The Pinchot Institute for Conservation is a non-profit

natural resource policy, research, and education

organization dedicated to leadership in conservation

thought, policy, and action. The Pinchot Institute was

dedicated in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy at

Grey Towers National Historic Landmark in Milford,

Pennsylvania, historic home of conservation leader

Gifford Pinchot, to facilitate communication and closer

cooperation among resource managers, scientists,

policy-makers, and the American public. The Institute

continues Pinchot’s legacy of conservation leadership

as a center for policy development in support of

sustainable forest management. Through Grey Towers

Press, the Institute publishes policy reports, discussion

papers, books, and the Pinchot Lecture series.

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1616 P Street, NW, Suite 100 • Washington, DC 20036

by Hanna Cortner

PINCHOTLECTURESERIES

A more

perfect union:

Democratic and

ecological

sustainability

A MORE

PERFECT UNION:

DEMOCRATIC AND

ECOLOGICAL

SUSTAINABILITY

By Dr. Hanna J. Cortner

Pinchot Institute for ConservationDistinguished Lecture

Presented on February 19, 2000at

The Resources and Conservation CenterWashington, D.C.

PINCHOTLECTURESERIES

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Published by Grey Towers PressP.O. Box 188Milford, PA 18337

Designed by Judith Barrett GraphicsPrinted by Charter PrintingPrinted on recycled paperManufactured in the United States of America© Copyright 2000, The Pinchot Institute for Conservation

Preface ..........................................................................................v

Foreword ..................................................................................vii

Pinchot Lecture ............................................................................1

About the Author ....................................................................14

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Preface

In 1986, Grey Towers, in partnership with the Pinchot Institutefor Conservation, inaugurated the Pinchot Distinguished LectureSeries in order to introduce new thinking to the public about thehistory and complexity of conservation. Since then, PinchotDistinguished Lectures have covered such topics as the need fora vision in forestry, historical aspects of conservation, the politicsof regionalism, and the history and future of the National ForestSystem. Grey Towers, the former home of Gifford Pinchot andnow a National Historic Landmark administered by the US ForestService, was the site not only of early twentieth-century discus-sions on conservation, but also of several early PinchotDistinguished Lectures. In recent years, they have been presentedin Washington, DC, home to the Pinchot Institute.

It is becoming increasingly clear that nothing we do inconservation is without historical precedence. Therefore, in orderto understand the root of today’s environmental problems, it isessential that conservationists understand the challenges thatleaders such as Gifford Pinchot, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, andBob Marshall faced in squaring off against the adversarial situa-tions of their day. History provides the insight necessary toaddress today’s conservation concerns, which are no less urgentand exciting. There is much we can learn by taking a multi-dimensional, historical view of these pressing issues.

The Pinchot Institute for Conservation and Grey Towers arecritically examining some of these present-day issues and are co-sponsors of the Pinchot Distinguished Lecture Series. It is with asense of pride that we present the diverse intellectual viewpointsthat comprise the Lecture Series. We hope that the series inspiresyou to think deeply about the themes discussed in the lecturesand provides further insight into the challenges that continue toface the conservation community.

Ed Brannon, DirectorGrey Towers National Historic LandmarkMilford, PA

V. Alaric Sample, PresidentPinchot Institute for ConservationWashington, DC

Grey Towers National Historic Landmark, Milford, Pennsylvania

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Foreword

Professor Hanna J. Cortner begins the preface to her newbook, The Politics of Ecosystem Management (with Margaret AnnMoote) this way:

As we enter a new century and a new millennium, it isappropriate to consider how our actions individually andcollectively will be evaluated by our ancestors in another100 years. Reflecting back, will they see us as leaders whostrived to ensure that they would have a better world? Willthey say we chose wisely or selfishly? If it is to be the for-mer, we believe that society and the professional resourcecommunity must own up to the negative as well as the pos-itive consequences of land and water management. Wemust recognize that, despite great strides in some countriesand in some resource areas, on the whole our currentpolicy path and traditional approaches to resource man-agement are not ecologically sustainable.

For more than two decades, Hanna has taught and writtenabout natural resource policy as a professor at the University ofArizona’s School of Renewable Natural Resources and as directorof the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center.She has written extensively on many of the foremost issues inpublic lands policy that have so profoundly influenced the historyof the western United States. In particular, she has brought hersignificant intellect and scholarship to bear on a host of issuesrelating to land and resource management planning on thenational forests under the terms of the Forest and RangelandsRenewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) and the National ForestManagement Act (NFMA).

Over the course of her career, Hanna has regarded it her dutyas a scholar of public policy to not only “describe and empiricallyexplain” the relationship between science and public values, butalso “to promote the ideals of democratic governance and citi-zenship.” According to Hanna, “Natural resource and environ-mental management have never been based solely in science, oreven in the best available science. It is impossible to separate val-ues from science.”

In her book, Hanna points out that “It is the twentieth-centurypolitics that developed from the Progressive Era reforms that havemade the largest imprint on the environment.” The sweeping

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political reforms of the time were aimed at the ills of concentratedwealth and political power, monopolies, and the wasteful deple-tion of the nation’s natural resources. With the considerableenergy and foresight of Gifford Pinchot and his contemporaries,the Conservation Movement brought about “scientific manage-ment” of natural resources and the establishment of vanguardinstitutions such as the U.S. Forest Service, the Yale School ofForestry, and the Society of American Foresters that endure to thisday. What took place during the Progressive Era was truly a trans-formation of American society—and ultimately the Americanlandscape—based on the evolving values of the time.

As Hanna observes, social values did not remain static, butcontinued to evolve. Consequently, the framework for naturalresource management that arose from the Progressive Era con-servation movement no longer adequately reflects either ourscientific understanding of human effects on forest ecosystems, orour current social values regarding the protection and sustainablemanagement of those resources.

It is not sufficient for achieving either ecological sustainabilityor democratic sustainability. A politics of expertise, a politics ofmaximum sustained yield, and a politics of interest have createdinaccessible bureaucracies staffed by aloof civil servants, resourcedepletion, and interest group polarization.

As the Pinchot Distinguished Lecturer for 1999, ProfessorCortner describes the characteristics of a different approach toresource management and some of the changes—in science, inpolicy, in institutions, and in human relationships—that will haveto come about in order to successfully address the challenges ofecological, economic, and social sustainability in America’ssecond century of conservation.

V. Alaric SamplePresidentPinchot Institute for Conversation

1

Introduction

To form a more perfect union, the framers of the Constitutioncreated a representative democracy they called a republic.

When asked, “What have you given us?” Benjamin Franklin is saidto have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping alive themore perfect political union established in 1789 has indeed beenchallenging. Its very survival has been threatened by internal warand external enemies. Other, but no less formidable, challengeshave been peaceful, responding to major economic realignments orchanging social values.

The first question the new Constitution faced was whether itwas sufficient to protect personal liberties. It quickly becameapparent that a bill of rights was needed to secure ratification.Soon thereafter, the two-party system emerged as the vehicle forrecruiting and electing officials. When in 1803, in Marbury v.Madison, John Marshall and the Supreme Court held the JudiciaryAct of 1789 unconstitutional, the courts became more than theoriginally intended passive players in public affairs; they secureda major role in ensuring the flexibility and durability of theConstitution and in shaping its scope and applications. SupremeCourt decisions, for example, have made many of the protectionsin the Bill of Rights that are afforded citizens against actions bythe federal government also applicable to actions by state gov-ernments. Examples include first amendment freedoms, the rightto a trial by jury, and the right to counsel. The republic has alsogradually incorporated more participatory democratic modes thanthe framers originally wanted. The Constitution has beenamended to provide for the direct election of senators and toextend voting privileges to blacks, women, and all citizens overthe age of eighteen. Similarly, many state constitutions have madeprovisions for direct voter decision through initiative, referendum,and recall processes. The framework established to create a moreperfect union certainly appears remarkably resilient and adaptive.

Why, then, is this a time when the health, stability, andintegrity of current political processes are increasingly of concern?Scholars and political pundits discuss the “malaise” of theAmerican political system, “degenerative” democracy, the “death”of discourse, the “collapse” of confidence, and the “erosion” ofauthority, language that evokes many of the same images people

2

use when discussing deteriorating ecosystem health. The crisis inAmerican government that may be upon us is not one precipi-tated by war, however, but by quieter, less certain, more numer-ous, and perhaps more insidious causes. One significant sign isthat people are increasingly separating themselves from the tradi-tional institutions of government. If one hallmark of mass partici-pation in a democracy is the election process, we should take nocomfort in voting statistics. American voting turnout, if measuredby the percentage of voting age population, is one of the lowestof democratic countries. It is lower now than in the latter half ofthe nineteenth century. Moreover, polls track a significant andcontinuing decline in citizen trust in government. Where pollsonce showed that 75 percent of Americans trusted their govern-ment, today only 25 percent do so. Like the term “politics”, theterm “government” is increasingly used in a pejorative sense.These trends are certainly puzzling and troubling for the moreperfect union.

My central premise is that these issues of democratic healthare intimately connected to ecological sustainability. Drawingupon the work that Margaret (Ann) Moote and I recently com-pleted on The Politics of Ecosystem Management (Island Press,1999), I will demonstrate that ecosystem management, whichaims to reform the current constellation of resource policies andpractices to achieve the goal of long-term ecological sustainabil-ity, is intertwined in issues of political change. To implement suc-cessfully the principles or main themes of ecosystem managementwill require significant institutional innovations in resource man-agement and the politics of democratic choice. Many principles ofecosystem management will not be realized unless significantchange also occurs in the broader political arena. Ecosystem man-agement, therefore, is not just about science and technical prob-lems. It is about politics.

This is not a cause-effect assertion that democratic health inand of itself is a prescription for sound ecosystem management.Without attention to the issues of democratic governance thatnow confront us, ecosystem management cannot reach its fullpotential. Sustaining a healthy democracy will also depend uponsustaining a diverse array of ecosystem structures and functions,just as vital democracies have traditionally been correlated witheconomic prosperity and security.

To pursue in more detail the premise that implementing theprinciples of ecosystem management requires significant political

3

change, I will first restate the argument Ann and I make in ourbook. This argument contends that the need to reform resourcemanagement arises in large part because there are quite dysfunc-tional patterns of politics currently characterizing a significant por-tion of natural resource management. I will then review the prin-ciples of ecosystem management, illustrate why implementingthese ideals necessitates fundamental institutional change, andsummarize some of the changes we indicate will need to be con-templated. Finally, I will speculate further on possible scenariosfor the future of ecosystem management and the need to connect,not separate, discussions about democratic and ecologicalsustainability.

4 5

The Politics of Maximum SustainedYield, Expertise, and Interest

F irst, what is there about our current patterns of politics thatgives rise to ecosystem management? Politics is the process by

which our values are collectively and authoritatively stamped uponthe environment, and patterns of land settlement and resource usereflect political history. The movement toward ecosystem manage-ment is a reaction to patterns of politics that have played out onthe land, patterns that have had adverse consequences for democ-racy as well as for landscapes.

The beginnings of the multiple-use/sustained yield philoso-phy and the conservation movement in the United States are typ-ically traced to political reforms initiated during the ProgressiveEra at the turn of the twentieth century. Progressive Era reformsarose from concerns about unbridled accumulation of wealth in afew hands, the rise of monopolies, concentration of politicalpower in wealthy magnates and industrialists, and rampantexploitation of the nation’s people and natural resources.Progressive Era leaders responded with a set of sweeping politi-cal reforms and, of course, the birth of the conservation move-ment. Noteworthy accomplishments ensued, including the devel-opment of resource professions, laws to protect wilderness andcontrol pollution, and more efficient development of naturalresource products for human betterment.

In addition to its vast accomplishments, however, the conser-vation movement also emphasized utilitarianism and expert cul-tures. These emphases would lead to a politics of expertise, a pol-itics of maximum sustained yield, and a politics of interest, all ofwhich would come to have damaging consequences for bothecosystems and democracy.

Over time, the scientifically-based resource professions thatwere initially dedicated to reversing previous abuses and wastecreated aloof and sometimes elitist resource managers and agen-cies that became separated from the public. This politics of exper-tise fostered a culture that saw resource decisions as basicallytechnical in nature and believed that so-called “neutral” expertswere best qualified to resolve resource issues through scientificcalculation. This eclipsed the role of the public rather than creat-ing opportunities for meaningful public deliberations. The pri-mary resource management goal remained the maximum output

of commodities (that is, maximum sustained yield), be it timber,aums, acre feet, or visitor days, even as changing social valuesdemanded more amenity goods and services and scientific andpublic concern with adverse environmental consequencesmounted.

Agencies developed close, reciprocal relationships with theinterests that benefited from their production emphases, creatinga pattern of interest group politics that political scientists pejora-tively called “iron triangles.” While the environmental movementbegan to break apart the iron triangles, most environmentalgroups, however, adjusted to the dominance of the politics ofinterest by joining rather than attempting to change the politicalprocess. Debates became dominated by strong nationally cen-tered and extremely polarized interest groups. Deadlock, acri-mony, and cynicism came to prevail; trust and civility declined.

In the face of changes in social values, technologies, anddemographics, the patterns of politics that evolved out of theProgressive Era currently do not fare well under critical assess-ment. Today, just as society’s ability to achieve long-term democ-ratic sustainability is of concern, so too is the question of long-term ecological sustainability. As a consequence, scientists, man-agers, and citizens are increasingly advocating a radical shift fromthe model that has dominated resource management for most ofthe twentieth century to an ecosystem management model.

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The Principles of Ecosystem Management

E cosystem management reflects public awareness and accep-tance of environmental values, improved scientific understanding

of ecological systems, increasing emphasis on ecologicalconcerns such as biodiversity, professional experience with newtechnologies and leadership models, and changing professionalpractices that view conditions of the land to be just as relevant as thequantities of outputs that can be produced.

The principles of ecosystem management that I will now reviewhave been expressed in a vast amount of scholarly literature and pol-icy documents. As so expressed, ecosystem management is in manyways dramatically different from the traditional, utilitarian focus ofresource management. Traditional resource management viewsnature as a collection of resources that can be manipulated andharvested with humans, particularly experts, in control. In ecosystemmanagement, on the other hand, protection of ecosystem attributesand functions, especially biodiversity, is critical.

Unlike traditional resource management, ecosystem managementis not premised upon enumerated or desired outputs. In ecosystemmanagement, objectives for land and water resources are related firstand foremost to the integrity, vitality, and resilience of ecosystemstructures and processes. The first priority is conserving ecologicalsustainability, that is, long-term maintenance of ecosystem productiv-ity and resilience; levels of commodity and amenity outputs areadjusted to meet that goal. Ecosystem management involves preserv-ing intrinsic values or natural conditions of the ecosystem. Commodi-ties are viewed as secondary byproducts, much like interest oncapital. Ecosystem management also recognizes a critical interdepen-dence between social and ecological vitality to an unprecedentedextent. It breaks new ground by making the social and political basisof management goals explicit and encouraging their developmentthrough an inclusive and collaborative decisionmaking process.

In ecosystem management, science is viewed as highly uncer-tain, evolving, and multi-disciplinary, with no claim on truth or bestanswers. Management is necessarily flexible and adaptive. Further-more, where decisionmaking was the sole province of resourcemanagement professionals, under ecosystem management it is apublic, politicized, shared-ownership endeavor, where differentinterests and values are openly addressed. Ecosystem science inte-grates many disciplinary approaches and addresses ecological issuesat longer temporal and larger spatial scales. Given the recognizedcomplexity and dynamic nature of ecological and social systems,ecosystem management is adaptive management, constantly beingreassessed and revised as new information becomes available.

Fundamental Change

S ome have suggested that the differences between traditionalresource management and ecosystem management are so pro-

found that they represent a paradigm change—a fundamental revi-sion in values, assumptions, methodologies, and managementpractices. In The Politics of Ecosystem Management, Ann and Iaddress the fundamental political challenges to be confronted if thephilosophy and ideals of ecosystem management will ever indeedrepresent a significant paradigm shift. It is to these challenges andthe wide-ranging changes that need to be contemplated to addressthem that I now turn.

In order to achieve actual paradigm change there must be sig-nificant agreement about the new values, assumptions, andmethodologies. But ecosystem management still faces significantcriticisms. It is not totally accepted either by professionals or thepublic. Ecosystem management has numerous critics who comefrom both sides of the political spectrum. Ecosystem managementis criticized, among other things, as fuzzy, ambiguous, untested,legally and politically untenable, an attempt by experts to prop upthe politics of expertise, an effort to turn all public land intonature preserves, and a threat to private property rights. Anothercogent criticism is that it is full of contradictions.

Indeed, there are contradictions and paradoxes, as ecosystemmanagement often simultaneously advances disparate, even con-tradictory, elements. There are paradoxes of decisionmaking, thatis, decisionmaking must be flexible as well as consistent, inclusiveas well as accountable, and bureaucratic as well as politicallyresponsive. There are paradoxes of scale, that is, managementmust occur at both large and small spatial scales, balance central-ized as well as decentralized solutions, accommodate human aswell as ecological time frames, and do more with less. Finally,there are paradoxes of sustainability, that is, tensions between theseemingly incompatible goals of economic development andecological sustainability. Management must accommodate bothpopulation growth and ecological integrity, manage for bothpreservation and use, and plan for uncertainty.

Ecosystem management does indeed entail some of the sameparadoxes that traditional resource management encounters. Insome cases, however, it accentuates those paradoxes. In othercases, it emphasizes a different balance. Similar to the long-stand-ing paradoxes that characterize all political and social life, the ten-sions between such contradictory goals need not be a fatal flaw.

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A central challenge of ecosystem management is to address suchparadoxes and find innovative means to balance them. Withoutdoubt the paradoxes of sustainability are perhaps the mostintractable. Resolving them will require revolutionary shifts in thebasic philosophical values of American society, a challenge thatnecessitated for us a journey into the realm of political theory toexplore its connection to ecosystem management.

The political theory that influenced the development of theAmerican republic is a product of the Enlightenment Era of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Enlightenment thought,particularly the thought of John Locke, made an enduring contri-bution to American constitutional development and the principlesof popular government, political equality, and individual rights.Yet, political theorists have also identified a dark side to theEnlightenment. This dark side promoted human mastery anddomination of nature and wrapped both reason and science intoits service. This desire to master nature has resulted in manage-ment that emphasizes means over ends, production over stew-ardship, and outputs over ecological conditions.

Ecosystem management suggests the need to adopt alterna-tive philosophical principles. These philosophical principles willrequire replacing the dominant societal attitude of mastery ofnature with one that equalizes human-nature relationships. Theywill also require broadening the scope of scientific inquiry,expanding our conceptions of rationality to include more explicitpublic debate of the ends of public policy, and creating moreequal social relationships among humans.

Dealing with the paradoxical and philosophical challenges ofecosystem management I have outlined above will also necessi-tate building both social capital and strengthening governmentalinstitutions and policies. Building social capital and a renewedconception of public life will require countering the destructiveaspects of individualism and breaking down bureaucratic barriersto public participation. The increasing interest in collaborativeprocesses when local community concerns are at stake is anencouraging sign that the collaborative principles of ecosystemmanagement can be implemented. In this regard, the PinchotInstitute has been at the forefront, examining the potentials andchallenges of cross-jurisdictional cooperation, collaborative pri-vate-public stewardship, and shared leadership. While significantinstitutional barriers to these more participatory democratic formsstill exist, useful lessons are being provided by the experiences of

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a number of community-based forestry organizations and water-shed groups that have embraced the idea of sustainable resourcesand sustainable communities.

In addition to building social capital, ecosystem managementwill require strengthening governmental institutions and policies.We will need to consider reexamining laws, rethinking propertyrights and responsibilities, both public and private, changingadministrative organizations and processes, and aligning marketoperations with the goal of sustainability.

The menu of items to be considered is indeed numerous andexpansive. Yet, the net must be cast broad. Of course, we mustfocus on those things that are normally within our professionalradar scope, such as amending the Endangered Species Act or theNational Forest Management Act, creating new organizational cul-tures within agencies such as the Forest Service or the Bureau ofReclamation, or developing more effective economic incentivesfor long-term stewardship. But we also need to address things notnormally thought of as “green.” Reviving citizen trust in govern-ment and moving away from the politics of interest that pervadesall fields of government, not just natural resources, will require, topursue just one example for a moment, attention to campaignfinance reform.

Campaign contributions have a wealth and income bias thatis greater than for any other mode of political participation.Interests that want to protect short-term gains have dispropor-tionate political power over those advocating change for the long-term interest. The current system of campaign financing createsunequal access and power; at its worst, public officials are boughtand sold. It has bred corruption and public distrust. Figuring outthe mess of campaign financing without stifling free debate is oneof the most immediate and important challenges to reversing thedegenerative process of the American political system.

Thinking holistically about natural resources and the environ-ment does not just mean expanding the biophysical scope ofinterest from the stand to the entire forest or addressing humandimensions by doing more visitor surveys. It also means broad-ening our policy and scientific research agendas to include atten-tion to a much broader set of problems from campaign financereform, to immigration policy, to health care, to racial relation-ships, and how they relate to the values, goals, and strategies oflong-term ecological sustainability.

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Future Scenarios

As Ann and I argue, adopting ecosystem management is de-pendent upon dramatic alterations in the existing American

governance system. Given the criticisms of ecosystem managementand the challenges of political change it faces, what then arepossible future scenarios for ecosystem management?

The first scenario is rejection of ecosystem management.Many are appalled at the extent of the proposed changes. Theyfear government will destroy private property rights and stifleindividualism. Considerable opposition to ecosystem manage-ment also comes from those who espouse multiple use, but, inessence, defend dominant use, e.g. timber production as the firstand foremost use of forests or water supply as the first and fore-most use of rivers. These opponents see themselves in directopposition to the values, goals, and issues of the environmentalmovement. Many in this camp believe that decisionmaking aboutresources ought to be entrusted to professional experts, notopened to more public input. However, politics has changed tothe extent that this scenario will not prevail. Environmental valuesare now core societal values. The public will continue to distrustexperts and will continue to demand to participate equally incrafting policies responsive to their concerns. Attention will con-tinue to be placed on correcting the ecological mistakes of pastpractices. There is no turning back.

American society, however, may choose to define ecosystemmanagement as an incremental addition to the concept of multi-ple-use/sustained yield, adopting a “sustain all uses” approach toecosystem management. In this second scenario, the productionof goods and services will remain paramount, although it will bedone with a greater appreciation of the constraints imposed byecological processes. The geographic and temporal scales of con-sideration will continue to expand and resource management willbecome more collaborative. Under this scenario, while more peo-ple may embrace civic engagement and live lightly upon the land,these practices will not become major forces in our society or inglobal politics. The political will may not be sufficient to create acontext in which nature’s needs are on par with human needs,and short-term, immediate socioeconomic gains are routinelyforegone in order to achieve long-term ecological gains. In thiscase, policy changes will be made to accommodate the height-ened focus on ecosystems and human communities, but the polit-

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ical and resource management changes that occur will not be rev-olutionary. Thus the prognosis in this instance is for continuedincremental change—a little more appreciation of ecosystems, alittle more civic engagement, and some tinkering with laws andpolicies. There is no question these changes are important, butthey will not create a society that lives in balance with nature orprotects ecosystems from irreparable damage.

If long-term ecological sustainability is to truly assume a dom-inant position in natural resource management—a third sce-nario—American society must embrace sweeping and profoundchanges, not only in technical practices, but also in our policies,institutions, notions of citizenship, and politics. Attention must bedirected toward building and sustaining the social capital that isrequisite for effective involvement in a civic society. Attentionmust be directed toward improving the art of statecraft so thatgovernmental institutions can adapt, improve performance, satisfythe needs of a changing society, and regain public confidence.Commodity production and other short-term economic gains maywell have to be sacrificed to protect biodiversity or prevent degra-dation of the productive capability of land or waters. Educational,research, management systems will need to undergo fundamentalrestructuring at all levels of government. The tensions betweenhuman and nature’s needs will be made explicit, and when thosetensions cannot be appropriately balanced, society will moreoften decide in nature’s favor. Intergenerational equity will be anessential factor in the decisionmaking process.

It is this third scenario of ecosystem management rather thanthe incremental model that would truly represent a paradigmchange in natural resource management. A paradigm shift toecosystem management that would truly embrace the goal of eco-logical sustainability is not impossible, but it will not occur with-out explicit societal recognition and acceptance of the politicalchanges that will necessarily need to accompany it. And, in anincremental world, as the Pinchot Institute’s Jim Giltmier’s reviewof our book in the Journal of Forestry has reminded us, the odds,however, appear to favor the incremental scenario.

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Separations and Connections

T he way society chooses to deal with its public problems, thatis, the politics it chooses, will therefore necessarily shape how

ecosystem management fares in the next century. The debate overhow to reform current environmental and natural resource policy istherefore connected to the general issue of democratic health. Thisdebate involves issues that go to the core of human attitudes towardnature and each other, the power of various societal institutions,including science, corporations, government, community, family, andsacred precepts of American democratic society such as propertyrights and capitalism. As a movement that advocates more attentionto participatory forms of government and changes in major societalinstitutions, the governance issues surrounding implementation ofthe main principles of ecosystem management involve a redistribu-tion and sharing of political power. Redistributions of power arebound to engender tensions and controversy. These issues need tobe put squarely on the table and confronted.

While resource professionals are wont to lament that citizensincreasingly seem separated from resources, the traditional mythsand professional culture of the resource professions have reinforcedthat separation. All too often in the past we have tended to separatepolitics and resource management, treating fundamental politicalproblems such as forest planning or endangered species protectionas technical problems that can be fixed with technical solutions andscience-based decisionmaking. We nod knowingly when remindedthat resource management is imbedded in a social and political con-text and that we need to be conversant with that context; then wecontinue to exhibit behavior in our management and research estab-lishments that demonstrates that we really do not want to believethat. We can no longer afford this luxury. Ecosystem managementrecognizes that well-functioning ecosystems provide services thatmake possible economic, social, and political wealth. In the long run,damaged ecosystems have significant adverse impacts on our abilityto promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of libertyfor our posterity and ourselves.

However, just as troubling as the separation of citizens fromresources is their separation from and distrust of the institutions ofgovernment. This separation may now cut so deep that it may wellbe continuously damaging for timely innovation. Despite the longhistory of an adaptive and resilient political system, the danger willbe evident if we reach the point where the system is incapable ofrecovery and regeneration.

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Conclusion

At no time since the Progressive Era have the concerns ofecological and democratic reform been so politically

intertwined. Just as in that era, it is a time in which reform in bothhow we govern ourselves and regard our natural resources needsto be addressed and new patterns of democratic politics invented.How the principles of ecosystem management as a philosophy ofreform evolve in the future will be determined by political choices.There are numerous, significant, and wide-ranging political andinstitutional challenges associated with implementing ecosystemmanagement. Application of ecosystem management principlescannot occur in a scientific vacuum. There is no ignoring thepolitics of ecosystem management. Ecosystem management isabout politics and new forms of governance. It is dependent upona set of institutional innovations designed to better connect people,ecosystems, and democratic political processes. The more perfectunion envisioned by the founders thus requires resourceprofessionals as well as citizens to forge a more perfect unionbetween democratic and ecological sustainability.

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Hanna J. Cortner

Hanna J. Cortner is Professorand Research Scientist in the Schoolof Renewable Natural Resources atthe University of Arizona. Sheholds a joint appointment in theDepartment of Political Science.From 1990-1996 she served as Dir-ector of the University of Arizona’sWater Resources Research Center.

Dr. Cortner received her B.A.in Political Science from the

University of Washington in 1967, and her M.A. and Ph.D. inGovernment from the University of Arizona in 1969 and 1973,respectively. In addition to faculty appointments at the Universityof Arizona, Dr. Cortner has held an Intergovernmental PersonnelAct assignment with the USDA Forest Service’s Policy Analysisstaff (1979-80), and a Universities Council on Water Resources/Governmental and Congressional Science and EngineeringFellowship with the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Institute forWater Resources (1986-87). She has worked as an executive assis-tant for a local county supervisor (1985-1986) and served a six-year term as a publicly elected board member of the CentralArizona Project (1985-1990).

Her research interests focus on the institutional and politicalfactors affecting forest and water planning and management. Inaddition to publishing in a variety of natural resource and policybooks and journals, Dr. Cortner has enjoyed serving as chair ormember of numerous scientific and policy advisory boards andreview committees, both nationally and locally. Her lecture isbased on the book,The Politics of Ecosystem Management (IslandPress, 1999), which she co-authored with Margaret (Ann) Moote.

Pinchot DistinguishedLecture Series

RETHINKING PUBLIC LAND GOVERNANCE FOR THE NEW CENTURYBy Daniel Kemmis, 2000

A MORE PERFECT UNION: DEMOCRATIC AND ECOLOGICALSUSTAINABILITYBy Hanna J. Cortner, 1999

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN WATER LAW RELATED TO FORESTMANAGEMENT, WATERSHED PROTECTION, AND RURAL COMMUNITIESBy Elizabeth Rieke, 1997

WHITHER, OR WHETHER, THE NATIONAL FORESTS? SOME REFLECTIONSOF AN UNRECONSTRUCTED FOREST ECONOMISTBy Perry R. Hagenstein, 1995

GIFFORD PINCHOT WITH ROD AND REELAND TRADING PLACES: FROM HISTORIAN TO ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST,TWO ESSAYS IN CONSERVATION HISTORYBy John F. Reiger, 1994

THE NEW FACE OF FORESTRY: EXPLORING A DISCONTINUITY ANDTHE NEED FOR A VISIONBy John C. Gordon, 1993

GIFFORD PINCHOT: THE EVOLUTION OF AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIONISTBy Char Miller, 1992

ADVENTURE IN REFORM: GIFFORD PINCHOT, AMOS PINCHOT,THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE PROGRESSIVE PARTYBy John A. Gable, 1986

Pinchot Distinguished Lectures may be requestedby calling 202-797-6580

or by writing to:Pinchot Institute for Conservation

1616 P Street, NW, Suite 100Washington, DC 20036

or on-line at www.pinchot.org