Ecosystem Management in State Governments

State natural resource and environmental protection agencies are increasingly interested in ecosystem management for a variety of reasons. States began considering alternate and flexible management techniques during the mid1 990s to address the inadequacy of standards set primarily for human health, environmental impacts across multiple media, and the carrying capacity of entire waterbodies or ecosystems. In addition, states agencies recognized the need to coordinate their efforts with those of local governments, business, and private landowners. State environmental directors have become vocal about the lack of flexibility afforded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the programs it delegated to the states (Roberts 1993). Some problems the directors cited included excessive oversight, unrealistic standards, and lack of flexibility for implementing the programs in arid and/or rural regions. EPA began a working group of senior staff to determine if the agency could use ecosystem management to solve some intractable problems facing it. In late 1993 the EPA began to consider whether "ecosystem protection" would solve some of these problems (Browner 1993). Since then, EPA has altered the title from time to time, using terms like "ecosystem management," "placed-based" or "community-based" decision making. Some EPA staff may use terms like "watershed management" interchangeably when discussing ecosystem matters. States have begun to explore ecosytem management as one alternative to prescriptive federal rules. At approximately the same time as EPA was discovering ecosystem management, several states were either already using it, or beginning ecosystem programs of their own. These fall into two broad categories, natural resource management and environmental protection. Natural resource programs usually address management of resources such as forests or water (quantity). Environmental protection programs usually are regulatory programs, such as those related to drinking water or water quality. Sometimes, the distinction between natural resource management and environmental management is less pronounced. This typically occurs in states that have merged the two functional agencies into one agency. Examples of state activities are provided in the following paragraphs. In 1995, The Council of State Governments surveyed states about their ecosystem protection projects underway at the state or local level (Rombel et al. 1995). States responded with a variety of approaches to ecosystem protection. Many incorporate holistic management principles into their watershed protection programs. Several states are working closely with existing community projects as a starting point for a broader statewide initiative. Some states are defining ecoregional boundaries for the entire state and putting together natural resource expert teams specific to each area. A few states have restructured their departments to better accommodate interagency coordination of ecosystem management. Most of the more comprehensive ecosystem protection initiatives are still in the planning stages, and states are finding barriers in the management requirements for federal programs currently delegated to the states that make ecosystem management problematic as a management option. Until these barriers can be removed, ecosystem management may continue to be a niche management technique, at least in regulatory agencies.