Comparing Ecosystem Management with Multiple-Use/Sustained Yield

Because the ecosystem management paradigm is conceptual and vague, it is rather difficult to compare to the more precisely clear Multiple-Use/Sustained Yield (MUSY). Nevertheless, ecosystem management incorporates some key features when compared to MUSY (Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force 1995):

1. More partnerships, greater collaboration
2. Broader program perspective
3. Broader resource perspective, oriented toward interacting systems
4. Broader geographical and longer temporal perspectives
5. More dynamic and flexible planning processes
6. Stronger reliance on the best science
7. More proactive

The MUSY paradigm, as applied on National Forest lands, has focused on sustaining the annual or periodic production of commodity resources such as commercially valuable timber, recreation, wildlife, and water quality (Cortner et al., 1999). Planning has tended to be confined to the boundaries of the property or administrative unit at issue, and focus has typically been at the stand level. "In contrast, ecosystem management does not focus on a single resource output, or even some fixed combination of outputs, but rather on restoring and sustaining ecological structures and functions in perpetuity. This planning typically focuses on a relatively large geographic area defined by ecological and/or physical relationships and commonly cuts across administrative or legal boundaries" (Cortner et al. 1999). "Ecosystem management does not preclude resource utilization (see implementation). It is clearly understood that humans are part of the ecosystem, and it is recognized that: resource management must be responsive to societal needs, including commodity production. The ecosystem management concept calls for commodity and amenity outputs that are compatible with the goal of maintaining long-term sustainability of ecological relationships" (Cortner et al. 1999).