Biospheric foundations of the ecosystem approach to environmental management

✍ Scribed by Vallentyne, J. R.

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 448 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0925-1014
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00043329

✦ Synopsis

The ecosystem approach to environmental management inter-relates social, economic and environmental factors. Its incorporation into the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978 changed the focus of the Agreement from water in a political context to politics in an ecosystem context. Because ecosystems are open and dependent on Biospheric processes for their continued operation, the Biosphere (global ecosystem) emerges as a globally integrating factor in ecosystem management. Influences leading to development of the ecosystem approach in the Great Lakes Basin included: a politically shared resource in jeopardy, pollution, a common drinking water source, common enemies, advances in ecosystem theory, citizen groups, international political institutions, common economic and cultural ties, and a sense of crisis. A rationale is presented for viewing nations as politically defined ecosystems.

"Until the crisis validates itself by catastrophe, the whole concern is an abstraction, in the critical sense of not entering actively into our consciousness, its dreams, fears, fantasies.