CHAPTER III 

 Detailed Recommendations 



Establish a National Ecological Service which would serve as Recommendation 1 

 an operational focus in the Federal Government for programs 

 of ecological significance. It would be integrative in purpose 

 and would be primarily analytical in function. 



The principal functions of the Ecological Service would be to: 



a) Define ecological problems relevant to achieving national 

 goals and critical to human welfare. 



b) Assemble, analyze, and synthesize ecological information 

 and present it in operational form. 



c) Conduct selected research to fill critical needs. 



Establishment of a National Ecological Service is recommended which 

 would provide national ecological leadership for meshing the capabil- 

 ities of the Federal agencies with other governmental, academic, and 

 industrial organizations. A central operational focus for ecological 

 research and related ecological programs is urgently needed in the 

 Federal Government in order more effectively to address national 

 problems affecting environment and resources. 



This Service would also complete natural and research afeas systems 

 (Recommendations 7 and 8), and a data management system. These 

 would help to implement the National Environmental Policy Act, clean 

 air and water acts, and the proposed acts on land use policy and energy 

 policy when enacted. Initially this Service could: 



Evaluate and revise selected existing survey and inventory 

 systems into a National Ecological Survey. 



Evaluate existing and recommend revised monitoring 

 programs for a national ecological monitoring program with 

 meaningful biological and ecological indices. 



Select, analyze, and integrate data for helping implement the 

 National Environmental Policy Act and related acts. Priority 

 should be given to high-impact areas such as coastal 

 California, Long Island, and peninsular Florida. 



a) A National Ecological Survey has many values and uses, the same 

 as the important and extensively used Geological Survey. An Ecolog- 

 ical Survey could carry out a long-term program to analyze impacts on 



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