LAND MANAGEMENT DUE CHANGE IN U.S.

Watch out for this one. Ecosystem management is coming. What's ecosystem management? Good question. It may turn out to be the pivotal question in federal land issues under the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton. B.J. Thornberry, Department of Interior deputy assistant secretary, land and minerals management, sketched the idea at the Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association's annual meeting last month in Denver.

Oct. 4, 1993

3 min read

Watch out for this one. Ecosystem management is coming.

What's ecosystem management? Good question. It may turn out to be the pivotal question in federal land issues under the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton.

B.J. Thornberry, Department of Interior deputy assistant secretary, land and minerals management, sketched the idea at the Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association's annual meeting last month in Denver.

"While there is no single, agreed-upon definition of ecosystem management," she said., "it's an approach that focuses on the long-term needs of an entire ecosystem rather than the short-term needs of the parts of an ecosystem." So what's an ecosystem? Well, it's probably going to turn out to be whatever the Department of Interior says it is.

DEPARTURE FROM MULTIPLE USE

This represents a departure from the multiple use management embedded in laws governing federal land. Under multiple use, federal agencies are supposed to embrace a spectrum of land values realized from activities such as grazing, timber, oil and gas exploration and production, and recreation. Lately, of course, environmental values have asserted themselves in the form of aggressive nonactivity.

"Multiple use management has focused on accommodating separate uses of the land without recognizing the effects that these uses have on each other Thornberry told Rmoga. "Ecosystem management, on the other hand, will focus on how grazing and other land uses relate to each other and how these uses affect the ecosystem in which they occur." So back to the nagging question: What's an ecosystem? You have to know what an ecosystem is if you're going to regulate on the basis of how land uses relate to one of them. You also have to know what one is if you are regulated this way. Thornberry assured Rmoga that Interior will use the best scientific information available in sorting these things out.

"By using ecosystem management, the department will be paying more attention to the environmental consequences of its land management actions and decisions," she said. "But let me emphasize that the Clinton administration fully recognizes that human beings are not only part of but the very center of ecosystems. And the consideration of current and future human needs-be they social, economic, cultural, or historical--is a vital aspect of ecosystem management."

Thornberry assured Rmoga that ecosystem management is consistent with existing laws. Others may wonder where interior gets its authority to impose a new land management philosophy that nobody can define. The future looks full of lawsuits.

Onshore, existing legal confusions are sufficient to have stymied oil and gas activity in most federal areas. Ecosystem management will amount to another way to delay leasing, permitting, and drilling.

BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Offshore, there's no telling what ecosystem management might do. It probably depends on whether Interior decides the offshore ecosystem is something distinct from the onshore ecosystem and, say, the atmospheric ecosystem-unless, of course, it's all part of one big ecosystem, in which case Interior might have to consider human needs for work and, therefore, fuel. Maybe someday it will reinvent multiple use.

So what's the purpose? Thornberry said ecosystem management will "promote biological diversity and sustain development." Anyone confused about biological diversity will be set right when Interior completes another high-priority project of questionable legal standing, creation of the U.S. Biological Survey. To repeat, watch out.