Reframing Ecosystem Management in the Era of Climate Change: Issues and Knowledge from Forests. Mori, A. S., Spies, T. A., Sudmeier-Rieux, K., & Andrade, A. 165:115–127.
Reframing Ecosystem Management in the Era of Climate Change: Issues and Knowledge from Forests [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
We discuss ” ecosystem management (EM)” to face contemporary climate change issues. EM focuses on sustaining ecosystems to meet both ecological and human needs. EM plans have been largely developed independent of concerns about climate change. However, EM is potentially effective for climate change mitigation and adaptation. We provide the principle guidelines based on EM to adaptively tackle the issues. Climate change is one of the significant concerns in land and resource management, creating an urgent need to build social-ecological capacity to address widespread and uncertain environmental changes. Given the diversity and complexity of ecological responses to climate change ” ecosystem management” approaches are needed to provide solutions for meeting both ecological and human needs, while reducing anthropogenic warming and climate-related impacts on society. For instance, ecosystem management can contribute to a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions through improved land-use and reduced deforestation at a regional scale. Further, conserving and restoring naturally-functioning ecosystems, which is often one of the goals of ecosystem management can significantly contribute to buffering ecological responses to climate extremes such as droughts and wildfires. Moreover, ecosystem management helps build capacity for learning and adaptation at multiple scales. As a result, societies will be better prepared to respond to surprises and uncertainties associated with climate change. In this regard, it is imperative to reframe climate change issues based on the ecosystem approach. Although climate change and ecosystem management plans have largely developed independently, it is now essential for all stakeholders to work together to achieve multiple goals. The ecosystem-based approaches can enable flexible and effective responses to the uncertainties associated with climate change. Reframing ecosystem management helps to face an urgent need for reconsideration and improvement of social-ecological resilience in order to mitigate and adapt to the changing climate. [Excerpt: Conclusion] Novel approaches underpinned by sociology, ecology and climate science are necessary to perform assessments that reflect the many roles that ecosystem management can play in mitigating and adapting to climate change. No single method and focal scale for addressing the effects or causes of climate change exists. Indeed, there are often trade-offs such as those between the goals of building resilience (learning from failure) and reducing vulnerability (minimizing failure) (Adger et al., 2008), suggesting some policies aimed at minimizing exposure to any hazards at the regional scale can potentially conflict with the proactive implementation of adaptive management at the local scale. In this article, we have discussed reframing ecosystem management as an effective way to address the uncertainties of climate change. It is therefore necessary to adopt flexible and robust management strategies that consider various scenarios, rather than adopting a single measure. Similar to climate change, which is intricately connected to other issues beyond physical climatic change, ecological issues are deeply associated with global issues. A number of environmental policies and plans have been historically developed with little consideration of climate instability. Among them, our attempt that integrates different management considerations into the common context lends a strong support for the objectives and approaches of ecosystem management as an effective tool to face climate change uncertainties. [\n] It is important for all stakeholders to work together to identity multiple goals. Ecologists need to address ecosystem processes and functions in the context of possible future conditions; resource managers and policymakers need to build capacity for learning and adaptation; and all stakeholders need to share a recognition that social-ecological systems are interacting not only with each other (social-ecological interdependence) but also with the climate system. In keeping with the view of Moss et al. (2010) that the future climate largely depends on the behaviour of global society, the fates of ecosystems will strongly depend on how human society faces climate change. In particular, there are still important gaps in the combined study of climate and ecosystem science that need to be addressed. At the time of UNFCCC meetings in Copenhagen in 2009, UNEP (2009a) stated that climate information, when coupled with other information such as ecology and socio-economics, should be centralized within policy formulation and decision making process for practical ecosystem management at local and regional scales with reasonable timescales of the next several decades. Bringing different fields together is essential to tackle future complexity. The constructive improvements that come from an ecosystem management strategy, as summarized in Table 2, has the potential to effectively fill the gaps among disciplines and stakeholders.
@article{moriReframingEcosystemManagement2013,
  title = {Reframing Ecosystem Management in the Era of Climate Change: Issues and Knowledge from Forests},
  author = {Mori, Akira S. and Spies, Thomas A. and Sudmeier-Rieux, Karen and Andrade, Angela},
  date = {2013-09},
  journaltitle = {Biological Conservation},
  volume = {165},
  pages = {115--127},
  issn = {0006-3207},
  doi = {10.1016/j.biocon.2013.05.020},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.05.020},
  abstract = {We discuss ” ecosystem management (EM)” to face contemporary climate change issues. EM focuses on sustaining ecosystems to meet both ecological and human needs. EM plans have been largely developed independent of concerns about climate change. However, EM is potentially effective for climate change mitigation and adaptation. We provide the principle guidelines based on EM to adaptively tackle the issues. Climate change is one of the significant concerns in land and resource management, creating an urgent need to build social-ecological capacity to address widespread and uncertain environmental changes. Given the diversity and complexity of ecological responses to climate change ” ecosystem management” approaches are needed to provide solutions for meeting both ecological and human needs, while reducing anthropogenic warming and climate-related impacts on society. For instance, ecosystem management can contribute to a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions through improved land-use and reduced deforestation at a regional scale. Further, conserving and restoring naturally-functioning ecosystems, which is often one of the goals of ecosystem management can significantly contribute to buffering ecological responses to climate extremes such as droughts and wildfires. Moreover, ecosystem management helps build capacity for learning and adaptation at multiple scales. As a result, societies will be better prepared to respond to surprises and uncertainties associated with climate change. In this regard, it is imperative to reframe climate change issues based on the ecosystem approach. Although climate change and ecosystem management plans have largely developed independently, it is now essential for all stakeholders to work together to achieve multiple goals. The ecosystem-based approaches can enable flexible and effective responses to the uncertainties associated with climate change. Reframing ecosystem management helps to face an urgent need for reconsideration and improvement of social-ecological resilience in order to mitigate and adapt to the changing climate.

[Excerpt: Conclusion]

Novel approaches underpinned by sociology, ecology and climate science are necessary to perform assessments that reflect the many roles that ecosystem management can play in mitigating and adapting to climate change. No single method and focal scale for addressing the effects or causes of climate change exists. Indeed, there are often trade-offs such as those between the goals of building resilience (learning from failure) and reducing vulnerability (minimizing failure) (Adger et al., 2008), suggesting some policies aimed at minimizing exposure to any hazards at the regional scale can potentially conflict with the proactive implementation of adaptive management at the local scale. In this article, we have discussed reframing ecosystem management as an effective way to address the uncertainties of climate change. It is therefore necessary to adopt flexible and robust management strategies that consider various scenarios, rather than adopting a single measure. Similar to climate change, which is intricately connected to other issues beyond physical climatic change, ecological issues are deeply associated with global issues. A number of environmental policies and plans have been historically developed with little consideration of climate instability. Among them, our attempt that integrates different management considerations into the common context lends a strong support for the objectives and approaches of ecosystem management as an effective tool to face climate change uncertainties.

[\textbackslash n] It is important for all stakeholders to work together to identity multiple goals. Ecologists need to address ecosystem processes and functions in the context of possible future conditions; resource managers and policymakers need to build capacity for learning and adaptation; and all stakeholders need to share a recognition that social-ecological systems are interacting not only with each other (social-ecological interdependence) but also with the climate system. In keeping with the view of Moss et al. (2010) that the future climate largely depends on the behaviour of global society, the fates of ecosystems will strongly depend on how human society faces climate change. In particular, there are still important gaps in the combined study of climate and ecosystem science that need to be addressed. At the time of UNFCCC meetings in Copenhagen in 2009, UNEP (2009a) stated that climate information, when coupled with other information such as ecology and socio-economics, should be centralized within policy formulation and decision making process for practical ecosystem management at local and regional scales with reasonable timescales of the next several decades. Bringing different fields together is essential to tackle future complexity. The constructive improvements that come from an ecosystem management strategy, as summarized in Table 2, has the potential to effectively fill the gaps among disciplines and stakeholders.},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-13912160,~to-add-doi-URL,adaptation,climate-change,climate-extremes,droughts,ecology,ecosystem,forest-resources,incomplete-knowledge,knowledge-integration,mitigation,uncertainty,wildfires}
}

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