Redistributed as a Service of the National Library for the Environment*
|
Redistributed as a Service of the National Library for the Environment* |
|
|
Ecosystem Management: Federal Agency ActivitiesWayne A. Morrissey, April 19, 1994 94-339 ENR SUMMARY Eighteen Federal agencies demonstrated their ecosystem management activities to the congressional community on March 24, 1994, as part of a two-day ecosystem management symposium convened by the Congressional Research Service at the request of the House Agriculture Committee, the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, the House Natural Resources Committee, the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. This report is a compilation of short papers distributed at the demonstration, describing each participating Federal agency's ecosystem management efforts. Each agency was asked to address five topics. 1. Ecosystem Management Activities. Explain what your agency is doing in the area of ecosystem management. Please distinguish efforts at broad policy levels and more specific program levels. If your agency has a mission statement relating to ecosystem management, please include that or summarize it. Also, if your agency has a working definition of ecosystem management, please include that as well. 2. Cooperation and Coordination. Discuss how your agency has cooperated with other Federal agencies. How do you coordinate your ecosystem management programs and activities with State and private efforts? Also, discuss the role of the Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Group in your current programs and activities in ecosystem management. 3. Tools of Ecosystem Management. Summarize any practical experience at your agency with automated geographic analysis tools such as geographic information systems (GIS) or Gap analyses, whether or not they will be demonstrated at the symposium. 4. Funding Ecosystem Management. Does your current budget structure accommodate ecosystem management? Will further implementation of ecosystem management require budget restructuring? If so, how? Do you anticipate that ecosystem management programs will be affected by changing priorities at your agency in the future? Also, address what portion and which aspects of your ecosystem management work are to be carried out within the agency by contractors. 5. Ecosystem Management Limits and Opportunities. Describe what your agency would like to be doing in ecosystem management but cannot do currently because of insufficient staff or legal restrictions. How does your agency plan to address these problems, and how does it envision its future role in ecosystem management, assuming these problems are addressed? INTRODUCTION The Congressional Research Service (CRS) convened a two-day symposium on ecosystem management on March 24 and 25, 1994 in response to requests from six congressional committees:
One focus of the symposium was the examination of Federal agency activities initiated in the name of ecosystem management. Eighteen agencies used displays to demonstrate their ecosystem management activities to the congressional community. As part of each display, agencies were asked to write a short paper on ecosystem management activities. These papers are reproduced on the following pages and are the agencies' assessments of their activities (1). All but one of these Federal agencies are members of an informal group called the Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Group (IEMCG). Most agencies in the IEMCG participated, although space limitations at the Library of Congress precluded participation of all members. The IEMCG also mounted an interagency display. In addition, one other agency, the Extension Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote a report on its activities that is also included. The agencies provided informative presentations with sophisticated and interesting displays. Many of the displays involved computer simulations or demonstrations. Agencies all distributed information on many of their activities; one agency even distributed video tapes. These presentations were designed to make the congressional community aware of the amount and diversity of activities that are captured under the ecosystem management label by Federal agencies. CRS has compiled the papers from the demonstration and display session to release the information to the congressional community as quickly as possible. Proceedings of the entire symposium will be published by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in late summer 1994. This report on agency activities may prove useful as the appropriations and authorization committees consider various legislative proposals during the remainder of the 2nd Session of the 103rd Congress. Each agency was asked to address five topics. These topics were selected so that each agency could describe current activities and future directions in ecosystem management. 1. Ecosystem Management Activities. Explain what your agency is doing in the area of ecosystem management. Please distinguish efforts at broad policy levels and more specific program levels. If your agency has a mission statement relating to ecosystem management, please include that or summarize it. Also, if your agency has a working definition of ecosystem management, please include that as well. 2. Cooperation and Coordination. Discuss how your agency has cooperated with other Federal agencies. How do you coordinate your ecosystem management programs and activities with State and private efforts? Also, discuss the role of the Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Group in your current programs and activities in ecosystem management. 3. Tools of Ecosystem Management. Summarize any practical experience at your agency with automated geographic analysis tools such as geographic information systems (GIS) or Gap analyses, whether or not they will be demonstrated at the symposium. 4. Funding Ecosystem Management. Does your current budget structure accommodate ecosystem management? Will further implementation of ecosystem management require budget restructuring? If so, how? Do you anticipate that ecosystem management programs will be affected by changing priorities at your agency in the future? Also, address what portion and which aspects of your ecosystem management work are to be carried out within the agency by contractors. 5. Ecosystem Management Limits and Opportunities. Describe what your agency would like to be doing in ecosystem management but cannot do currently because of insufficient staff or legal restrictions. How does your agency plan to address these problems, and how does it envision its future role in ecosystem management, assuming these problems are addressed? These papers are not intended to be definitive explanations of all agencies' activities and efforts, but rather to provide an overview of the major efforts and an indication of current agency thinking and direction. To assist readers who wish to learn more about the activities of any of these agencies, or of the IEMCG, each paper concludes with an agency contact and phone number.(witheld) (2) Many Federal agencies appear to be very aggressive in redirecting current efforts or initiating ecosystem management activities. These efforts and activities are diverse in scale, focus, institutional relationships, goals, and accomplishments. When they are viewed together, two themes seem most common. One is improved communication and coordination. Improvement is based on building new partnerships, sharing information, and reaching agreements or definitions for key terms and data collection. The second is trying to improve the condition of resources, which some are calling protection of biodiversity. These efforts might grow out of working to protect individual species and their habitats, restoring ecological processes and ecosystem services, or restoring degraded resources in an area. Agencies have listed many examples of these approaches in these summaries. The current focus seems centered on the communication and coordination aspects of ecosystem management, perhaps because results here are visible far more quickly than for significant changes in resources. Improved resource conditions are decades away in many cases, even if ecosystems are managed in a scientifically sound and programmatically consistent manner. And these improved conditions are hard to measure, because ecosystems involve so many interrelated components, but the crucial variable is the health of the overall system rather than any single component. The IEMCG plays a key role in these efforts by supporting activities to improve communication and coordination and to change resource conditions. In a recent brochure, its listed efforts included:
These papers also illustrate the wide variety of missions by reporting agencies. The agencies responsible for Federal lands and the resources on those lands have a very different mix of efforts than the agencies that deal with resources that are primarily on private lands. Some agencies deal more with the tools of resource analysis and with the development of resource information while others are more interested in the actual management of resources. These differences in missions are cause for a remarkable diversity in the approaches taken, in the reasons for interest in ecosystem management, and in the ways that agencies have integrated these efforts with ongoing activities and approaches to problem solving or resource management. The intensity of the effort is also striking. All these agencies are devoting significant resources, both staff and financial, to this effort at a time of budget constraints and Federal downsizing. But the benefits of this approach, as they are defining it, seem to outweigh any costs, assuming successful implementation. Equally striking is the faith that the many government employees who participated in this demonstration appear to place in an ecosystem approach as a more rational way of serving the public good. One of the more difficult challenges for these agencies will be to maintain this intensity in continuing to work together successfully toward a consistent approach over time and in the face of changes in priorities, authorizations, and appropriations from year to year. DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Extension Service conducts educational programs to bring about changes in people's knowledge, attitudes and behavior relative to ecosystems: Private Lands Research based educational programs are conducted by the Extension Service, USDA, through the Nation's 74 Land-Grant Colleges and 3,150 county Extension offices. These programs motivate millions of farmers, forest owners, and ranchers to voluntarily adopt aspects of sound ecosystem management. New for 1994 are Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA) forest ecosystem grants, which are funding programs to motivate private forest owners to practice good stewardship. Timber Harvesting Extension trains timber harvesters to be environmentally aware through its ongoing Logger Education to Advance Professionalism Program (LEAP). LEAP grants provide the impetus for educational programs which motivate loggers to undertake environmentally sensitive logging practices. Such practices benefit the future ecosystem of the harvested area. Professional Skills The explosion of new concepts, policies, and scientific knowledge has left many natural resource professionals behind. Practicing professionals as well as university professors and researchers need the continuing education in ecosystem management that Extension provides through its Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. The new knowledge spreads from professionals to all those students, businesses, landowners, managers, and others with whom those resource professionals have contact. Professionals who have resource management skills in one narrow subject benefit from continuing education in a related subject, or in a process skill such as learning how to conduct public issues education relative to sensitive and often highly polarized subjects such as ecosystem management, sustainability, wetlands management, and endangered species. Public and Youth Educational programs for the public and youth lead to a better understanding of ecosystem management. Users become aware of practices they can undertake to sustain ecosystems. Their understanding can lead to increased public support for ecosystem management. Youth have always been an important audience for Extension through its 4-H and other youth education programs. These future leaders will use their knowledge of ecosystem management to redirect our Nation toward a sustainable future. Extension's mission relative to ecosystem management is contained within our mission statements for our base program in Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NREM), and our mission statement for our Forest Resources Action Plan (FRAP).
Extension agrees with the definition of ecosystem management proposed by the Interagency Ad Hoc Team assembled by the Forest Service on February 28, 1994:
Extension Service at the Federal level participates in the USDA Ecosystem Management Ad Hoc Team. We also use memorandums of understanding and cooperative agreements, as appropriate. State and county Extension Services cooperate with the appropriate agencies at those levels. ES-USDA is a member of USDA's Ecosystem Management Ad Hoc Team, Forest Service's Stewardship Committee, National Urban Forestry Advisory Committee, Logger Education to Advance Professionalism Committee, and Agriculture Geographic Data Committee. We have frequent contact with the Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, the National Biological Survey, and EPA. Staff serve on numerous interdepartmental, interagency and private sector committees such as the National Council on Private Forests, the Forest Research Mandate for Change Implementation Team, the American Forest and Paper Association's Research Committee, the National Association of Conservation District's Forestry and Urban, Community and Coastal Resources Committees, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Committees, and the Great Plains Agricultural Council. Our role with regard to the Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Team would be through our representation on USDA's Ecosystem Management team. We also participate as individuals in our respective professional societies. Extension Service at the Federal level is represented on the Agriculture Geographic Data Subcommittee. We do not maintain our own Federal GIS system because our agency does not collect data nor manage Federal land. State Extension Services offer educational programs to a wide variety of GIS users. Three examples involve education on use of GIS to improve resource management decisions, to model the ecology of a riparian system, and to accurately apply farm inputs:
Extension was authorized, as the outreach arm of the Department of Agriculture, by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. This legislation provided for a Cooperative Extension Service to be created at each State's land-grant university, with supporting field offices in nearly every county. Since its inception, the Extension structure has been conducting educational programs for farmers, homemakers, youth, and others. The principle Federal source of funds available to State Extension Service is $273 million (FY94) in Smith-Lever 3b&c. These funds, which require a 50-50 match, are distributed by formula to State Extension Services to "diffuse among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture, home economics, . . .etc." Legislative direction is quite flexible, and thus educational programming in support of ecosystem management is a judgment decision at the State level. Extension Service-USDA exerts its influence over programs through: (1) the plan of work approval process, and (2) the promotion of national initiatives in support of contemporary issues. Through this process the States have the maximum opportunities of developing and delivering programs in support of local, State and national issues. Smith-Lever 3d and other authorizations are also available to States. For example, Extension's FY 1994 budget contains twelve line items under Smith-Lever 3d, plus the Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA). Smith-Lever 3d and the RREA funds are intended for very specific programs, some of which could be related to ecosystem management. They are:
The Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA) is the most used line item for ecosystem management. The purpose of RREA is to provide for "an expanded and comprehensive extension program for forest and rangeland renewable resources". Ecosystem management clearly fits the intent of RREA and in that regard Extension distributed $3.341 million of RREA funds to the States in FY 1994. Although some renewable resources education was funded prior to RREA using Smith-Lever 3b&c funds, these programs have grown in emphasis thanks to the 1978 Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA), which authorized $15 million. Congress provided $2 million in line-item funding, beginning in 1982, with some increases since then. RREA funds average less than $90,000 per State which is regarded as modest by many of Extension's public and private partners. States have been able to use RREA funds to leverage additional funds. RREA funds increased to $3.341 million in FY94, of which $500,000 was used to fund 11 multi-State, regional, or national forest ecosystem grants. Through Federal appropriation, State and local match, and other leveraging Extension is able to report the following annual renewable resources accomplishments: --100,000 contact hours of continuing education to 25,000 natural resource professionals;
(State-by-State accomplishments are given in "Renewable Natural Resources Education -- A Report to Congress on the 1991-1995 Renewable Resources Extension Program" and "Extension Accomplishments Reported for Natural Resources Programming During the Fiscal Years 1989-1991", compiled by Loren R. Larson, II). Funding and Results of LEAP LEAP is a successful pilot program which is demonstrating that timber harvesters can be taught to log in an environmentally aware manner. LEAP was funded for three years (1992-1994) for $300,000. Logging is the most visible, and can be the most disturbing single act that affects forest land, and therefore can have a significant influence on future ecosystems. Ecosystems, especially on private lands, will benefit from LEAP as this pilot program is duplicated and implemented throughout the system. Funding and Anticipated Results of RREA Forest Ecosystem Grants Forest ecosystem grants totalling $500,000 went to eleven separate proposals, most of which were for multi-State or regional education projects. An additional $1 million in proposals that would have covered additional States could not be funded. Titles of the grants are:
The FY94 forest ecosystem grants represent Extension's contribution to the first year of a multi-year, multi-agency budget initiative of the Administration in forest ecosystem management. The Forest Service and the Cooperative State Research Service are cooperators in the Administration's initiative and received funds for ecosystem management research. Extension needs to continue to conduct educational programs in all States which translate research results to useful information for landowners, resource professionals, resource vendors, and the general public. The end result is that owners of private land will be able to understand and apply ecosystem management on their lands. Collectively, they own nearly two-thirds of the land base in the lower 48 States. ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES Staff ceilings and legal restrictions do not limit Extension's ecosystem management activities. The major restriction is adjusting and establishing priorities. Part of this adjustment is being addressed through the budgeting process and part through the abolishment of old programs in favor of new emphases. Extension Service-USDA's role is to provide funds and program coordination to State and county Extension Services. Universities and counties can generally add staff in response to permanent funding. Temporary, or "soft funding" promotes the use of contractual services and graduate students. Through these processes, universities are able to provide quality services in support of contemporary issues without adding full-time staff. Ecosystem management is an appropriate topic for Extension. The Smith-Lever 3b&c mandate is very broad, and the Smith-Lever 3d or RREA funding authority could be used to assure that additional funds are targeted to ecosystem management. Extension envisions playing a significant role in ecosystem management for education is regarded as a key stimulant to the adoption of ecosystem management concepts on private lands. The challenge is reaching the multitude of owners and users. Recent surveys suggest that this audience consists of seven million owners and managers, five million 4-H youth, and over 108 million users of the Nation's private forest, range, and aquatic resources, (hikers, campers, hunters, fishermen, etc.). SUMMARY Extension education programs in many subjects over many years have resulted in significant benefits to the Nation when its citizens know how to make better decisions. Extension is well-positioned to expand its ecosystem management educational programs. Extension education can: (1) motivate private landowners to incorporate ecosystem management in their objectives, (2) assist private landowners to modify timber and forage production systems in favor of sustaining ecosystems, (3) improve the competence of natural resource professionals to manage and sustain ecosystems, and (4) increase awareness of ecosystem management by the public and youth. Ongoing education programs on ecosystem management are dynamic and cost-effective. Expanded programs are expected to be equally dynamic, cost-effective and responsive to the shift in management direction for public and private lands. CONTACT Larry E. Biles Endnotes
|
CRS Reports Home
|
|||
|
|||
 |
National Council for Science and the Environment 1725 K Street, Suite 212 - Washington, DC 20006 202-530-5810 - info@NCSEonline.org |
 |
|
