managerial alternatives. It is, from one point of view, a signal that other managerial 

 tactics and strategies have failed. Typical mitigation efforts are: (l)purchase of and 

 dedication of equivalent land to that which is covered by a dam and its lake; and (2) 

 stocking of fish from hatcheries to replace those no longer produced naturally. 



Mitigation is as natural to resource management as surgery is to a progressive 

 health system. Management includes manipulation of people's concepts, ideas, 

 knowledge, and values through broad-scale environmental education. It includes 

 legal activities to prevent and control harmful actions (e.g., penalties), to encourage 

 other actions (e.g., tax incentives). It includes public participation in decisionmaking, 

 partially as an educational process, and partially as a means to elicit expressions of 

 group values. It includes direct habitat manipulation, usually aimed at speeding or 

 retarding ecological succession through the so-called action checklist: forestry 

 (cutting, planting, crushing, and herbicides); farming (burning and blasting); 

 flooding (including irrigation and drainage); fertilizing; furnishing (nests, dens); 

 feeding (direct -and grazing); and fencing (in or out). ' It includes timing of activities 

 (e.g., flood water or irrigation releases), creation of new habitats (e.g., an island for 

 the Hawaiian stilt), and movement of animals, including stocking and transplants. 

 Management also includes direct manipulation of the resource. In the case of wildlife 

 it may include control of many aspects of the hunt,^ stocking and transplanting, and 

 changing mortality as well as reproductive factors. Genetic manipulation may have 

 later potentials. 



We have noted the heightened concern about certain environmental changes. 

 These concerns reflect the emergence of new groups and their awareness of damage, a 

 need for more powerful managerial systems and for more mitigation. In addition, 

 :here are compounding issues — new changes, new rates, higher risks, sequence 

 problems, and, as if that were not enough, their interactions. These issues will be 

 briefly noted so that they will be clearly visible in the following papers in this section. 



New changes are a result of more people with more energy and more technology. 

 The U.S. remains a place of growth: cities, industries, and farms expand. There are 

 signs of slowing but they are vague. New substances, new machines, new forestry 

 practices, new cultivation, new industry — ; the rates of change are very rapid. There 

 is little time for managerial adjustment, either to the processes or human values. 

 There is no time for ecological adjustment. Evolutionary processes are ponderous; 

 recent human processes are precipitous. 



The scale of change is cause for concern. One falling tree leaves an opening that is 

 quickly filled in. It is as if things had been readied for the fall; the system was in wait. 

 The clearing of 50 acres for a factory is no mere tree-fall. The site will not "fix" itself; 

 nothing is in wait. Of course, it will eventually be restored. But will people be able to 

 tolerate that condition for the required time? It is too unpleasant and too costly. 

 Through management, the successional processes can be speeded. Certain areas need 

 not be leveled. Long-term work with the ecosystem of the factory becomes the new 

 realization. A one-time get-in, build, fix it, and leave-the-lawn policy, good in a few 

 places, is not a satisfactory universal answer. The simplest rule in ecosystem 

 management is that there are no simple rules. Complex systems of human 

 importance deserve management suitably complex and sophisticated to reduce costs 

 and risks. 



Risks are not discussed much but they are at the heart of managerial concern. An 

 engineer may plan a dam for a 100-year flood. If he discovers rainfall patterns have 

 changed and he gets such a water volume every 10 years, he will be distraught (or 

 sued). What is distressing among the massive changes taking place around the 

 country is that these types of unexpected behaviors are occurring. Paved over 

 watersheds no longer retain as much water. New irrigation places whole communities 

 at risk of water shortage. New local climates and water temperatures put local groups 

 at risk. Part of the risk concept is the frequency of damage, and part is the magnitude 

 of damage. Another part, one not easily quantified, is fear and how it relates to the 

 quality of life. It is not necessary to be able to measure adrenal levels of people living 



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