Conceptual frames, values of nature, and key symbols of ecosystem management: Landscape -scale assessment in the Bridger -Teton National Forest

This study examines the evolution of ecosystem management across policy levels for the United States Forest Service, including the development and promotion of the concept in the academic and professional literature, the interpretation and adoption of ecosystem management as national policy in the Forest Service, and the implementation of this policy by agency planning teams in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. I begin by examining the efforts of the scientific community to define and promote ecosystem management in the academic and professional literature. I use content analysis to study the conceptual frames, values of nature, and key symbols used or discussed in influential articles published during the period from 1971 through 1998 that deal with ecosystem management or the management of ecological systems. Next I look at national planning policies in the Forest Service, again using content analysis to examine the conceptual frames, values, and symbols used or discussed in major Forest Service policy instruments issued before and after the agency adopted ecosystem management. The final component of the research consists of case studies of two Forest Service landscape scale assessment teams attempting to implement the agency's conception of ecosystem management in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. I use Q method, semi-structured interviews, and policy evaluation techniques to examine the perspectives and decision-making processes of the landscape scale assessment teams, and the relative importance for them of the dimensions of ecosystem management explored in the earlier components of the research. The results of the research suggest that although the concept of ecosystem management may be fostering innovation in the Forest Service, the agency's attempt to institute this concept in a top-down fashion, without significant changes in the traditional cultural and institutional forces that constrain learning in the agency, is highly inefficient and likely to be ineffective. The Forest Service needs to define more clearly its goals in managing the national forests, communicate those goals more clearly to its employees, provide them with the skills and other resources needed to achieve those goals, and address the institutional and cultural factors that limit learning in the agency.