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Perceptions and Application of the Ecosystem Services Approach among Pacific Northwest National Forest Managers
| Content Provider | MDPI |
|---|---|
| Author | Crook, Stephen Levine, Arielle Lopez-Carr, David |
| Copyright Year | 2021 |
| Description | The ecosystem services concept has emerged as a guiding principle in natural resource management over the past two decades, and an ecosystem services approach to management is currently mandated as a core element of United States National Forest planning. However, the concept of ecosystem services has been interpreted and operationalized in a variety of ways, leaving a pronounced knowledge gap regarding how it is understood and implemented in different contexts. To better understand the conceptualization and implementation of the concept within United States National Forests, semi-structured interviews with planners and managers of the Pacific Northwest Region were conducted at the region, forest, and ranger district levels, addressing the following topics: (1) how has the ecosystem services concept been perceived by managers and planners?; (2) what are the perceived key ecosystem services offered by National Forest lands?; (3) how has the concept been applied at multiple spatial scales?; and (4) what are perceived challenges or opportunities related to applying the concept in the National Forest context? Results indicate that although participants had a high level of understanding of the ecosystem services concept, there was not a clear, widely adopted approach to considering ecosystem services in management. Through qualitative analysis, three general perspectives arose: one employed the concept to fulfill regulatory requirements at the National Forest scale, a second engaged with ecosystem services to improve participatory planning at the project scale, and a third, business as usual perspective, considered ecosystem services as new language for describing longstanding National Forest priorities. These results draw attention to the challenges of implementing an ecosystem services-based approach in the United States National Forest context and the continued need for the development of management-relevant methods for describing and quantifying ecosystem services. |
| Starting Page | 1259 |
| e-ISSN | 20711050 |
| DOI | 10.3390/su13031259 |
| Journal | Sustainability |
| Issue Number | 3 |
| Volume Number | 13 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Publisher Date | 2021-01-26 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Sustainability Forestry Remote Sensing Ecosystem Services-based Management U.s. National Forest Management Perceptions of Ecosystem Services Forest Planning |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
