often integrate the opportunities and conflicts of nature into their
characters’ development. For example,Willa Cather’s descriptions of prairie
life convey both the bleakness and beauty of the landscape and the hope
that comes with each spring. Other people associate religious values with
particular places or resources. A site may have served as an ancestral
hunting ground or may house religious artifacts. Chief Seattle, leader of the
Suquamish Indians, reportedly wrote to the American Government in the
1800s, “The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just
water, but the blood of our ancestors.” Some environmental resources have
scientific values, such as those watersheds that serve as long-term research
sites and support a unique set of data on changes in ecological attributes.
Other resources provide habitats for species, and as these species become
rare, these habitats are critical to maintaining biodiversity.
Taking into account all of these values in forming environmental
management decisions is difficult. Until recently, the economic value of a
resource was typically given the most weight by planners. However, today
environmental managers realize that all values and ecosystem services must
be considered so future generations will have access to natural resources
(Costanza et al. 1997).
Sustainability is often touted as a goal for environmental management.
Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World
Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Ecological sustainability is the capability of an ecological system or process to continue over
time without loss or decline. For instance, sustainable forestry practices
maintain forest structure, diversity, and production without long-term
decline or loss over a region. Sustainable water use provides for the water
needs of a human community without reducing water quality or quantity
to levels that might compromise ecological processes. Resource use can be
sustained locally over the long term with the help of external subsidies from
other areas, but this practice can result in degradation of the larger system.
Thus, sustainability needs to be viewed from a broad perspective in both
time and space. Sustainability is widely regarded as economically and
ecologically desirable; in the ultimate sense, it is the only viable long-term
pattern of human interaction with the environment.
Having “sustainment of a system” as the goal of environmental management is logical and even noble. A major challenge is the quantitative or
qualitative characterization of this goal or even of the intermediate steps
toward it. In a number of international arenas, this topic has been broached
with no definable goal(s) that can be applied universally, although advances
have been made [e.g., Costanza et al. (1997); Stork et al. (1997); Cairns et
al. (1993); Angermeier and Karr (1994); Lindenmayer et al. (2000)]. In most
instances, human society cannot go back to past levels of interactions with
the environment because it cannot be attained (e.g., a nonrenewable natural
resource may no longer be available). In other situations, even when
4
Virginia H. Dale
characters’ development. For example,Willa Cather’s descriptions of prairie
life convey both the bleakness and beauty of the landscape and the hope
that comes with each spring. Other people associate religious values with
particular places or resources. A site may have served as an ancestral
hunting ground or may house religious artifacts. Chief Seattle, leader of the
Suquamish Indians, reportedly wrote to the American Government in the
1800s, “The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just
water, but the blood of our ancestors.” Some environmental resources have
scientific values, such as those watersheds that serve as long-term research
sites and support a unique set of data on changes in ecological attributes.
Other resources provide habitats for species, and as these species become
rare, these habitats are critical to maintaining biodiversity.
Taking into account all of these values in forming environmental
management decisions is difficult. Until recently, the economic value of a
resource was typically given the most weight by planners. However, today
environmental managers realize that all values and ecosystem services must
be considered so future generations will have access to natural resources
(Costanza et al. 1997).
Sustainability is often touted as a goal for environmental management.
Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World
Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Ecological sustainability is the capability of an ecological system or process to continue over
time without loss or decline. For instance, sustainable forestry practices
maintain forest structure, diversity, and production without long-term
decline or loss over a region. Sustainable water use provides for the water
needs of a human community without reducing water quality or quantity
to levels that might compromise ecological processes. Resource use can be
sustained locally over the long term with the help of external subsidies from
other areas, but this practice can result in degradation of the larger system.
Thus, sustainability needs to be viewed from a broad perspective in both
time and space. Sustainability is widely regarded as economically and
ecologically desirable; in the ultimate sense, it is the only viable long-term
pattern of human interaction with the environment.
Having “sustainment of a system” as the goal of environmental management is logical and even noble. A major challenge is the quantitative or
qualitative characterization of this goal or even of the intermediate steps
toward it. In a number of international arenas, this topic has been broached
with no definable goal(s) that can be applied universally, although advances
have been made [e.g., Costanza et al. (1997); Stork et al. (1997); Cairns et
al. (1993); Angermeier and Karr (1994); Lindenmayer et al. (2000)]. In most
instances, human society cannot go back to past levels of interactions with
the environment because it cannot be attained (e.g., a nonrenewable natural
resource may no longer be available). In other situations, even when
4
Virginia H. Dale