Collaborative Ecosystem Governance: Scale, Complexity, and Dynamism
By Bradley C. Karkkainen
INTRODUCTION
Discussion at academic conferences on this topic tends to focus on the relative merits of some familiar sorts of land tenure and regulatory arrangements: public ownership, private stewardship, government-regulated private ownership, and government-created systems of market incentives that aim to influence rather than compel changes in the behavior of private landowners. Although the presenters may offer new and interesting wrinkles, the general terrain is pretty familiar--it is where the mainstream academic debate has been centered for some time now.
I shall argue that we are now witnessing the emergence of a distinctive new alternative: a new model of collaborative ecosystem governance. This model represents a major departure from, and challenge to, the conventional legal and institutional arrangements that continue to receive most of the academic attention. The model can be discerned in many areas, including:
<<square filled in>> Habitat Conservation Plans(“HCPs”) under the Endangered Species Act, particularly the complex multi-party, multi-species, landscape-scale HCPs and similar agreements negotiated under California's Natural Community Conservation Planning (“NCCP”) process;
<<square filled in>> new directions in public lands management, arising out of efforts to define sustainable futures for critical and critically challenged ecosystems, such as Florida's Everglades where conventional “inside the fence posts” management is now recognized as inadequate;
<<square filled in>> the “watershed approach” to protection of water quality and aquatic ecosystems, as exemplified by the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Great Lakes Program, which the EPA now seeks to replicate on a nationwide basis through such varied mechanisms as the Clean Water Action Plan, the new TMDL rules, and the National Estuary Program;
<<square filled in>> in the Western United States in particular, where water is a scarce and precious commodity, a new and multi-faceted approach to water resources management that simultaneously seeks to conserve, allocate, and protect the quality of water resources, taking into account the needs of a variety of human and non-human users;
<<square filled in>> at the international level, collaborative regional efforts to protect regional seas, estuaries, and other critical marine ecosystems, such as the Baltic, the North Sea, the Southern Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean.
This is only a partial list. I could recite many additional examples. Now, you may fairly question whether these varied programs, each designed to address a distinctive set of problems and arising in a unique legal and institutional context, have much to do with one another. It's not obvious on its face that an HCP--essentially, a conditional waiver from a narrowly prohibitory regulatory provision of the Endangered Species Act--is by any stretch akin to the Great Lakes Program, a large-scale “voluntary” intergovernmental arrangement through which the Great Lakes states, the Province of Ontario, and the United States and Canadian federal governments attempt to manage water quality problems (such as toxic pollution) and protect aquatic species in the world's largest system of freshwater lakes. The nature of the environmental threat, the scale of the effort, the identities and characteristics of the parties, the varied legal and institutional settings, the nature and form of the commitments undertaken--all differ. Upon closer examination, however, the family resemblance is a strong one. Despite their obvious differences, these and the other programs I've mentioned share a set of distinctive characteristics that place them together as a group, and set them apart from the conventional legal and institutional arrangements out of which they grow.
What are the defining characteristics of this family of “collaborative ecosystem governance” arrangements? The new model explicitly recognizes the need for integrated, holistic management of ecosystems as systems, and grapples with questions of scale and complexity in ecosystem management, emphasizing locally or regionally tailored solutions within broader structures of coordination and public accountability. It acknowledges the need for continuous experimentation and dynamic adjustment in response to new learning. These challenges are typically addressed through hybrid public-private governance structures, emphasizing broad information-sharing, systematic performance monitoring, and collaborative problem-solving among parties representing diverse interests at multiple, nested spatial scales, from the immediately local (e.g., the landowner) to the national, international, or even global. This paper explores some of the unique strengths and potential weaknesses exhibited by the new model. I conclude that although the emerging model of ecosystem governance must overcome many daunting obstacles if it is to succeed, it nonetheless holds some distinct advantages over its conventional rivals. Consequently, we are only likely to see more of it in the future. Finally, I lay out the broad outlines of a research agenda that would help to advance our conceptual and practical understanding of the emerging approach.
Discussion at academic conferences on this topic tends to focus on the relative merits of some familiar sorts of land tenure and regulatory arrangements: public ownership, private stewardship, government-regulated private ownership, and government-created systems of market incentives that aim to influence rather than compel changes in the behavior of private landowners. Although the presenters may offer new and interesting wrinkles, the general terrain is pretty familiar--it is where the mainstream academic debate has been centered for some time now.
I shall argue that we are now witnessing the emergence of a distinctive new alternative: a new model of collaborative ecosystem governance. This model represents a major departure from, and challenge to, the conventional legal and institutional arrangements that continue to receive most of the academic attention. The model can be discerned in many areas, including:
<<square filled in>> Habitat Conservation Plans(“HCPs”) under the Endangered Species Act, particularly the complex multi-party, multi-species, landscape-scale HCPs and similar agreements negotiated under California's Natural Community Conservation Planning (“NCCP”) process;
<<square filled in>> new directions in public lands management, arising out of efforts to define sustainable futures for critical and critically challenged ecosystems, such as Florida's Everglades where conventional “inside the fence posts” management is now recognized as inadequate;
<<square filled in>> the “watershed approach” to protection of water quality and aquatic ecosystems, as exemplified by the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Great Lakes Program, which the EPA now seeks to replicate on a nationwide basis through such varied mechanisms as the Clean Water Action Plan, the new TMDL rules, and the National Estuary Program;
<<square filled in>> in the Western United States in particular, where water is a scarce and precious commodity, a new and multi-faceted approach to water resources management that simultaneously seeks to conserve, allocate, and protect the quality of water resources, taking into account the needs of a variety of human and non-human users;
<<square filled in>> at the international level, collaborative regional efforts to protect regional seas, estuaries, and other critical marine ecosystems, such as the Baltic, the North Sea, the Southern Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean.
This is only a partial list. I could recite many additional examples. Now, you may fairly question whether these varied programs, each designed to address a distinctive set of problems and arising in a unique legal and institutional context, have much to do with one another. It's not obvious on its face that an HCP--essentially, a conditional waiver from a narrowly prohibitory regulatory provision of the Endangered Species Act--is by any stretch akin to the Great Lakes Program, a large-scale “voluntary” intergovernmental arrangement through which the Great Lakes states, the Province of Ontario, and the United States and Canadian federal governments attempt to manage water quality problems (such as toxic pollution) and protect aquatic species in the world's largest system of freshwater lakes. The nature of the environmental threat, the scale of the effort, the identities and characteristics of the parties, the varied legal and institutional settings, the nature and form of the commitments undertaken--all differ. Upon closer examination, however, the family resemblance is a strong one. Despite their obvious differences, these and the other programs I've mentioned share a set of distinctive characteristics that place them together as a group, and set them apart from the conventional legal and institutional arrangements out of which they grow.
What are the defining characteristics of this family of “collaborative ecosystem governance” arrangements? The new model explicitly recognizes the need for integrated, holistic management of ecosystems as systems, and grapples with questions of scale and complexity in ecosystem management, emphasizing locally or regionally tailored solutions within broader structures of coordination and public accountability. It acknowledges the need for continuous experimentation and dynamic adjustment in response to new learning. These challenges are typically addressed through hybrid public-private governance structures, emphasizing broad information-sharing, systematic performance monitoring, and collaborative problem-solving among parties representing diverse interests at multiple, nested spatial scales, from the immediately local (e.g., the landowner) to the national, international, or even global. This paper explores some of the unique strengths and potential weaknesses exhibited by the new model. I conclude that although the emerging model of ecosystem governance must overcome many daunting obstacles if it is to succeed, it nonetheless holds some distinct advantages over its conventional rivals. Consequently, we are only likely to see more of it in the future. Finally, I lay out the broad outlines of a research agenda that would help to advance our conceptual and practical understanding of the emerging approach.