Translating ecosystem science into ecosystem management and policy: A case study of network formation

By 1991, federal timber harvesting on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest had virtually ceased. Court injunctions barred the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management from making new timber sales because the agencies had violated laws protecting wildlife. Specifically, the federal agencies failed to provide adequate protection to the northern spotted owl, a rare bird found primarily in the old growth forests of the Northwest. Public pressure for government to resolve the spotted owl issue was intense, and yet numerous efforts to do so had all failed.; The crisis over federal forest management gave opponents of the existing forest management regime an opportunity to try to restructure the relationships within the forest policy subsystem. The emergence of ecosystem ecology and its application to the old growth forests of the Northwest provided scientists and others with resources to construct alternative management strategies that addressed both conservation and commodity production interests. A group of scientists called the Andrews Group found itself well positioned and prepared to develop strategies to the translate ecosystem science into techniques and a philosophy for management, and into principles of policy.; This dissertation argues that ecosystem knowledge was translated through a network of multiple actors who transformed it from narrowly scientific knowledge into management and political resources with broad application and effects. In order to translate its scientific knowledge into management and policy resources, the Andrews Group formed relationships with managers and policy makers intended transformed their interests, goals, and frameworks for understanding the forest management and policy problem and turn them into advocates for ecosystem management. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how and under what conditions these relationships were created. The general conclusion of this research is that scientific knowledge can be translated into management and policy resources when the existing advocacy coalitions structure fails to resolve a scientifically intensive policy conflict with high political stakes, and scientists with a coherent program and organizational resources become a part of a translation network seeking to broker a solution between the advocacy coalitions.