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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Certain attributes of institutions greatly influence land management. The purpose of this case study is to compare four public institutions in the southern Sierra Nevada to understand the degree to which two attributesthe institutions original mandate and its organizational structureinfluence their patterns of ecosystem management. The institutions are a national forest (Sequoia National Forest), a state forest (Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest), a national park (Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, two parks but managed as one administratively), and an Indian reservation (Tule River Indian Reservation). Although these four institutions manage comparable ecosystems, their unique organizational characteristics, histories, and operating rules, in combination with their different mandates, have produced different patterns on the landscape, different mixes of benefit flows, and different levels of conflict. We suggest that the present landscape pattern associated with each institution, and the probable direction of these landscape patterns, can be best accounted for by the interaction between internal organizational characteristics and institutional mandates, rather than by biophysical endowments or scientific principles of land, timber, forest, or ecosystem management. The degree of organizational centralization, the linkages between resource science and resource management, the criteria used for budget allocations, the means for ensuring public accountability, and the degree of planning and management flexibility are key factors that influence the different social and ecological effects of these four institutions.
The challenges of maintaining ecosystem integrity are compounded by the recognition that resource management and stewardship efforts based on the island-in-time self-contained reserve model are inadequate to ensure resource preservation or conservation, because significant impacts on areas within a reserve arise from outside it and management regimes within a reserve affect those aspects of an ecosystem that lie outside it. Examples of such porosity include air pollution, fire, visitor use, and in some cases sedimentation and changes in hydrologic regimes resulting from upstream management activities. Accordingly, the case study also examines factors that contribute to the ability of public land management institutions to respond to increasingly complex and interdependent social, political, and ecological environments while simultaneously maintaining their legitimacy and the integrity of the ecosystems within their jurisdiction. Tight feedback loops between responsible research and resource management, high levels of institutional legitimacy and public trust, and active interorganizational coordination positively affect institutional performance under the increasingly porous and complex conditions faced by all public forest owners in the Sierra Nevada.

1. What are the origins of the four institutions, and what ecosystems fall within their jurisdictions?

The Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest was purchased by the state of California in 1946 from the Michigan Trust Company. It is administered by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). The Fresno-Visalia community organization Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West was instrumental in lobbying the California legislature to purchase the tract to preserve the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) groves it contains. Giant sequoia preservation was also one of the reasons for creating the Sierra Forest Reserve in 1893, from which the Sequoia National Forest was formed in 1908, and for reserving in 1890 the two sections and four townships that formed the nucleus of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The Tule River Indian Reservation, established in 1873, is located in southern Tulare County. More than nine Californian tribes speaking different languages were relocated here from a much larger region; consequently, only a few of the culturally significant areas for the tribes are located within the reservation.
The jurisdictions of these four institutions have similar ecological characteristics. The Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks encompass lower-elevation oak and grass woodlands, mixed conifer and true fir belts, and substantial areas above the timberline. The Tule River Indian Reservation extends from oak and grass woodlands up through the mixed conifer and true fir belt. The Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest is restricted to the mixed conifer belt. Giant sequoia groves are located within the boundaries of all four institutions. This study focuses primarily on resource management strategies and issues related to the mixed conifer belt.