Substances Control Act, Amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and 

 Rodenticide Act) has been in large part preventative in nature, indicating an aim at 

 the sources, rather than the effects of environmental problems. In addition, laws have 

 been generally more ecosystem directed; for example, the Fishery Conservation and 

 Management Act has as its objective the management of interrelated stocks offish as 

 a unit or in close coordination rather than on a species-by-species basis. In addressing 

 specific aspects of land (National Forest Management Act, Federal Land Policy and 

 Management Act), air (Clean Air Act Amendments), and water (Clean Water Act 

 Amendments) systems, environmental legislation enacted in the 1970s, perhaps more 

 than any other set of documents, reflects concern for fish and wildlife protection 

 through more stringent requirements for assessment and reasonable accuracy of 

 prediction. 



Preserving diversity in a world of rapidly shrinking land resources will require a 

 prompt and universal response based on appropriate application of ecological 

 knowledge and understanding.*^ Corporations have been granted legal rights; the 

 step toward recognizing "legal rights of forests, oceans, rivers, and other so-called 

 'natural objects' in the environment — indeed of the natural environment and a 

 whole"*'' is a small, but crucial one.*'''*^ 



EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS OF ASSESSMENT AND 

 PREDICTION 



Several case studies have been chosen to represent accomplishments in environ- 

 mental assessment and prediction during the 1 970s. The shift in emphasis from single 

 species protection to an ecosystem perspective, and from setting "standards" to initial 

 prevention of potentially deleterious problems, however, must be taken into account 

 in evaluation of the effectiveness of assessment and prediction of man-made impacts 

 on fish and wildlife habitat. Technological advances in instrumentation and 

 refinements in the sensitivity of analyses have made feasible much research that was 

 previously impracticable. 



Documentation of assessment and prediction, often in the form of environmental 

 impact statements, does not include subsequent evaluation of corrective responses of 

 local, state, or federal agencies, such as levying of fines or revocation of discharge 

 permits. For that reason, it is difficult generally to evaluate the effect that assessment 

 and prediction procedures have had on protection or restoration offish and wildlife 

 habitat. 



Case Studies 



Lake Washington represents a well-documented case study in which phosphorus 

 enrichment was determined to be the major factor producing a decline in water 

 quality; its removal was predicted to reverse the decline. This has been realized,** 

 although not without unforeseen associated results.*^ The solution to the disturbance 

 of this watershed was to export the problem to another system, Puget Sound. Similar 

 export solutions are planned for the clean-up of Gull Lake, Michigan**'*' and for 

 Lake Tahoe.'° Unfortunately, the question remains as to whether land use 

 development beyond that which can be assimilated by a given basin should be 

 allowed in that basin. 



Changes in the Great Lakes, which accelerated in the 1970s, have resulted from 

 general hydrologic alterations (e.g., canals, which, among other effects, allowed for 

 invasions by marine species), increased point and nonpoint source effluents, 

 intensive and selective fisheries, and species manipulations such as the introduction 

 of salmonids. "''2,93,94,95, 96,97,98 Assessment that overfishing, pollution, and the 

 marine lamprey {Petromyzon marinus) greatly reduced populations of larger 

 predatory fishes and allowed for increases in the density of small forage fishes, 

 including the invading alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus), led to the prediction that, 



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