Ecosystem Concept: Historical and Present Review of Definitions and Development of Ecosystem Ecology, Ecosystem Management, and Its Legal Framework

Abstract

Managers and researchers are currently defining and setting objectives for ecosystem management; however, relatively few workers (NRC 1990) have attempted to determine what ecological information is needed to implement this new management strategy. While many workers agree that consideration of the scale of both natural processes and management practices is critically important under the ecosystem paradigm (Franklin and Forman 1987, Clark et al. 1991, Gordon 1993), and while many others have recently developed and refined theories about scale and natural systems (e.g., Allen and Starr 1982, O’Neill et al. 1986, Allen and Hoekstra 1992, 1994), few have directly applied these theories to guide management.