
18. Duplaix, N., "South Florida water: paying the price," National
Geographic 178(1):88-113 (July 1990).
19. Blockstein, D.E., "Toward a federal plan for biological
diversity," Issues in Science and Technology 5(4):63-67 (1989).
20. Thomas, J.W., and H. Salwasser, "Bringing conservation biology
into a position of influence in natural resource management,"
Conservation Biology 3(2) 123-127 (June 1989).
21. National Environmental Policy Act, 42 USC 4323(b)4.
22. OTA, page 223.
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23. Endangered Species Act, 16 USC 1532(b).
24. National Forest Management Act 16 USC 1604 (g) (3) (b).
25. Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act P.L. 95-87, Section
512 (b) (19) i see Yates, E., "U.S. and International Strategies to
Maintain Biological Diversity," (Washington, DC: Council on
Environmental Quality, October 1988).
26. Waste Management, Inc., "Environmental Policy," Information
Sheet, (Washington, DC: WMI, 1990).
27. The following publications trace the development of the concept
of natural or biological diversity in the United States: The Nature
Conservancy, prepared for the U.S. Department of the Interior, The
Preservation of Natural Diversity: A Survey and Recommendations,
(Washington, DC: The Nature Conservancy 1975); --Council on
Environmental Quality, "Ecology and natural resources--biological
diversity," pages 31-80 in Environmental Quality: the Eleventh
Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality, (Washington,
DC: CEQ 1980); OTA, Technologies to Maintain Biological Diversity;
Wilson, (ed.), Biodiversity; McNeely, J.A., et al., Conserving the
World's Biological Diversity, (Gland, Switzerland, and Washington,
DC: International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources, World Resources Institute, Conservation International,
World Wildlife Fund-U.S., and the World Bank, 1990); and The
Keystone Center, "The Keystone Report on Biological Diversity on
Federal Lands," (Keystone, CO: in press).
28. The petition, filed with the Department of Interior on
September 19, 1990, was signed by representatives of seven
organizations. Although not a signatory, the American Cancer
Society indicated its support.
29. Wilson, page XX.
30. Nations, J.D., "Deep ecology meets the developing world," pages
79-82 in Wilson, E.O. (ed.), Biodiversity, (Washington, DC:
National Academy Press, 1988).
31. Chambers, J.R., "Coastal degradation and fish population
losses," Proceedings of the National Symposium on Fish Habitat
Conservation, Baltimore, MD, March 7-9, 1990, (city:publ, in
press).
32. Grumbine, R.E., "Viable populations, reserve size, and federal
lands management: a critique," Conservation Biology 4 (2) 127-134
(June 1990).
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
33. Lovejoy, T.E., "Diverse considerations," page 421 in Wilson,
E.O. (ed.), Biodiversity, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press,
1988).
34. The Parrots of Luquillo..
35. Norse, E.A., Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest,
(Washington, DC: The WIlderness Society, 1990), page 134.
36. Norse, Ancient Forests, page 136.
37. Franklin, J., "Toward a new forestry," American Forests
(x) :37-44 (November-December 1989).
38. Westman, W.E., "Managing for biodiversity," BioScience
(1) :26-33 (January 1990).
39. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Threats to Biological
Diversity In The United States, EPA 20P-1001, (Washington, DC: EPA,
September 1990), page xx.
40. EPA, Threats to Biological Diversity, page X.
41. Lovejoy, J. et al., "Edge and other effects of isolation on
Amazon forest fragments," page 257 in Soule, M.E. (ed.),
Conservation Biology, (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.,
1986).
42. Wilcove, D.S., "From Fragmentation to Extinction," Presentation
at Thirteenth Annual Natural Areas Conference, October 23, 1986,
Potosi, MS.
43. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management,
Riparian Area Management, (Washington, DC: BLM, 1990).
44. EPA, Threats to Biological Diversity, page xx.
45. For a discussion of this issue in relation to monitoring
environmental trends and indicators, see Executive Office of the
President, Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality:
Twentieth Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality,
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990).
46. Marsh, L., and P. Lallas, "Focused Area-Wide Planning--An
Approach to Reconciling Development and Wildlife and Environmental
Concerns," (Washington, DC: The Urban Land Institute, 1991 Draft).
47. In the majority of cases subject to consultation under Section
7 of the Endangered Species Act, federal agencies are able to
identify a "reasonable and prudent" alternative.
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
48. Not only are species management efforts narrowly focused, but
even within those foci, biases exist. Endangered species funding
is heavily skewed toward large, visible, popular species, with
little resources being devoted to many other listed species.
49. Passed in 1900, the Lacey Act prohibited the importation of
certain species, including starlings and sparrows, deemed to be
"injurious to the interest of agriculture and horticulture" and
authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to adopt all measures
necessary for the "preservation and restoration of game birds and
other wild birds." For a more complete discussion, see Bean, M.J.,
The Evolution of National Wildlife Law, (Washington, DC:
Environmental Defense Fund, 1983).
50. In 1966 at the time of its enactment, the legislation was
called "The Endangered Species Preservation Act."
51. Authority for designation of critical habitat is found at 16
USC 1533 (b) (2). The definition of same is found at 16 USC 1532(5).
52. 16 USC 1534(f)
53. DOI, Audit Report, page X. Estimated costs would include plan
development, implementation, and habitat acquisition.
54. The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, 16 USC 669-669i
(also known as "Pittman-Robertson Act"), and the Federal Aid in
Fish Restoration Act, 16 USC 777-777k (also known as "Dingell-
Johnson Act"), provide funds from federal excise taxes on hunting
and fishing equipment, respectively. Although Pittman-Robertson
authorizes the preparation of "comprehensive fish and wildlife
plans," the term "wildlife" is undefined, and most state efforts
focus on popular game species to the exclusion of others. For
additional discussion, see Bean, page X.
55. 1980 Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act [citation].
56. Dyer, M.I., and M.M. Holland, "UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere
Program," BioScience 38(x):635-641 (mon and year).
57. Hunsaker, C.T., et al., "Assessing ecological risk on a
regional scale," Environmental Management 14(3):325-332 (May/June
1990).
58. Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee, "Vision for the
Future: A Framework for Coordination in the Greater Yellowstone
Area," (Billings, MT: GYCC, August 1990 Draft), page 1-1.
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
59. National Parks and Conservation Association, National Parks:
From Vignettes to Global View--A Report of the Commission on
Research and Resource Management Policy in the National Park
System, (Washington, DC: NPCA, 1989), page X.
60. Clark, T.W., and D. Zaunbrecher, "The Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem: the ecosystem concept in national resource policy and
management," Renewable Resources Journal 8(x):16 (Summer 1987).
61. Salwasser, H., "Conserving biological diversity: a perspective
on scope and approaches," Forest Ecology and Management 35(x):79-
90, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, [mon.] 1990).
62. Franklin, page xx.
63. Beatley, T., "Preserving Biodiversity through the Use of
Habitat Conservation Plans" (Washington, DC: The Urban Land
Institute, 1991 Draft).
64. The Conservation Foundation, Protecting America's Wetlands: An
Action Agenda, The Final Report of the National Wetlands Policy
Forum, (Washington, DC: The Conservation Foundation, 1988), page
X.
65. Marsh and Lallas, page X.
66. The Keystone Report, in press.
67. OTA, page X.
68. U.S. General Accounting Office, Plant Germplasm: Improving Data
for Management Decisions, Report to the Secretary of Agriculture,
GAO/PEMD-91-5A (Washington, DC: GAO, 1990).
69. National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, Managing
Global Genetic Resources: The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System,
(Washington, DC: NRC, 1991), page 4.
70. Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, P.L.
101-624, at Sections 1632-1635.
71. American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums,
Protecting the Present to Protect the Future, (Wheeling WV: AAZPA,
1990).
72. Gherna, R.L., "Research Proposal: American Type Culture
Collection," (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1989).
73. Franklin, J., page X.
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
74. Cooperative Agreement between the Department of Defense and
The Nature Conservancy, December 13, 1988.
75. Friedman, L., and K. Wiley, "Protecting military secrets: a
wealth of rare species on U.S. Department of Defense lands sparks
innovative partnership," The Nature Conservancy Magazine vol (no) :4-
8, (July/August 1989).
76. 1972 Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act citation.
77. 33 USC 1330.
78. 16 USC 1271.
79. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Mid-
Atlantic Regional Office, Great Egg Harbor River Wild and Scenic
River Study, (city, state: NPS, November 1989), page X.
80. NOAA has authority under the Coastal Zone Management Act [16
USC 1452]. The Corps and EPA utilize the advance identification
provisions of the Section 404(b)(1) Guidelines [40 C.F.R.230.80].
81. 16 USC 1453(17)
82. Take is defined in the Act (at 16 USC 1532[19]) as "harass,
harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect
or to attempt to engage in any such conduct." According to Bean,
page xx, taking can include activities that involve habitat
destruction or other interference with a species' ability to
survive, even if actual killing does not take place.
83. Beatley, page X.
84. U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service,
"Draft Conservation Planning Guidelines," (Portland, OR: FWS Region
1, April 13, 1990, Draft).
85. Harris, F., Directorate for Biological, Behavioral, and Social
Sciences, Division of Biotic Systems and Resources, National
Academy of Sciences, personal communication, November 1, 1990;
Davis, G., Chairman, Department of Malacology, The Academy of
Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, Testimony before the
Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the
Environment of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries,
November 16, 1989.
86. Dyer and Holland, page x; also Westman, page X.
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CEQ ANNUAL REPORT--REVIEW DRAFT--2/19/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
87. Westman, pages X and x; and also Franklin, page X.
88. Grumbine, R.E., "Viable populations, reserve size, and federal
lands management: a critique," Conservation Biology 4(2) :127-134
(June 1990); also Hunsaker, page X.
89. Avise, J.C., and W.S. Nelson, "Molecular genetic relationships
of the extinct dusky seaside sparrow," Science 243:646-648 (1989).
90. Gup, T., "Down with the God Squad," Time vol(no): 102 (November
5, 1990).
91. Blockstein, page X.
92. Gosselink, O.G., et al., "Landscape conservation in a forested
wetland watershed," BioScience 40 (8) 588-600, (September 1990).
93. In October 1990, five federal agencies (Bureau of Land
Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, USDA
Forest Service, and Environmental Protection Agency) sponsored the
first session of "Meeting the Biodiversity Challenge: A Shortcourse
for Decision-makers.' This interagency program is attempting to
"increase Management's understanding and appreciation of biological
diversity, and to explore opportunities and strategies for
conserving diversity throughout the public domain." A faculty of
experts in biodiversity are conducting the 4-day courses in various
parts of the country.
94. This goal statement, whose genesis was in the Keystone Dialogue
processs, has been revised to apply not only to federal lands, but
to all domestic lands; see Salwasser, page X.
95. Blockstein, page X.
96. Davis, G.M., Statement before the Subcommittee on Fisheries
and Wildlife and Conservation; Merchant Marine Committee, U.S.
House of Representatives, (November 16, 1989).
97. Federal Committee on Ecological Reserves, A Directory of
Research Natural Areas on Federal Lands of the United States,
(Washington, DC: Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
1977), pages 1-3.
98. National Science Foundation, National Science Board, Committee
on International Science, Task Force on Global Biodiversity, Loss
of Biological Diversity: A Global Crisis Requiring International
Solutions, (Washington, DC: NSF, 1989).
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1990 CEQ Annual Report: Chapter Five
THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AcT:
INTEGRATION IN CONCEPT AND PRACTICE
[Lead-in to appear with chapter art on facing page]
A dilemma confronts many agencies of the federal government:
How to accommodate environmental quality objectives, as developed in
dozens of statutes;
While at the same time effectively carrying out the agency's primary mission;
When that mission, in many respects, may be at odds with those objectives.
The National Environmental Policy Act resolves the dilemma by means of an umbrella
policy that integrates purposes and objectives and provides for choice where agency missions
and environmental quality may conflict.
CEQ ANNUAL REPORT-REVIEW DRAFT-2/20/91--DO NOT DISTRIBUTE OR CITE
Outline
I.
On the Threshold of a New Beginning
A.
Introduction
1.
Historical Background
2.
Principal Purposes of NEPA
a.
Avoiding Environmental Degradation
b.
Balancing Competing Policies
3.
The Concept of Integration
B.
Integration as an Evolving Concept under NEPA
1.
Congressional Intent
2.
Judicial Concerns
3.
Agency Responses
C.
Prescription for Total Integration
1.
A Planning Instrument
2.
Where and How to Integrate
D.
Integration in Practice
1.
Interstate Commerce Commission: Railroad Abandonment
a.
Impacts
b.
Statutory Alternatives
C.
Interstate Commerce Act Procedures
d.
Statutory Conflicts Dilemma
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e.
Considering Alternatives
2.
Minerals Management Service: Outer Continental Shelf Lease Sales
a.
Challenges of the OCS Lease Sale Program
b.
Evaluating Effects on Endangered Species
C.
Proceeding with Decisionmaking in the Face of Uncertainty
d.
Striking a Balance
E.
The Future of Integration
II.
Selected NEPA Cases--1990
A.
U.S. Supreme Court
"Standing" in NEPA Litigation: Lujan V. National Wildlife Federation
B.
Circuit Courts
1.
Timber Harvesting
a.
Tenakee Springs V. Clough
b.
Marble Mountain Audubon Society V. Rice
C.
Seattle Audubon Society V. Robertson
2.
Declaratory Judgment Act: Collin County, Texas V. Homeowners
Association for Values Essential to Neighborhoods (HAVEN)
3.
"Small Federal Handle": Macht V. Skinner
4.
Cumulative Impacts: National Wildlife Federation V. Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission
5.
Functional Equivalence and EPA Compliance with NEPA
a.
State of Alabama ex rel. Siegelman V. Environmental
Protection Agency
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b.
Schalk V. Reilly
C.
District Courts
1.
Condemnation Actions
a.
United States v. 27.09 Acres of Land
b.
Village of Palatine V. United States Postal Service
2.
Injunctive Relief: Elliott V. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
3.
Climate Change Impacts: Foundation on Economic Trends V.
Watkins
4.
Extraterritorial Application of NEPA: Greenpeace USA V. Stone
III.
Notes and References
IV.
Trends in NEPA Litigation
A.
NEPA Litigation
1.
Cumulative NEPA Litigation Survey, 1970-1989
2.
NEPA Cases by Agency, 1989
3.
Types of Complaints Filed under NEPA, 1989
4.
Plaintiffs for NEPA Lawsuits, 1989
5.
Statistics on Plaintiffs and Issues for 1989 Cases, by Federal
Agency
B.
Environmental Impact Statements Filed by Federal Agencies During 1990
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Environmental quality, one of the nation's most pervasive and confounding issues,
was, until 1970, considered primarily for public policy purposes in its discrete constituent
parts, such as water, soil, and wildlife. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
(NEPA)¹ dramatically changed that one-dimensional approach to environmental
management by requiring that the totality of environmental quality concerns be
integrated comprehensively into federal policymaking and decisionmaking. NEPA as an
integrative tool is the subject of the first part of this chapter. Subsequent parts examine
recent NEPA trends and selected cases decided in the 12-month period since issuance of
the last CEQ Environmental Quality report.
I.
On the Threshold of a New Beginning
A.
Introduction
The twentieth century, according to the late O.B. Hardison, Jr., has been
characterized by sporadic "explosions of awareness," one of which unquestionably grew
out of the environmental movement of the 1960s and found its ultimate expression in
NEPA. "Such recurrent explosions of consciousness," Hardison observed, "do not seem
accidental. They are like a volcanic eruption that suddenly releases enormous energy
after a long, invisible buildup of pressure. They suggest the presence of a form of
consciousness just under the surface of modern life that emerges whenever the
conditions are right."2
1.
Historical Background
In the second half of this century, the United States has witnessed not one, but
two explosions of environmental awareness. The reverberations of Earth Day 1970, "the
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catalyst for the creation of the modern American environmental movement," had not
dissipated when, on the twentieth anniversary of that explosion, the nation experienced
yet another equally powerful blast on Earth Day 1990 which developed into a "huge,
global coalition determined to turn the tide in the battle to pull the planet back from
the brink of ecological destruction."3 Many of the same concerns, frustrations, and
doubts that ignited the first explosion of environmental awareness more than 20 years
ago persist today. Indeed, threats posed by global climate change, deforestation, soil
erosion, species extinction, habitat destruction, and a host of other assaults on the
environment seem to many observers more menacing today than they did in the 1960s.4
2.
Principal Purposes of NEPA
Citizens understand now, perhaps better than they did two decades ago but still
not completely, that the components of humankind's total life support system are
interconnected and that, as a consequence, they cannot approach environmental
problems in piecemeal fashion. And today, not unlike 20 years ago, the nation is
searching for a comprehensive approach to environmental problems--an approach
capable of anticipating environmentally disruptive influences and avoiding them.⁵ That,
however, is precisely why NEPA was enacted--to deal "with environmental problems on
a preventive and an anticipatory basis."⁶ But the continuing search for a comprehensive
solution to environmental problems invites the question of whether NEPA represents an
entirely adequate response to the apparently recurrent or ongoing conditions that
spawned its enactment.
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a.
Avoiding Environmental Degradation
NEPA was not intended to respond to any particular environmental "condition;"
rather, it marked "an effort for the first time to impress and implant on the Federal
agencies an awareness and concern for the total environmental impact of their actions
and proposed programs to avoid conflicts of one program objective with others
through the mechanisms provided in [the act]."⁷ The objectives of NEPA were to be
achieved not through widespread government reorganization or through the creation of
vast new bureaucracies to manage the environment; nor was Congress prepared to
amend the enabling legislation of every agency of the federal government. Instead,
NEPA was designed as a statutory supplement to other agency authorizations. While
this legislative strategy was an invitation to parochialize administration of the act,
Congress believed that existing institutions were capable of managing the environment if
they operated "(1) under a coherent national policy and (2) with an expanded
understanding of ecological facts and processes."8 NEPA provided the former and a
directive for federal agencies to equip themselves with the latter.
To guard against any tendency on the part of federal agencies to overlook
environmental values in pursuing their "narrower, more immediate, mission-oriented
goals"9 Congress built into the act certain "action-forcing" provisions, including the
requirement to prepare a "detailed statement" for every major federal action significantly
affecting the quality of the human environment.
b.
Balancing Competing Policies
The authorizations of most federal agencies are grounded in policies, such as
agriculture, resource recovery, economic development, and the like which, on the one
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hand, contribute to a high standard of living but, on the other hand, are not necessarily
consistent with environmental policy objectives. Congress, however, never intended in
enacting NEPA that national environmental policy should override other policies.
Instead, an accommodation--a balancing of competing policies--is the goal that Congress
sought. NEPA represents the government's "expressed determination to move the
Nation in a comprehensive manner toward accommodation of the disparate goals of
economic growth and preservation of a 'quality' environment."10 Now Americans
increasingly see that, contrary to the view advanced by many academicians 20 years ago,
a clean environment and a sound economy can go hand in hand. And although the
mandatory provisions of NEPA apply only to agencies of the federal government,
Congress believed that achieving the act's lofty objectives is the responsibility of all
branches of government,¹ at all levels,¹² as well as the private sector¹³ and individual
citizens.¹⁴
3.
The Concept of Integration
Legislative efforts directed at restoring and maintaining environmental quality did
not cease with enactment of NEPA, however. On the contrary, NEPA was viewed as
providing "a framework for the formulation of specific legislative measures to deal with
a wide variety of environmental problems."15 The 91st Congress, which passed NEPA,
also had under consideration "[m]ore than 2,000 legislative proposals having a bearing
on environmental matters,"16 of which 121 were passed and signed into law." Granted,
many of the "environmentally pertinent" statutes passed by the 91st Congress--and by
succeeding congresses as well--involved so-called "interface areas such as transportation
development and landscape preservation...."' But a number of statutes that Congress
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enacted both before and after passage of NEPA go considerably beyond interfacing
and establish firm policies with respect to specific areas of environmental quality, all of
which serves to illustrate the dilemma confronting every agency of the federal
government: How to accommodate environmental quality objectives, as developed in
dozens of statutes, while at the same time effectively carrying out its primary mission, a
mission that in some respects appears to be at odds with those objectives. In NEPA,
however, Congress provided the solution - "[a]n overall policy for the environment
which integrates [wide-ranging, statutorily mandated] purposes and objectives and which
provides for choice when they are incompatible."20
The concept of integration is at the heart of NEPA, from its directive for the
Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on behalf of the President to prepare and
transmit an annual report to Congress, designed to integrate environmental data and
trends into the legislative process, to its charge that CEQ act as public educator on
environmental issues, basically for the purpose of instilling concern for the environment
into the nation's social consciousness. For federal agencies, the concept of integration is
evident in the act's "action-forcing" procedural requirements contained in section 102, a
crucial integrative catalyst, the ultimate goal of which is to blend discordant policy parts
into a more harmonious whole.21 But integration as a goal of the section 102 procedural
requirements was not an engrossing concept early in the implementation and
administration of NEPA; instead, the nature and extent of the procedural requirements
themselves became the cause celebre.
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B.
Integration as an Evolving Concept under NEPA
The conceptual evolution of integration under NEPA has had two fairly distinct
stages, and as the act enters its third decade, the nation may be poised on the threshold
of yet another stage. The first stage, which grew out of early congressional hearings and
debates on a national policy for the environment, extended into the late 1970s when the
CEQ regulations became effective. This was essentially a transitional stage in which
federal agencies struggled to infuse their decisionmaking processes with the new
supplemental basis for policy development-systematic ecology. And as might be
expected when "dealing with a new animal,"22 it was a period marked by controversy and
great uncertainty.
Agency implementation of NEPA in the early 1970s was spotty at best and often
undertaken without much forethought as to the consequences. Many agencies simply
combined the procedural requirements of NEPA "with their existing procedures in the
way least disruptive to those existing procedures."23 This approach to NEPA
implementation profoundly affected the act's performance during much of its first
decade, primarily by allowing proposals to be developed substantially in advance of
environmental analysis thereby limiting the choice among alternatives that could be
more compatible with environmental quality objectives. By "adding" the NEPA
procedures to, instead of integrating them with, existing agency procedures,
decisionmaking was also made much more complicated. And because most existing
agency procedures had a very narrow, project-oriented focus, an early pattern of
attempting to achieve policy balance under NEPA on a non-policy, case-by-case basis,
developed.
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1.
Congressional Intent
Initial difficulties with implementation of NEPA transcended the act's procedures.
The problem, according to many observers, centered on the impact statements
themselves, not the section 102 procedures which had been endorsed in congressional
oversight hearings as "bold and innovative," having "served to increase research, data-
gathering and the development of agency analytic skills...."24 But NEPA did not (nor does
it today) set out with specificity what it expects in terms of the form and content of the
"detailed statements;" ecology, after all, had only recently been introduced as an element
of federal decisionmaking. For this reason, the sponsors and supporters of NEPA knew
that environmental analysis in all fields of federal activity would have to be carefully
nurtured at the agency level. At the same time, however, concern was expressed by
Congress "that some agencies urgently need[ed] the development of entirely new in-house
research machinery or broadened assistance of outside consultants in order to carry out
adequate environmental analysis."2 Satisfying that concern would require that
environmental analyses contain "much more detailed information [delivered] in a
much more timely manner to help structure the public debate...."²⁸
2.
Judicial Concerns
The courts, which had taken an early and active interest in NEPA through their
review of agency actions subject to the act, also called for more detailed information in
environmental impact statements (EISs). Although the scope of judicial review of
agency actions subject to NEPA was related principally to the act's section 102
procedures,27 courts were not reluctant to find that agencies must go beyond mere
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procedural compliance and "make a sufficiently detailed disclosure so that in the event
of a later challenge to the agency's procedure, the courts will not be left to guess
whether the requirements of NEPA have been obeyed."28 Of course, there was danger
that the demand for greater detail in environmental impact statements would invite
additional paperwork and cause greater delay in the decisionmaking process. But this
result was viewed by many courts as "incident" to their mandate and "a concomitant of
the implementation of the procedures prescribed by NEPA...."29
The concept of integration had not been emphasized by oversight committees of
the Congress or the courts in the very early stages of implementing NEPA; nor did they
have a clear understanding of just how that concept fit into the overall environmental
review process under the act. Was it a purely mechanical exercise involving, for
example, "integrat[ion of] the new guidelines developed by CEQ into existing, highly
diversified procedures being applied by the various agencies in existing planning,
evaluation and review processes?"³⁰ Or was more required, including an examination of
"basic [agency] authorities to see how the new mandates of NEPA must be integrated?"31
But even with respect to the more mechanical approach to integration, the role of
NEPA was not well understood.
In terms of integrating requirements of existing environmental review laws, such
as the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the question presented was whether NEPA
should be integrated into the former, as one congressional oversight committee
suggested,32 or, as the court in Environmental Defense Fund V. Corps of Engineers
determined, whether compliance "with the provisions of [NEPA] in good faith
automatically take into consideration all of the factors required by the Fish and Wildlife
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Act?"33 None of these questions was vigorously pursued, however, because most
authorities considered achieving the goals and objectives of NEPA to be more a function
of the quantity of information contained in the environmental impact statements as
opposed to either the quality of that information or the means through which it could be
integrated most effectively into the decisionmaking process.
3.
Agency Responses
Agencies responded predictably to the demands of Congress and the judiciary for
greater "detail" in environmental impact statements-they began preparing lengthy,
nonanalytic documents that contributed little, if anything, to either environmental quality
objectives or to their primary missions. Coupled with development of exceedingly
complex systems of review (see Figure 5-1), the tendency of agencies to prepare highly
"detailed" statements quickly came to be viewed as the principal source of delay in the
decisionmaking process and a prime contributor to increased project costs. Agency
excesses in the EIS process generated a rash of early proposals to amend NEPA34 and
provided the impetus for many hearings³⁵ and studies.³⁶ And despite the fact that
knowledgeable, responsible officials maintained that NEPA did not compel the results--
bloated documentation, delays, and excessive costs--about which so many complaints
were then being lodged,3⁷ environmental impact statements nevertheless continued
generally through the mid- to late-1970s to delay agency decisionmaking in part by
presenting "mammoth discourses on every conceivable environmental effect...."38
In all the early hearings, studies, and reports on NEPA, a fair amount of
agreement existed concerning both the problems with implementation of the act and the
solution. Environmental impact statement preparation was placing strains on the
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administrative system "due to increased friction from more inputs and participants, the
pressure of available environmental expertise, the awkward coordination of NEPA with
the Endangered Species and Historic and Archaelogical [sic] Preservation Acts, the
court-prompted identification of all conceivable impacts, and, often mentioned but less
important, the problems of budgeting the time and money for the EIS process."3
The purpose of the impact statement--to aid federal officials and the public in making
basic policy choices--had been obscured by a blizzard of data, the compilation of which
served little or no useful purpose, being motivated more often than not "by a desire to
avoid or survive court review [rather] than by a felt need to balance rationally the
various factors of the decision."
Despite widespread criticism of NEPA, however, relatively few officials and
commentators believed that the act and its special procedures did not contribute
positively to agency decisionmaking. On the contrary, "NEPA largely due to the
implementation of section 102(2)(C), the environmental impact statement requirement,"
was viewed by congressional oversight committees as having been responsible for "the
gain in environmental information available to the Federal Government and the public
... [and] increasing the public ability to respond to proposed actions and to recognize
their relationships to public interest...."⁴¹ Nor was NEPA, which had "borne the brunt of
criticism of environmental legislation in general,"42 really to blame. But, as is often the
case with a new social force, its shortcomings, as opposed to its benefits, attracted the
greatest amount of attention.
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Figure 5-1 EFFORTS OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION TO INCORPORATE 1969 SECTION 102
OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT OF
INTO DECISION MAKING FOR THE AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT AID PROGRAM (ADAP)
PRE-FINAL PROCESSING AND APPROVAL PHASE
DECISION MAKING PROCESS
DECISIONS
EIS PROCESS
FAA
DECISION TO
INCLUDE AIRPORT
DEVELOPMENT ACTION
IN NASP
SPONSOR
DECISION TO
UNDERTAKE
PROJECT
SPONSOR PREPARES INITIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL
SPONSOR PREPARES PRELIMINARY EIS
SPONSOR OBTAINS A-05 CLEARINGHOUSE
SPONSOR SUBMITS PRELIMINARY EIS TO STATE
APPROVAL FOR SUBMISSION OF REQUEST
AND REGIONAL CLEARINGHOUSES FOR COORDINATION
WITH STATE AND LOCAL AGENCIES
SPONSOR PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC
CLEARINGHOUSES OBTAIN STATE AND LOCAL
HEARING FOR SEL ECTED AIRPORT PROJECTS
AGENCY COMMENTS
SPONSOR HOLDS HEARING FOR SELECTED
SPONSOR PREPARES DRAFT EIS INCORPORATING
AIRPORT PROJECTS IF REQUESTED
AND DISCUSSING STATE AND LOCAL AGENCY
COMMENTS AND PUBLIC COMMENTS IF RECEIVED
SPONSOR PREPARES REQUEST FOR AID
SPONSOR SUBMITS REQUEST FOR NO TO FAA
SPONSOR SUBMITS DRAFT EIS TO FAA DISTRICT
DISTRICT OFFICE
OFFICE
D.O. EVALUATES AID REQUEST
D.O. EVALUATES DRAFT E15
D.O. RECOMMENDS
FOR OR AGAINST
PROJECT PROGRAMMING
D.O. SENDS AID REQUEST TO REGIONAL OFFICE
D.O. SENDS DRAFT EIS TO REGIONAL OFFICE
FOR REVIEW AND PROCESSING
FOR REVIEW AND PROCESSING
R.O. EVALUATES REQUEST FOR AID
R.O. EVALUATES DRAFT EIS
R.O. FURNISHES FEDERAL AGENCIES, FAA-BASHINGTON,
AND CEO WITH DRAFT EIS FOR REVIEW AND COMMENT.
REQUEST FOR AID MAY BE ALTERED,AS A RESULT
OF INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM INTERNAL
R.O. OBTAINS COMMENTS FROM ABOVE. INCORPORATES &
REVIEW OR FROM COORDINATION OF EIS
DISCUSSES COMMENTS IN E1S.& PREPARES FINAL TEXT EIS
R.O.
DISAPPROVES OR
RECOMMENDS PROJECT
FOR APPROVAL
R.O. SENDS AID REQUEST TO FAA-WASHINGTON
R.O. SENDS FINAL EIS TO FAA. WASHINGTON
FOR REVIEW AND PROCESSING
FOR REVIEW AND PROCESSING
FAA-WASHINGTON EVALUATES REQUEST FOR AID
FAA-WASHINGTON EVALUATES FINAL EIS. FINAL EIS
ALSO MADE AVAILABLE TO TEU SEC. OF TRAMS.
AND CEQ
REQUEST MAY BE ALTERED DUE TO INTERNAL
REVIEW OR REVIEW OF EIS
TEU
OR SEC. OF TRANS.
MAKES FIMAL ENDORSEMENT
OF EIS INDICATING FINAL
APPROVAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ASPECTS OF PROJECTS
FINAL ENDORSED EIS IS INCORPORATED
WITH PROJECT REQUEST
AIRPORTS
SERVICE MAKES FINAL
PROJECT EVALUATION & RECOMMENDS
PROJECT FOR APPROVAL
LEGEND
PROJECT
RECEIVES FINAL APPROVAL
D.O. DISTRICT OFFICE
BY ADMINISTRATOR OF FAA OR SEC. OF
R.O. - REGIONAL OFFICE
TRANS. IF CONTROVERSIAL
TEU OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN SYSTEMS
MASP NATIONAL AIRPORT SYSTEM PLAN
Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife
Conservation of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Improvements
Needed in Federal Efforts to Implement the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 App.
XI, p. 88 (May 1972).
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The solution to problems associated with implementation of the NEPA
procedures, according to many of the same sources that targeted those problems,
revolved around a single concept-integration. Thus, in responding to a request for
evaluation of time delays, costs, and other effects of environmental impact statement
preparation on public works projects, the Comptroller General of the United States
reported:
When EIS preparation is integrated with and completed
during project planning, it helps ensure that environmental
amenities and values are given appropriate consideration
along with the economic and technical factors in planning
and decisionmaking. At the same time, it reduces the risk of
project delays due to lawsuits, public pressure, or other
circumstances which can stop projects when a timely EIS has
not been prepared.⁴³
Integration as a means of overcoming the procedural problems encountered with NEPA
had been supported by congressional oversight committees and by CEQ whose
guidelines specified "that agencies should prepare their draft EIS as early as possible in
their planning and decisionmaking process."45 But prior to 1978 the concept of
integration had not been fully developed for practical application; nor had any elements
of it ever been authoritatively set forth. This was to change, however, with the
promulgation of Executive Order No. 11991 of May 25, 1977,48 directing CEQ to issue
regulations intended to make the impact statement process more efficient and more
useful to federal decisionmakers and the public. CEQ responded to that directive by
introducing in its new regulations the concept of "total integration," providing federal
agencies with uniform, practical procedures and the flexibility to adapt them to their
particular programs.
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C.
Prescription for Total Integration
By the late-1970s environmental review requirements applicable to federal agency
activities had proliferated considerably. But the environmental process, the EIS
component of which had been singled out as the principal contributor to administrative
delay, was not burdened only by the sheer number of environmental review law
requirements; rather, it was the multi-dimensional characteristics of those laws--their
tendancy to overlap substantively, procedurally, and even across jurisdictions--that
complicated agency compliance efforts. The one-dimensional add-on approach to
fulfilling the requirements of NEPA that typified federal agency compliance efforts to
that point was unworkable. Agencies urgently needed a more dynamic process, one that
could accommodate--or consolidate--all environmental review responsibilities.
1.
A Planning Instrument
The CEQ regulations, which with one change4⁷ remain in force today, were
designed specifically to address the dilemma that had been posed by misdirected agency
implementation of environmental procedures in two ways. First, they establish for the
"NEPA process" - defined as "all measures necessary for compliance with the
requirements of section 2 and Title I of NEPAᵀ⁶--reasonable quantitative and qualitative
targets. For example, with respect to "[t]he text of final environmental impact
statements," the regulations provide that it "shall normally be less than 150 pages"49 and
that the impact statements themselves "shall be analytic rather than encyclopedic."50 But
the establishment of targets, without more, could not assure their attainment. CEQ
therefore incorporated into its regulations a system of procedures that are capable of
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being adapted to the decisionmaking practices of any agency for the purpose of
integrating environmental considerations meaningfully and efficiently into its more
mission-oriented activities. That system relies upon the three features that distinguish
effective planning--timing, coordination, and scope of review--all of which are essential
to achieve integration under the act.
The procedural cornerstone of an effective NEPA process is timing. If agencies
integrate the NEPA process into their decisionmaking at a stage where choices among
alternative courses of action have been foreclosed, then it would matter little how well
they analyze the effects of a proposal in a "detailed statement;" little or no real
opportunity to influence the outcome from the standpoint of environmental quality
remains at that stage. For this reason, the CEQ regulations require that agencies
"integrate the NEPA process with other planning at the earliest possible time to insure
that planning and decisions reflect environmental values, to avoid delays later in the
process, and to head off potential conflicts."51 Each federal agency is directed to
"commence preparation of an environmental impact statement as close as possible to the
time the agency is developing or is presented with a proposal so that preparation can
be completed in time for the final statement to be included in any recommendation or
report on the proposal."52 But applying the NEPA process early in agency planning and
decisionmaking achieves more than just timely completion of environmental
documentation; it also makes that documentation more meaningful by promoting a more
fully coordinated, focused effort on the part of all concerned governmental entities and
the public.
NEPA, the most comprehensive of all environmental review laws, provides a
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procedural canopy beneath which the act's requirements must be integrated "with other
planning and environmental review procedures required by law or by agency practice so
that all such procedures run concurrently rather than consecutively."53 And consistent
with Congress' declaration of national environmental policy, the CEQ regulations also
provide that federal agencies "shall cooperate with State and local agencies to the fullest
extent possible to reduce duplication between NEPA and State and local requirements"
and shall "[e]ncourage and facilitate public involvement in decisions which affect the
quality of the human environment."55 The early identification of pertinent authorities
and agencies potentially interested in a proposed action helps structure the public
"scoping process" that brings into play the other two planning features (coordination and
scope of review) to frame the essentials of environmental impact statement
development--from the significant issues that must be studied and the scheduling of
document preparation to designation of agencies that will cooperate in the study and the
nature and extent of their participation.56 The use of other integrative procedures
prescribed in the CEQ regulations, including incorporation of material by reference⁵⁷
and adoption of previously prepared environmental documentation, should also be
explored during the "scoping process." Upon completion of that process, government
agencies, the public, and other interests will find themselves equipped with a flexible
blueprint for fully integrating a concise, predictable, analytical environmental process
into agency decisionmaking before work on the actual environmental impact statement is
even begun.
2.
Where and How to Integrate
In its simplest form and reduced to a schematic, the pivotal pre-EIS phase of the
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NEPA process for a "major federal action" might resemble the diagram in Figure 5-2.
Of course, comparatively few major federal actions are uncomplicated for
purposes of NEPA and other environmental review laws. This is particularly true of
major federal actions that originate as proposals sponsored by non-federal grant or
license applicants. The difficulty with applicant-sponsored proposals is that the federal
approval stage generally represents one of the final steps in a planning process that
often began months, and even years, before. But the CEQ regulations address this
situation as well, essentially by requiring integration of environmental factors and
alternatives into the prefiling planning processes of prospective applicants.
Under the CEQ regulations, federal agencies must "[p]rovide for cases where
actions are planned by private applicants or other non-Federal entities before Federal
involvement..."⁵⁹ In designing procedures to assist applicants sponsoring proposals for
federal approval, agencies
should include an "outreach program," such as a means for
prospective applicants to conduct pre-application
consultations with the lead and cooperating agencies.
Applicants need to find out, in advance of project planning,
what environmental studies or other information will be
required, and what mitigation requirements are likely, in
connection with the later federal NEPA process. Agencies
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Figure 5-2.
Planning for Integration of Environmental Laws
Initiation of Planning/Decisionmaking for a "Major Federal Action"
In-house Identification of Issues, Authorities, and Agencies
Publish Notice of Intent to Prepare Environmental Impact Statement
(§§ 1508.22; 1501.7; and 1506.6)*
Extend Invitation to Participate
(§ 1501.7(a)(1))
Announce Forthcoming Scoping Notice
(§ 1506.6)
Publish Notice of Proposed Scope and Invite Comment
(§§ 1501.7 and 1506.6)
Determine Scope and Significant
Issues to be Analyzed
(§§ 1508.25 and 1501.7(a)(2))
Eliminate Issues not Significant to
Analysis
Explore Incorporation by Reference
(§ 1501.7(a)(3))
and Adoption Opportunities
(§§ 1502.21 and 1506.3)
Target Other Environmental Review
Laws/Processes to be Undertaken
Concurrently as well as Separate
Documentation Requirements
Examine Pertinent State and
(§§ 1502.25 and 1501.7(a)(5))
Local Procedures
(§ 1506.2)
Designate Lead/Joint Lead and
Cooperating Agencies
Allocate Assignments Among Lead/
(§§ 1501.5; 1501.6; and 1506.2(c))
Cooperating Agencies
(§ 1501.7(a)(4))
Fix Page Limits
Establish Time Limits
(§ 1502.7)
(§ 1501.8)
Review Comments and Publish Notice of Final Scope
(§ 1506.6)
Proceed According to Plan and Schedule Established in Notice of Final Scope
* All section citations are to title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
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should designate staff to advise potential applicants of the
agency's NEPA information requirements and should
publicize their pre-application procedures and information
requirements in newsletters or other media used by potential
applicants.⁶⁰
Agencies also must provide assistance for prospective applicants by outlining data
requirements where environmental reports and other material are submitted with an
application.61 Finally, to hasten the processing of applicant-sponsored proposals and to
eliminate duplication of effort, the CEQ regulations permit applicants to prepare for
their proposed actions environmental assessments that are subject to independent review
and verification by the agency or, in cases where environmental impact statements are
required, to have the draft impact statement prepared in advance of application filing
pursuant to a third-party contract arrangement.63
The CEQ regulations anticipate and provide for most of the situations that might
be encountered in applying the NEPA process to federal actions. Still stumbling blocks
are almost always present. One such stumbling block involves situations in which
applicant-sponsored proposals are subject to multiple permitting or review requirements
(such as permitting by the Corps of Engineers under section 404 of the Clean Water Act
or review pursuant to section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act). The CEQ
regulations call for "[o]ther federal agencies that are likely to become involved [to] be
contacted, and the NEPA process coordinated, to insure an early and comprehensive
analysis of the direct and indirect effects of the proposal and any related actions."64 But
other federal agencies generally have their own workload and scheduling demands from
which they may be reluctant to depart on a case-by-case basis, regardless of how early
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they may be invited to participate in the decisionmaking process of the lead federal
agency. An alternative approach in these types of situations, where recurrent filings are
expected, is execution of a programmatic memorandum of agreement65 between or
among multiple permitting agencies for the purpose of establishing mutually acceptable
consolidated review procedures applicable to all similar applicant-sponsored filings.
D.
Integration in Practice
Neither the provisions of NEPA nor the CEQ implementing regulations function
as stand-alone mandates. The NEPA process can be understood only in the context of a
statutory scheme and program to which it applies. But integration of the NEPA process
is not always easily achieved, as evidenced in the case studies provided below.
1.
Interstate Commerce Commission: Railroad Abandonment
Abandonment of railroad lines involves a statutory scheme that is somewhat
inhospitable to, although clearly within the ambit of,⁸ᵉ the NEPA process. Railroad
abandonment applications, submitted for approval to the Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC), are sponsored by abandoning rail carriers and involve alternatives
that require the initiative of outside entities. Additionally, the entire rail abandonment
application process is subject to adjudicative (trial-type) procedures and stringent
statutory deadlines. In all, a better opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of NEPA
in integrating environmental considerations into agency decisionmaking-especially
adjudications--is difficult to imagine.
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