THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE POLICY DEBATE - WHAT IS THE POLICY PROBLEM

Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding mountainous region compr ise the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), a 19 million acre area th at is one of the few relatively intact ecosystems in the lower 48 stat es. Conservationists believe that continuation of present land managem ent practices in the region will disrupt the ecological integrity of t he GYE. Many authors have identified and described these threats, but as yet there has been no sustained effort to make sense of these threa ts in the context of the ongoing dynamic policy debate. We develop the foundation for such understanding by examining the implicit problem d efinitions that have emerged from this debate. They fall into three ge neral categories: 1) a scientific definition, 2) an economic definitio n, and 3) a bureaucratic definition. This process produces an explorat ory definition of the policy problem, which suggests a strategy for be tter understanding and policy design. We propose several intervention points at which substantive, one-the-ground improvements in the manage ment of the GYE are possible.