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Applying the Ecosystem Services Concept to Public Land Management
Citation:
Kline, J., M. Mazzotta, T. Spies, AND M. Harmon. Applying the Ecosystem Services Concept to Public Land Management. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA), NEWARK, DE, 42(1):139-158, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
Public land management agencies increasingly are adopting the language and concept of ecosystem services as a way to describe the benefits of landscapes and their management. Despite this burgeoning interest, and years of related work by economists and others since at least the 1960s, many challenges and opportunities remain for making ecosystem services concepts operational for landscape management. In this paper we consider these challenges and opportunities as they apply to the management of public lands.
Description:
We examine the challenges opportunities involved in applying ecosystem services to public lands management, with an emphasis on the work of the USDA Forest Service. We review the history of economics approaches to landscape management, outline a conceptual framework defining the informational needs of public lands managers, and consider the feasibility of its application relative to the types of ecological information that typically is available to managers. We suggest ways that economists might make their work more relevant to managers, by broadening their focus to include qualitative approaches, and by more directly and effectively collaborating with managers and natural scientists.
