 SCOPE AND BACKGROUND OVERVIEW OF SIERRA NEVADA ECOSYSTEMS AND ASSESSMENT STATUS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR ECOSYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRATION OF ASSESSMENTS AND SOLUTIONS
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rev. Jun. 17, 1996 © 1996 Regents of the University of California |
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Institutional Integration of Assessments and SolutionsThe strategies examined by SNEP represent responses to problems identified in the Sierra Nevada through the SNEP as-sessments. The strategies are not fully analyzed alternative management schemes, nor does any one strategy address all aspects of the ecosystem. Rather, they are potential components of regional or rangewide alternatives yet to be formulated. As these strategies are taken together, common properties emerge that SNEP suggests will characterize successful approaches to sustainable management of the Sierra Nevada. Whole Systems The strategies collectively consider the Sierra Nevada to be a whole system. Although individual SNEP strategies are incomplete, they show how actual solutions must address not just parts of the system but also the way in which parts interact to create the whole. The full scope of those interactions brings together things hitherto considered separate: core forest areas and matrix, people and nature, regions within and regions outside the Sierra. The strategies emphasize sustainable management over the entire landscape. For example, the areas of late successional emphasis (ALSE) strategy incorporates management of the lands between core areas of late successional emphasis (i.e., the matrix) and management of core areas themselves. Similarly, the biodiversity management area (BMA) strategy depends largely on the contribution of lands outside the BMAs. The distributed forest conditions strategy proposes that sustainability of late successional forests emerge as a property of entire landscapes, not small reserved portions thereof. Reserves, when discussed, are viewed as part of a larger conservation strategy. Managing the entire landscape for ecosystem sustainability requires that public and private resources and lands be considered together, along with the suite of institutions and rights associated with them. The diversity of the strategies indicates that addressing whole systems means confronting the full range of system components: physical, biological, and social. The system consists not just of biological structures, such as old-growth stands, but also of ecological functions and human communitiesboth communities of place within the Sierra and communities of interest elsewhere in the state and nation. SNEP strategies illustrate these components and scales and demonstrate how components could be linked in practice. The strategies also reveal different scales within the larger Sierran ecosystem. Some strategies respond to regional issues: for example, air quality in the southern Sierra, distributed forest conditions in the eastern Sierra, county buildout on the west slope. Others address truly rangewide concerns: for example the BMAs, ALSEs, and aquatic strategies. The aquatic and air-quality strategies suggest a scale that extends far beyond the range itself. Finally, the whole system is not static and changes over time. The fire strategy addresses a significant source of change in the Sierra and also emphasizes our uncertainty about the historic scope of fire and the risks associated with its purposeful application. Social dimensions of the mountain range change as well. These dynamics are addressed by the county buildout and community well-being strategies. The nature of change requires that management approaches be flexible enough to learn from and adapt to changing ecological and social conditions. The view of the Sierra as a whole system, or a web of biological and social influences stretching over and beyond the range and evolving over time, suggests that no easy policy or technical fix can be implemented in the Sierra Nevada. Many institutions will absorb, elaborate, and recast SNEP strategies to find solutions. Congressional involvement is essential to recasting policy in the Sierra. Existing federal laws constitute part of the web of influences that has served to bring parties together in search of new solutions. The rest of the web is composed of important state and local institutions and their associated laws and policies, as well as affected parties and stakeholders wherever they live. Considerations of cost, local variation in landscape attributes and their conditions, different patterns of land ownership and human communities, as well as other varying factors argue for flexible program design and implementation. Collaboration Collaboration among various agencies, private interests, and the public at large in the Sierra is the most significant principle that emerges from SNEP strategies. As they collaborate, agencies, private landowners, and the public begin to function as interacting parts of a whole system, and the number of ways to balance use and environmental quality increases exponentially. Collaboration may also encourage private landowners to innovate and to develop creative approaches that will accomplish broad ecological goals in advance of regulations. The mix of lands and resources in the Sierra, including intermingled private and public land, required SNEP to assess ecological conditions at appropriate scales and develop strategies at similar scales: for example, accounting for cumulative watershed effects required that solutions be addressed by all watershed stakeholders. These examples suggest that actual strategies must also extend across property or jurisdictional boundaries. Successful collaboration requires a mix of expertise and considerable institutional support. Mobilization of people and resources and coordination of activities may require collaboration at a local scale, but as activities engage more technical, financial, or legal issues, specialized expertise usually found in state or federal agencies will be required. Collaboration will succeed to the extent that it receives ongoing support from top management and feeds directly into existing budgets, business processes, and agency missions. Collaboration springs out of perceived mutual interest. State and federal agencies and other interests have experience in collaborating, especially in response to disasters and threats to life and property. A potential for improvements in service and structure of incentives may also lead to collaboration. In the absence of others threats, avoiding potential regulation remains one of the most powerful incentives to collaborating. Decentralizing control and restructuring agencies to focus on clients may greatly enhance effective collaboration. Careful restructuring of natural resource laws could encourage participation, thereby reducing the temptation to withdraw and increasing the effectiveness of collaboration. The incentive for collaboration diminishes if alternatives provide apparently quicker, albeit incomplete, resolution for individual participants. Bilateral negotiation rather than full collaboration, for example, probably will lead to only partial solutions, perceptions of bad-faith bargaining, and a retreat to adjudication. Collaboration will collapse if any of the parties attempts to dominate. Like any negotiation, successful collaboration is based on mutual respect for the rights and equity of all participants. This concept is particularly clear in the case of private landowners, for whom equity is generally expressed in terms of land values. It applies as well to public agencies and takes the form of legal authority, budgets, and scope of action. For members of the public, the form it takes is less established but no less important. 
 
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