Natural Resource Administration

Wildlife, Fisheries, Forests and Parks

Donald W. Sparling

• Editorial: Academic Press
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780124047082
• Categoría: Technology & Engineering
• Categoría: Power Resources

Natural Resource and Wildlife Administration presents a clear perspective on natural resource administration in North America, how it developed, how it is currently structured, and where it might be heading. Intertwined areas of natural resources, including wildlife administration, fisheries, forestry, and other competitive land uses, are heavily discussed. The book covers the history of natural resource management in Europe and North America, proceeding to environmental law; agencies involved in wildlife and natural resource management; and the human dimensions of public relations and economic concerns.

Natural Resource and Wildlife Administration provides solid background on the history of natural resource conservation, critical laws protecting resources, and the nature of agencies. The interconnectedness among natural resources makes this a useful text for disciplines such as wildlife, fisheries, and forestry.

• Covers the development of natural resource law and the conservation agencies in North America, and also provides models for international use
• Examines the roles of diverse federal, state, and non-governmental agencies, and how they cooperate as professionals to accomplish natural resources management
• Leads readers to a greater understanding of the politics and interplay of priorities in professional conservation biology
• Assists the certification processes of professional societies
• Includes end-of-chapter questions for further thought and discussion, as well as offset boxes throughout the text to help explain more technical subjects

Part I

Basics of Natural Resources

Outline

Chapter 1 Differing Perspectives on Natural Resource Policy

Chapter 2 History of Wildlife and Natural Resource Conservation

Chapter 1

Differing Perspectives on Natural Resource Policy

This chapter examines some of the ways in which organizations approach natural resource management and administrative issues. The terms “preservation” and “conservation” are often used interchangeably, but really have very different meanings. Preservation can be defined as the protection of resources, whether they are land, species, specific genotypes, landscapes or some other factor. In contrast to preservation, conservation implies active management of natural resources and has replaced strict preservation as the more common natural resources activity. Biodiversity was the one of the first primary objectives laid out for conservation. This has been followed by concepts such as sustainability and ecosystem resilience. Adaptive management has become an important way of systematically evaluating conservation implementation as it is occurring.

Keywords

Preservation; conservation; biodiversity; multiple use; sustained yield; conservation biology; conservation science; sustainability; ecosystem services; ecosystem resilience; ecosystem resistance; adaptive management

Terms to Know

• Preservation

• Conservation

• Biodiversity

• Multiple use, sustained yield

• Use-constrained management

• Conservation biology

• Conservation science

• Sustainability

• Millennium Declaration

• World Summit on Social Development

• Ecosystem services

• Ecosystem resilience

• Ecosystem resistance

• Functional redundancy

• Response redundancy

• Adaptive management

• Adaptive harvest management

Introduction

Suppose we develop a scenario where you are the head of a natural resource agency. A wealthy business person has donated a 5000-acre (~2025 ha) tract of land to your agency. After taking an inventory of the property, you have a few questions that need to be addressed. What are you going to do with this property? Does it contain a rare, fragile type of habitat or a species of concern to make you want to preserve the land? If you decide to manage it, what are your conservation goals going to be? Will you try to maximize the number of species on it, try to enhance its sustainability, increase its resilience, or do you have other goals for it? Once you have carried out your conservation plan, how will you evaluate if the plan was effective? Will you just assume that it was effective, or will you establish some mileposts and criteria to determine objectively if the plan was successful? All of these are real issues that natural resource managers and their administrations encounter on a regular basis. This chapter examines some of the ways in which organizations approach these natural resource management and administrative issues.

Preservation and Conservation

These two terms are often used interchangeably but really have very different meanings. Preservation can be defined as the protection of resources, whether they are land, species, specific genotypes, landscapes or some other factor. Preservation involves little to no direct management – not quite an entirely “hands off” approach, but close. If preservation is associated with land, access to the area is often restricted to reduce human disturbance. If it is a rare species, access to its habitat may be similarly restricted or an agency may decide to reduce disturbance as much as possible, or the species may be so rare that it will either have to have special protection or be relocated entirely to captivity until enough information is obtained about its ecological needs that it can be restored to the wild.

Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus), also known as the milu (Figure 1.1), for example, is native to China but became extinct in the wild over 1000 years ago.¹ For centuries a small population was maintained in the Nanyuang Royal Hunting Garden in Nan Haizi, near Beijing. A small group of these deer had been smuggled out of China and brought to Europe during the 1800s. During the Boxer Rebellion of the late 19th century the deer at Nanyuang were slaughtered for meat, and the species would have become extinct had those animals not been transported to Europe. In 1985 a few animals from the European group were used to redevelop a Chinese population at Beijing Milu Park, the site of the old Nanyuang Gardens. A few years later a second population was established at Dafeng Nature Reserve.² In 1993, and again in 2002, some deer from both parks were released into Nature Preserves in China. After more than 1000 years, the species was back in the wild, although still heavily protected. During all this time the species was being preserved, because very little active management was occurring. Arguably, moving some deer into the Nature Preserves might be interpreted as conservation, but the activity was minimal.

Figure 1.1 Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus) at Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch in Pilot Point, Texas – a species that could serve as the poster child for protectionism.

A second example of a more local species that requires special preservation is the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). This bird is a large scavenger of southern California, with a body weight of 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and wing span of up to 9.5 feet (2.9 meters). The species is ancient, with fossil evidence going back at least 100,000 years to the mid-Pleistocene epoch. At one time California condors occupied the western seaboard states, Baja, British Columbia, Texas and New Mexico, and had populations in Florida and the Northeast.^3,4 The species declined precipitously with the extinction of large mammals during the late Pleistocene.

In recent times condors were shot and poisoned as vermin, and fell victim to secondary toxicity from lead bullets in deer, wild pigs, and antelope left by hunters. In addition, museum officials collected eggs from nests so as to have remnants of a vanishing species. Lead shot poisoning was the principal culprit in recent declines of the species.⁵ Condors also have low fecundity, which does not help their recovery. They mature at five to seven years, lay only a single egg, and typically breed every other year, although sometimes they may breed in consecutive years. Adults in the wild may live 40 years or more, and the oldest one in captivity was 71 years old when it died.⁶ In 1982 only 22 birds existed in the wild, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided to bring all surviving birds into captivity until they could determine what to do with the species. By 1987, there were no condors left in the wild.³ This is the preservation portion of the actions taken to save the species. However, the story also involves conservation, in that many of the Condor pairs reproduced and biologists would hand-rear hatchlings (Figure 1.2). After eight years in captivity the population had grown sufficiently to allow limited releases. Over the years, condors have been released and monitored in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. These released birds are considered experimental and therefore expendable. Other management activities included training condors that are to be released to avoid electrical lines, and passing a law that forbids the use of lead ammunition in condor release sites. Today there are about 300 condors in existence, with around 70 free-flying in the West.⁷

Figure 1.2 A California Condor chick (Gymnogyps californianus) being tended by a human wearing a glove that looks like the head of an adult condor.

Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of various sizes strive to protect and preserve unusual habitats from development. Small NGOs include Green Earth Inc., in southern Illinois,⁸ which owns six small tracts of woodland and bottomlands totaling 220 acres (89 ha) in a semi-urban environment. These small preservationist groups often have a knack for finding isolated gems of nature in otherwise developed areas, and protecting them from destruction (Figure 1.3). Much larger organizations can protect natural areas of international importance. For example, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund have combined their resources to protect, among other areas, a 150,000-acre (60,702 ha) Valdivian Coastal Reserve in Chile that houses ancient coastal forests and a multitude of wildlife⁹ (Figure 1.4). In the United States and Canada national parks, monuments and wilderness areas practice the concept of preservation while still allowing people to visit these areas, even though visitor activities may strongly influence the pristine quality of these parks.^10,11

Figure 1.3 Chautauqua Bottoms, a preserve owned by Green Earth Inc., one of hundreds of small non-government organizations created to protect ecologically unique sites. Reproduced with permission of Green Earth Inc., Carbondale, IL.

Figure 1.4 The Valdivian Coastal Reserve, Chile. This is a 150,000-acre (60,700 ha) preserve owned by the World Wildlife Fund and Nature Conservancy. Credit: Nature Conservancy, http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/chile/index.htm.

A problem with preservation of an ecosystem or landscape context, however, is that natural areas are not stagnant. Succession may advance the natural development of the area, and events that set succession back, such as fires, can change the conditions of the area being protected. If natural changes are acceptable by human decisions, then preservation can continue. On the other hand, if it is more desirable to maintain an area in a particular set of conditions, conservation with active management will almost always be necessary.¹²

A third and very different example of modern-day preservation can be found in the many gene banks that have arisen around the world. Some of these banks are huge, temperature-controlled buildings that house millions of seeds and other tissues. The National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, under the US Department of Agriculture, for example, maintains stocks of plant seeds, germplasm, and cryogenically preserved embryos of animals and plants (Figure 1.5). The stated mission of the Center is “to acquire, evaluate, preserve, and provide a national collection of genetic resources to secure the biological diversity that underpins a sustainable US agricultural economy through diligent stewardship, research, and communication”.¹³ Some of these repositories have been established so that if a cataclysm (whether of natural or human origin) occurs there will be organisms that can be used to get a new start – provided that there are human survivors, of course. Other repositories, such as the USDA Center, exist because scientists and the public see an intrinsic value in preserving potentially valuable genotypes that now populate this planet.

Figure 1.5 A panorama of seeds stored by the USDA’s National Center for Genetic Research and Preservation. Reproduced courtesy of the USDA National Center for Genetic Research and Preservation.

While these are a couple of ways that we are using preservation today, the concept was v...