Introduction to Ecosystem-based Planning

Ecosystem-based conservation plans are necessary in order to protect and maintain ecological health and biological diversity at all scales, from small land and water ecosystems to large landscapes. Human cultures and economies depend on healthy ecosystems and biological diversity,in other words, on natural capital. Planning human activities that protect, maintain, and, where necessary, restore ecosystem health and biodiversity is the basis for developing sustainable human economies and cultures. Such activities are ecologically responsible, because they ensure that ecological processes continue to support the full range of life.

If our society believes that Earth is borrowed from our children rather than inherited from our ancestors, we will use ecosystem-based conservation planning to protect, maintain, and restore healthy ecosystems and biological diversity, and to develop diverse, ecologically sustainable economies.

Ecosystem-based conservation planning is a system that may be effectively applied in unmodified to highly modified landscapes; and may be used for a wide range of purposes from conservation area design to resource development, settlement design, and urban planning.

SFF has developed its approach to ecosystem-based conservation planning over 20 years of working with rural and First Nations communities. The system focuses first on what to protect or what to leave, and then on what to use or what to take. Ecosystem-based conservation planning does not start with a target for production - be it cubic meters of timber, person days of recreation, or tons of salmon - but instead seeks to understand the ecology of an area, and then to define how human uses and economies can fit sustainably within the ecological limits of the ecosystem.

From large landscapes to small areas of land and water, this ecosystem-based approach seeks to understand the relationships between ecosystems, human cultures, and economies. An ecosystem-based approach recognizes that inappropriate human use of ecosystems and landscapes can have serious and long-term negative ecological, social, economic, and cultural impacts. Planning human activities that protect, maintain, and, where necessary, restore ecosystem health and biodiversity is the basis for developing sustainable human economies and cultures.