Attitudes toward ecosystem management in the United States, 1992-1998

Ecosystem management has been formally adopted by a large number of state a nd federal agencies and by forest products firms and associations. But litt le research has examined people's attitudes toward this new approach to nat ural resource management. This study used computer methods to measure favor able and unfavorable attitudes toward ecosystem management expressed in 150 0 online news media stories over the period 1992 through 1998. We found tha t ecosystem management is on the downside of the "issue attention cycle," w ith the total quantity of discussion of this concept rising in the early 19 90s, declining during the mid 1990s, and leveling out in recent years. We a lso found that about 78% of all attitudes expressed about ecosystem managem ent in news stories have been favorable, comparable to past research based on surveys of the public. Our analysis suggests that ecosystem management m ay have become a "settled" (i.e., noncontroversial) issue with broad public acceptance.