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The ‘Ecosystem’ Approach to Managing Human Uses and Abuses of Natural Resources in the Great Lakes Basin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

John R. Vallentyne  and
Alfred M. Beeton
John R. Vallentyne
Affiliation:
Chairman, Canadian Section, Great Lakes Science Advisory Board, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, P.O. Box 5050, Burlington, Ontario L7R 4A6, Canada
Alfred M. Beeton
Affiliation:
Chairman, United States Section, Great Lakes Science Advisory Board, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory*, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2205 Commonwealth Boulevard, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, U.S.A.
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Extract

An approach to planning, research, and management, that relates people to ecosystems of which they are part, is described and related to the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements of 1972, 1978, and 1987. Factors favouring the development of an ‘ecosystem approach’ in the Great Lakes Basin include: a shared, highly valued resource; the long residence-times of ‘conservative’ pollutants in the Lakes; use of the Lakes for drinking-water supplies by c. 23 million people; threats to the integrity of the Lakes (pollution, water diversion); advances in ecosystem theory; the rise of voluntary membership associations with interests in the resource; institutional arrangements for managing nationally shared resources; and common economic ties and cultural heritages.

The principal obstacle to implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach in the Great Lakes Basin is the lack of policies for comparable approaches in the political jurisdictions surrounding the Great Lakes. The principal obstacle to global implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach is the lack of international institutional arrangements for joint advice and operational capabilities in respect of the management of nationally shared resources. Another impediment is the widespread egocentricity of governments, corporations, individuals, and the general public.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 58 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1988

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