Volume 1/Chapter 10/Case Studies in Ecosystem Management

INTRODUCTION

The Mammoth-June Case Study

The Lake Tahoe Case Study

The Mediated Settlement Case Study

Ecosystems Under Four Different Institutions

Concluding Notes on the Case Studies

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INTRODUCTION

To assess the various ways organizations and people come together to manage Sierran ecosystems, SNEP conducted four case studies to examine the efficacy of different institutional arrangements:

The Mammoth-June case study examines how a single national forest is attempting to implement the new Forest Service policy for ecosystem analysis.

The Lake Tahoe study investigates a set of institutional arrangements in which agencies and the public have worked jointly for over thirty years to restore and maintain the health of a watershed-lake ecosystem being threatened by urbanization.

The study of the Mediated Settlement Agreement (MSA) examines a process designed to bring together diverse interests to map and manage the treasured giant sequoia forest type.

The final case compares the mandates and organizational structures of four institutions, describing how they result in different approaches to land management: the Sequoia National Forest, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest, and the Tule River Indian Reservation.

The summaries here explore the institutional lessons learned from local attempts to cope with the dynamics of ecological and socioeconomic change. The studies represent a modest effort to capture the complexity of issues affecting planning, current management practices, and the means for resolving conflict. They are incomplete in that they do not cover the full diversity of Sierra Nevada issues, but they do provide a reasonable sample of how institutions act and interact to affect ecosystems within the range.