Print PageThe concept of “earth stewardship” implies a level of informed care and attention that sustains a certain type of relationship between ecosystems and human systems. Discussions of stewardship even among scientists have tended to be philosophical more than ecological, typically focusing on flows of ecosystem services to humans, as when Eugene Odum 20 years ago combined biblical principles with a host-parasite analogy to make the case for stewardship that balances needs of earth and society. More recently ecologists and social scientists have begun collaborating to study the complexities of coupled human and natural systems in a way that accounts more explicitly for processes that flow in both directions, and gives special attention to “surprise” events that upset the balance and require adaptive responses. In this paper I describe implications of the coupled natural-human systems approach for understanding stewardship of grasslands, shrublands and savannas using examples drawn from interdisciplinary research focused on sagebrush ecosystems of the western U.S. In two studies we interviewed land managers and key stakeholders to understand how perceptions of ecosystem processes and condition interacted with social, economic, and political factors to influence management approaches. Four public surveys examined beliefs about linkages between humans and rangelands.
Results/Conclusions
These studies suggest stewardship can be viewed as a function of interactions between large- and local-scale ecological and human processes. Decisions of land managers and politically active stakeholders are influenced by beliefs about large-scale factors such as an economic downturn or regional climate conditions. Shocks in human systems often occur at larger scales, as when national political control shifts, while ecological shocks occur at smaller scales where understanding of local systems is required. Interviews revealed that beliefs about national-level political forces influence opposition to stewardship actions even if stakeholders positively view the local managers who will implement such actions. Management responses to unanticipated events, e.g., a historically large wildfire, can create a shift in public opinion that influences support for future actions. Yet citizens and even less-experienced managers tend to assume local natural systems are relatively stable without human intervention. These findings run counter to an increasing belief among scientists that systems are most sustainable when they are most resilient to inevitable shocks. Stewardship that acknowledges and actively looks for signs of system instability, and promotes resilience in the face of such instability, will need to address these cross-system and cross-scale inconsistencies.
