Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
concept of owning something, inferring exclusivity in that nonowners lack a right of ac-
cess to or use of that thing (Ostrom 1990). There are a variety of types of property own-
ership and rules that affect the rights of access and use of resources. In this chapter, for
ease of readability, I use the term “property” to refer to a landholding (of some tenure
type), in the colloquial sense that the word “property” tends to be used in general con-
versation (see Freyfogle 2003; Brunckhorst and Marshall 2007). Private ownership or
tenure of a land resource (such as my home's backyard) is often referred to as private
property in general conversation. In this topic, we are reminded that, because restora-
tion activities are very much an integral component of ecosystem management, the
tenure of land and natural resources directly influences ecological restoration planning
and action, indeed as much as tenure affects the exploitation of natural resources.
Policies are formal or informal decisions about a course of action or the way to ac-
complish some goal. Policy is generated at all social levels from family to federal and
global governments. Local residents in their familiar locality—their landscapes of
“home”—might be said to represent a policy community for making decisions for ac-
tion about ecosystem restoration in that place (Shannon 1998; Parisi et al. 2004; see
chaps. 5, 20, this volume). The constituency or “community of interest“ and repre-
sentation of other bona fide stakeholders are important together with an understand-
ing of the most appropriate and efficient levels at which decisions can be made and re-
sponsibility for action taken (Cheng, Kruger, and Daniels 2003; Brunckhorst et al.
2008).
3
Local to regional examples of successful community-based action and co-
management that incorporate ecological restoration into sustainable resource use and
conservation are not just increasing, but increasingly are directing substantial activ-
ity and resources to ecological restoration (Knight and Landres 1998; Williamson,
Brunckhorst, and Kelly 2003; Knight and White 2009; also chaps. 15, 16, this vol-
ume). The lessons from the social and institutional design and operational experience
of these on-the-ground restoration models are essential for building and linking fur-
ther ecological restoration and stewardship efforts. There is an evolving array of expe-
riential knowledge-building and brokering of public-private collaborations as well as
comanagement efforts in conservation, restoration, and ecological resource manage-
ment. The collective, international civic action to curb chlorofluorocarbons for resto-
ration of the planet's atmospheric ozone layers, although still ongoing, has been a
great achievement at a global level. It remains to be seen whether nations and corpo-
rations can respond as well to managing the more complex chemistry and politics of
greenhouse gas emissions currently inducing rapid climate change. Successes in
broader landscape to regional scales of integration of ecological management and res-
toration remain exceptions rather than the norm at this time.
The 3Ps provide part of the important context for landscape-scale alteration that is
currently creating both challenges and opportunities for restoration. Increasingly,
linked social-ecological systems interactions shape change in ecosystem capacity and
health. The need for defined resource access or property rights, policies, regulation,
resource governance, and collective action for ecological restoration and resource
management derives from the fact that one person's use of natural resources affects
other people (Ostrom et al. 2002). The 3Ps are essential for managing natural re-
