CAN STRATEGIC ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT SUCCEED IN MULTIAGENCY ENVIRONMENTS?

While the descriptive and conceptual literature on ecosystem management is, in general, enthusiastic about its potential advantages, there is now a more critical literature that suggests that the long‐term gains from ecological management approaches remain uncertain, in a multiagency context. Moreover, relatively little is known about the long‐term influences of economic, political, environmental, and organizational change on both the capacity to implement ecological management systems and their ability to deliver sustainable ecosystem benefits. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand how the “character” of stakeholder agencies (i.e., the sets of interagency relationships and what is termed the organizational ecology of interacting agencies) operate to further or frustrate efforts to introduce sustainable ecological management systems. It does so recognizing that all are subject to change, given the dynamics of the political economy in which they operate. The workings of the Forest Improvement Act (1965–1986) and seven subsequent forest conservation initiatives in Nova Scotia are assessed. It is concluded that, in these Nova Scotian examples, market distortions and inertia within the multiagency political economy are too powerful and pervasive to allow the successful implementation of ecosystem management over the longer term. It is further argued that ecosystem management needs to be reconceptualized from an approach driven by scientific understanding to one that takes account of the multiple sets of interests and values in the political economy as a whole. When management has to involve numerous stakeholder groups, agreement over sustainable practices will not simply arise from the presentation of scientific evidence, but requires a shift in incentive structures from production to conservation.