Can strategic ecosystem management succeed in multiagency environments?

While the descriptive and conceptual literature on ecosystem management is, in general, enthusiastic about its potential advantages, there is now a mo re critical Literature that suggests that the long-term gains from ecologic al management approaches remain uncertain, in a multiagency context. Moreov er, relatively little is known about the long-term influences of economic, political, environmental, and organizational change on both the capacity to implement ecological management systems and their ability to deliver susta inable ecosystem benefits. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand how the "character" of stakeholder agencies (i.e., the sets of interagency relationships and what is termed the organizational ecology of interacting agencies) operate to further or frustrate efforts to introduce sustainable ecological. management systems. It does so recognizing that all are subject to change, given the dynamics of the political economy in which they opera te. The workings of the Forest Improvement Act (1965-1986) and seven subseq uent forest conservation initiatives in Nova Scotia are assessed. It is con cluded that, in these Nova Scotian examples, market distortions and inertia within the multiagency political economy are too powerful and pervasive to allow the successful implementation of ecosystem management over the longe r term. It is further argued that ecosystem management needs to be reconcep tualized from an approach driven by scientific understanding to one that ta kes account of the multiple sets of interests and values in the political e conomy as a whole. When management has to involve numerous stakeholder grou ps, agreement over sustainable practices will not simply arise from the pre sentation of scientific evidence, but requires a shift in incentive structu res from production to conservation.