Biodiversity Stewardship

• Author: Jim Thorne
• Pages: 175-183

Chapter 14

Biodiversity Stewardship

by Jim Thorne

I. Introduction

When we talk about biodiversity stewardship, we often think about work we

can do on the land to care for scarce biological resources. In general, these

resources can be broken down into the common forests and meadows of our

natural landscape as well as the rare natural communities and the rare species

that punctuate the landscape with their fascinating novelty.

Stewardship of biodiversity is as diverse as the objects of our conservation

attention. The forests and meadows that make up the matrix of the landscape

in the eastern United States form the dominant vegetation and comprise the

vast majority of animal habitat. However, rare communities and rare species

most often rely on rare local landscape conditions. In turn, these unusual

landscape conditions depend upon special geologic and hydrologic condi-

tions or regionally unique disturbance regimes.

Stewardship, therefore, involves diverse elements that vary according to

land tenure (publicly owned, privately owned, institutionally owned, or

leased) and the issues presented by the objects of conservation attention. In

designing a strategy,one must first determine the appropriate institutions in-

volved. One must next identify the principal conservation targets and deter-

mine appropriate management objectives for each and resolve any conflicts

among management regimes. Often, several different interlocking manage-

ment regimes will be required.

In all cases, an “adaptive management” regime will be required. In light of

the complexity of most ecosystems, limits to our knowledge, and changing

conditions, it is impossible, in most cases, to prescribe a set management re-

gime that will maintain or enhance biodiversity. Instead, an initial manage-

ment regime is developed based on the best information available at the

time, with provisions for monitoring and modification of the regime over

time. Initial management regimes should be conservative, operating on a

“do no harm” principle initially. Implementation of the management regime

then generates information that can be used to make the regime more effec-

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