Ecosystem Management

Ecosystem management is the process of integrating ecological, socio-economic and institutional factors into one comprehensive strategy, aimed at sustaining and enhancing ecosystem quality to meet both current and future human needs. It puts particular emphasis on the human role — using ecosystems judiciously and minimising human impact so that the benefits they provide remain sustained over time, since environmental degradation and biodiversity loss ultimately erode natural resources and threaten human existence itself (the chapter cites IUCN figures projecting that by 2025 nearly half the world's population — at least 3.5 billion people — will face water scarcity, and that forests, home to roughly half of global biodiversity, support the livelihoods of at least 300 million people). As a strategy, ecosystem management is used to maintain biodiversity; to flag when an ecosystem is damaged, partly by tracking indicator or 'flagship' species whose health mirrors the ecosystem's own; to recognise that ecosystem change is inevitable and to plan around it rather than resist it; to work toward sustainability through sustainable-development programmes and projects; to identify ecosystems that need rehabilitation; to build collaborative management partnerships with government agencies, local communities and NGOs; and to build the long-term capacity of local institutions and community groups to keep managing an ecosystem well after any single project ends. Chennai's Adyar Poonga illustrates this in practice: a roughly 358-acre stretch of Adyar creek and estuary, of which 58 acres — previously a dumping site — were taken up for eco-restoration by the Government of Tamil Nadu and are now maintained by the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (CRRT). The restored area now supports six mangrove species and around 170 species of littoral and tropic …