LAB: The adoption of principles of Ecosystem Management in institutions, organizations, and private companies.
In this lab, we will investigate to what extent organizational entities dealing with land management subscribe to methods or objectives of ecosystem management. Such entities can be federal agencies or their working groups, private companies, non-profit organizations or extension services, but not entities involved solely in education or research such as environmental science programs at universities. We will collect information via the internet by scrutinizing official websites and their mission statements.
Class activity
First we will compile a list of attributes that characterize ecosystem management and distinguish it from traditional management objectives. Please come prepared to help assemble this list.
Next, class will break into four teams and work on a team challenge.
Team Challenge: In 30 min, identify as many groups that claim to develop or apply principles of ecosystem management as you can.
This is a competition between the four teams. The objective is to produce the longest list of websites of federal agencies, private companies, non-profit organizations or extension services, etc. that claim ecosystem management (or a related principle) among their activities. The list should be compiled in a word document and contain the name of the group, its web-site url, and nationality, for example:
Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, http://www.icbemp.gov/, USA
A scoring system will reward those coming up with the most international list of ecosystem management subscribers. To calculate your group’s score, first count the number of websites you found for each country. For each website belonging to the most represented country, give yourself 1 point. For each website in the next most represented country, give yourself 1.5 points, in the next category 2 points and so on.
For example, if you have found 4 US, 3 British and 2 Thai websites, your score is 12.5 (4*1 + 3 * 1.5 + 2 * 2).
Before you start, you may want to discuss a strategy with your teammates, e.g. what key words to use or which search engines. After 30 min, all information has to be compiled in one document.
The team with the highest score wins the challenge.
Class activity
From the individual team lists, we will assemble a super list. This super list will then be organized into general categories, US federal websites, US non-profit websites, South American government websites, private companies websites, etc. The actual categories will depend on the content of the super list.
Each group will then be charged to investigate in more detail, which principles of ecosystem management are being followed by groups within one category. The team with the highest score gets the first pick, the team with the second highest score gets the next pick, etc.
Team activity
Investigate the websites in your category in more detail. Working with the list of ecosystem management attributes developed earlier, determine which specific attributes are actually mentioned. Are there any reports available that detail the management activities of the group? Or is ecosystem management still in the planning stage? Try to find out as much as you can about these organizations and their activities, to determine whether they mention “ecosystem management” only as a popular keyword, or if they seem committed to applying new management ideas.
Spend about one hour and summarize your conclusions in a presentation to the class.
Be prepared to take questions.