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This chapter describes the basic framework developed by the
Design Committee to characterize the state of the nation’s
ecosystems. It discusses the strategic guidelines that shaped
the report, defines both the major ecosystem types and the
major categories of indicators described in this report, and
concludes with an overview of the nature of the data included
in the report.
Goals
In developing a framework for reporting on the state of the nation’s
ecosystems, the Design Committee reviewed a wide range of previous reporting
efforts, consulted broadly with relevant stakeholders, users of environmental
information, and experts, and incorporated feedback from the 1999 prototype
of the present report. In addition, it built on three seminal documents: the
proceedings of a National Environmental Monitoring and Research Workshop held
at the Smithsonian Institution in 19961;
the National Science and Technology Council’s Integrating the Nation’s
Environmental Monitoring and Research Networks and Programs: A Proposed Framework,2
published in 1997; and the National Research Council’s study Ecological
Indicators for the Nation,3 published
in 2000. Recruitment of key contributors to each of these documents as members
of this report’s Design Committee ensured continuity and cumulative learning
across the several efforts. The Design Committee developed and refined the
goals for this report:
- The report is written for decision makers and opinion
leaders concerned about the “big picture” of the
nation’s ecosystems. Its goal is to identify what
the nation most needs to know about its ecosystems in order
to conduct enlightened policy debate; we also summarize
what is known—and what is not known—about those
key characteristics. More generally, the report seeks to
educate a broader audience by highlighting important aspects
of the nation’s ecosystems and by characterizing patterns
of change in those conditions.
- The report identifies a succinct set of strategic indicators to characterize
the nation’s ecosystems. It does not characterize every aspect
of the environment or the ecosystems of particular regions. Rather, it identifies
strategic indicators that can serve as meaningful reference points for broad-ranging
policy discussions.4 In doing
so, we seek to complement, not replace, existing reporting frameworks developed
for particular management, regulatory, or scientific needs. Such programs
provide data on many characteristics of ecosystems that we do not describe,
and they can highlight changes that may not appear large at a national scale
but are nonetheless quite important at a local scale.
- The report provides scientific information on which
decisions can be based, while avoiding value judgments and
policy recommendations. It thus seeks to be policy relevant
while avoiding bias or advocacy. Rather than imposing our
judgments of whether conditions are “good” and
“bad,” the report assists readers in interpreting
its content by including time trends and maps from which
regional comparisons can be made. When possible, the report
characterizes conditions in terms of departures from generally
accepted standards (e.g., safe drinking water standards),
while recognizing that there are judgments involved in setting
such standards.
- The report focuses on the state (or condition) of the nation’s
ecosystems. It leaves to others the task of identifying the stresses
(pressures) that might be changing ecosystems, and of analyzing the effects
of actions taken by governments, private individuals, or businesses to reduce
those stresses. Information on pressures and societal responses is clearly
important, and it has been incorporated in widely used environmental reporting
frameworks.5 For this project,
however, we chose to focus on state for two reasons. First, there is a strong
need to complement existing reporting about environmental pressures and
responses with information about society’s ultimate concern: the state
of the nation’s ecosystems. Second, the difficulties of determining
“cause and effect” can influence perceptions of the scientific
credibility and political neutrality of both data and reporting efforts.
Experience with other national reporting efforts (particularly those concerned
with the nation’s economy) suggests that a broadly accepted characterization
of system state can make an enormous contribution to policy development
and understanding, even when disagreements persist on the causes of and
appropriate policy responses to that state.
- The indicators selected for this report reflect both
key properties relating to ecosystem condition and the goods
and services derived from ecosystems. Ecosystems are
incredibly complex, and reporting on them necessarily involves
focusing on some characteristics and excluding many others.
In addition, the values held by different people can lead
them to place greater importance on some aspects of ecosystems
than on others; some people place primary emphasis on the
goods and services ecosystems produce, while others focus
on their condition. The question is not whether to select,
but only who does the selecting, and how it is done. The
indicators included here were extensively discussed and
negotiated by the members of our Design Committee and technical
Work Groups, which included a balanced array of representatives
from the private sector, environmental organizations, government,
and academia. Although the selection of the indicators was
inevitably a value-driven process, we took great care to
make it fair and inclusive. The specific numbers assigned
to those indicators were determined through a peer-reviewed
scientific process, which we took great care to make transparent
and credible.
- The report identifies critical gaps in data and in
monitoring programs that must be filled in order to fully,
and in a balanced way, characterize the state of the nation’s
ecosystems. It leaves to the future, however, any discussion
of how to fill those gaps. In preparing this report, we
first identified ecosystem characteristics most important
for a balanced national report. We then made extensive and
good faith efforts to locate sufficiently high-quality and
extensive data to report on those characteristics. Where
such data are not available, the report calls attention
to the gaps. In implementing this strategy, we have resisted
the temptation to focus only on what happens to be illuminated
by the lamp-posts of existing monitoring and reporting programs.
Instead, the report identifies where lamps need to be posted
in order to provide the kind of illumination of ecosystems
that the nation most needs.
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