Improving Ecosystem Governance: Lessons from Watershed Management Programs in the United States

Master of Public Administration Program

Improving Ecosystem Governance:Lessons from Watershed

Management Programs in the United States

Mark T. Imperial, Ph.D.Master of Public Administration Program

University of North Carolina at WilmingtonWilmington, NC [email protected]

http://people.uncw.edu/imperialm/index.htm


What is the Ecosystem Approach?

• Usual tendency assumes that no watershed is “managed” without some form of centralized government program– Programs often emphasize science and some form of

participatory planning process

• But all watersheds are “managed” in various ways– Complex set of programs at the federal, state, and local level

– Watershed management is as much a problem of improving governance as it is science or policy design


Ecosystem Governance

• Governance– Means for achieving direction, control, and coordination of

organizations with varying degrees of autonomy in order to advance the objectives to which they jointly contribute

• Challenge for practitioners: – Find ways to enhance governance in a world of shared power

where the capacity for solving problems is widely dispersed and few organizations have the power to accomplish their missions by acting alone


Improving Ecosystem Governance

• When viewed from an institutional perspective, you improve ecosystem governance by– Building, enhancing, expanding, or changing interorganizational

networks

– Managing interorganizational networks more effectively

– Maintaining existing network relationships

– Altering, changing, or improving how decisions are made both within and across organizations (integration and coordination)

– Building new institutions that improve problem solving capacity

• These activities are likely to occur at different levels– Operational, policy-making, & institutional level


Ecosystem Management in the U.S.• Wide variety of watershed based programs operating

at different scales that use an ecosystem approach– Great Lakes Program– Chesapeake Bay Program– National Estuary Program (NEP)– Lake Tahoe– Special Area Management Plans– State Watershed Partnership Programs

• Other ecosystem-based programs include– South Florida Ecosystem Restoration (Everglades)– Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem– Marine Sanctuary Program– Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of Maine Programs


National Estuary Program (NEP)

• Covers 28 watersheds of varying size, ecological conditions, and environmental problems– Phased in as five groups of programs

• Heavy emphasis on scientific research– During both planning and implementation

• Heavy emphasis on rational planning– Uses a management conference and consensus decision making– Flexibility given to programs to select issues and priorities

• Limited source of dedicated implementation funding– Enough to support a program office and some Comprehensive

Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) implementation– Leverage resources of other federal, state, & local programs


NEP Planning Process


Management Conference


Objectives of the Management Conference

• Stimulate the transfer of scientific, technical, and management experience and knowledge among management conference participants

• Enhance the general public's and the decisionmaker's awareness of environmental problems

• Provide opportunities to discuss solutions to environmental problems

• Synthesize input to decision making processes

• Provide a forum to build partnerships and obtain commitments necessary to implement the CCMP


Demonstrates Some Principles & Operational Guidelines

• Recognizes that management objectives are a matter of societal choice

• Implementation structures typically decentralize decision making to the lowest possible level

• Emphasis is typically on preserving important ecosystem functions while trying to balance economic uses

• Some programs have done a good job of identifying performance measures (activities or outcomes) and recognizing that change requires long timeframes


What can be learned from the U.S. experience about making the

ecosystem approach operational?


Context Matters• Watershed governance efforts are influenced by:

– Physical environment: size, location, relative isolation, visible boundaries, proximity of organizations

– Political environment: trends include performance measures, reinvention, resource shortages, shifting local politics, etc.

– Socioeconomic environment: are there local resources to support implementation?

– Institutional environment: institutional ecosystem creates opportunities and constraints on joint action

– Local culture: rural vs. urban, nature of the problems, local preference for specific policy solutions

– Situational histories: particularly previous governance efforts, history of organizational conflicts


Importance of Leadership• Leadership at all stages of the process is critical to

initiate, maintain, and expand cooperative processes– Entrepreneurs: View programs as a way to attract new

resources or elevate problems on federal/state agendas– Coordinators: Someone has to call meetings, provide a

central point of contact, and keep the effort going as interest ebbs and flows

– Facilitators: Unclear if outside facilitators are necessary but someone has to help resolve disputes

– Fixer, broker, or devil’s advocate: find opportunities for joint action, keeps participant’s “eye on the ball”, keeps the group grounded in practical and political realities

– Champions: Strong advocate for particular courses of action who gets others to follow


Role of Science

• Science is most influential in identifying problems, framing options, and evaluating progress– It is less useful in helping to make decisions

• Important to “nest” science in the decision making process– Science rarely tells decision makers what to do or how to do it

– “Sound science” is in the eye of the beholder – even the best study can be politicized


Scale

• Select a scale to fit the problem– All problems are not watershed problems – some are best

addressed at other levels– Larger scale expands the set of potential problems– As the number of problems expands so do the number of

affected stakeholders– This can combine to create heterogeneous stakeholders interests– It can also lead to higher the transaction costs

• Consider using nested institutional arrangements– Basin goals with smaller focused management efforts to address

problems in specific subwatersheds– Planning often is tiered


Decision Making Processes• Need a well managed decision making process

– Minimize transaction costs

– Develop clear rules for who is involved, what gets decided, and how it gets decided and then institutionalize the rules

– Joint decision making and advisory committees are different concepts and should be organized differently

• Importance of trust and relationships– Need to utilize interactive processes that foster the development of

trust and personal relationship –precursor and product of cooperative processes

– Shared norms and trust are important governance mechanisms that lower transaction costs and promote efficient resource exchanges

– Trust builds slowly, can be destroyed quickly, and needs to be maintained


How do you improve ecosystem governance and build new

institutions?


Think Holistically, Act Strategically• Important to understand the “ecology of governance”

– The unique contextual setting, tradeoffs among problems, and how institutions function and interact

– Look for strategic opportunities to improve ecosystem governance – don’t separate planning from implementation

• Avoid a “centralized is best” mindset– Applies to both planning and implementation– Tendency to try and manage all activities using one large

committee– By way of contrast, you could use series of targeted efforts

involving only the actors need to complete the task– This polycentric approach can reduce transaction costs, increase

flow of information, and allows potential collaborators to negotiate directly with one another


Operational Level• Activities involve government service delivery

– Improve environmental conditions directly or indirectly

– Occur individually or collectively

– Influenced by activities at the policy-making or institutional level

• Improving environmental conditions– Habitat restoration, installing BMPs or other environmental

infrastructure, land acquisition, coordinated permit programs

• Educating decisionmakers and the public– Educational and training programs targeted at schools, homeowners,

industry, resource users, and government officials

• Monitoring and enforcement– New monitoring programs, coordinating existing environmental

monitoring programs, and improved regulatory enforcement


Policy-Making Level

• Collective decisions that determine, enforce, continue, constrain, or alter actions at the operational level– Performs a steering function by improving communication,

coordinating actions, and integrating policies that advance shared goals

• Knowledge sharing– Examples: joint research projects, interagency databases (e.g., GIS), co-

locating staff, creating work groups, task forces, committees, and regular informal staff interactions

– Activities are necessary because

• Information is often lacking or widely dispersed

• Competition for resources and policy direction – helps practitioners find creative solutions to shared problems


Policy-Making Level

• Resource sharing– Shortage of resources (staffing, funding, expertise) is common– Examples: hiring staff to work in other organizations, volunteers,

sharing costs, using another agency’s funding priorities

• Develop shared policies and norms– Examples: shared policy documents, joint work plans, shared priorities

for infrastructure investment, BMPs, habitat restoration, or land acquisition

– Activities help• Creates a shared sense of purpose• Creates peer pressure at the political, professional, and individual

levels – helps enforce agreements and encourages action• Integrate policies & agency decisions at the operational level -

steering function


Institutional Level

• It is important to not only establish meaningful interactions, but find ways to make these relationships endure– Key: institutionalize shared policies in a higher order set of rules or

create new organizational structures

• Institutionalize shared policies in existing institutions– Examples: MOU, creating a new program, incorporating policies into

comprehensive plans, CIPs, or other plans, legal agreements, or new legislation

• Create new network organizations– When a group of organizations makes joint decisions or acts as a single

entity they are acting as a new organization – an organization comprised of other organizations


Institutional Level

• These activities are important because they– Enhance or constrain activities at other levels

– Make activities less dependent on personal relationships or hard to replace leaders

– Minimize turnover problems (e.g., loss of institutional memory or trust embedded in personal relationships)

– Provide institutional infrastructure that subsequent collaborative efforts build upon

– Provide slack resources to support collaborative activities at the policy making or operational levels


Public Value is Generated in Different Ways

• Improved environmental conditions is often the driving force that initiates watershed efforts– Respondents often point to intangible issues related to improved

ecosystem governance when asked about program benefits

• Public value is generated at different levels– Individual

– Organizational

– Network

– Societal


Sources of Public Value• Improved job satisfaction or motivation• Learning, adaptation, and change

– Policy-oriented learning– Diffusion of innovations– Collaborative know-how

• Developing organizational and network capacity– Enhances coordination– Improves program effectiveness/efficiency– Better decision-making and resource allocation– Leverages new resources

• Social capital and civil society– Trust and personal relationships– Volunteerism and civic engagement


What is needed to implement ecosystem management and what

are the potential obstacles?


Inertia & Bandwagon Effects• While the pattern of activities in each watershed

varies, it is common to find that– Initial efforts are slower than expected – They then increase in scope and number as participants gain

experience and learn how to work together or– They gradually peter out as enthusiasm and resources diminish,

participants are unable to overcome their differences, or they are unable to find ways to work together

• Inertia– Participants underestimate the time and effort required to build

relationships and trust – precursors to joint action– Takes time to plan and organize efforts, secure necessary

resources, and reach agreement on a course of joint action


Inertia & Bandwagon Effects

• Bandwagon effects– Once a threshold level of success is achieved, efforts build

momentum, pick up speed, gain new members and resources, and expand to address new issues and problems

• Advice for practitioners– Gradually scale up efforts to facilitate learning– Start with issues where there is strong support, build on early

successes, and expand efforts to other issues/problems over time– Enlarge “shadow of the future” so there is reason for continued

interaction– Trust builds slowly, can be destroyed quickly, and it must be

maintained


Common Implementation Problems• Disposition and skills of implementors

– Some staff/organizations may not like working together– Staff/organizations lack skills to participate effectively or

manage network processes

• No slack resources– If you can’t do more than attend meetings, you can’t get much

done

• Adequate financial resources are lacking– Need to systematically address specific problems to avoid

“random acts of environmental kindness”

• Lots of incentives for noncooperative behavior– Turf guarding, conflicting budgetary and statutory

responsibilities, competing programmatic priorities, etc.


Resources• It takes resources such as time, money,

equipment, staff, technical expertise, and legal authority to get things done– If resources are distributed among organizations it creates

complementary relationships and incentives for joint action

• Problem occurs when there is a heavy reliance on external funding– Funding agency sets priorities rather than watershed effort

– Important to avoid “random acts of environmental kindness”


Resources• Slack resources are important

– If partners contribute nothing more than staff to attend meetings, then it is unlikely the group can accomplish much

– Some projects require capital, others require staff, equipment, etc. that can be allocated to support network activities

– Organizations with slack resources may be more likely to make investments in relation-specific assets

• Stability in funding is important– Facilitates repeated interactions

– Allows participants to plan and budget with confidence

– Reduces transaction costs related to finding funding


What role did adaptive management practices play in

learning about the structure and function of ecosystems?


Adaptive Management• Use of adaptive management practices is limited

– Lots of constraints on its use

– Reluctance to revise plans even when they get out of date

– Implementation often follows a learning by doing but the problem then becomes one of accountability

• Use performance measures and reporting processes to encourage learning– Lots of examples

– This policy-oriented learning takes place over longer timeframes

• Best thought of as a management philosophy– Encourages policy-oriented learning and embraces

organizational change and innovation


Accountability

• Accountability is a two-edged sword– Specific goals, objectives, and monitoring processes provide

incentives for joint action

– Monitoring processes create peer pressure at the political, professional, and individual level

– But there is a constant tension between organizational autonomy and accountability

– Too much accountability can create disincentives for joint action


Summary and Conclusions

• If want to encourage systematic efforts targeted at specific problems you should consider using “nested” arrangements– Develop networked organizations with the capacity to organize

activities, monitor behavior, and resolve disputes

– Use a planning process to develop shared policies with performance measures and targets to guide operational activities

– Use joint reporting and other forms of monitoring to create peer pressure at the individual, professional, and political level


Summary & Conclusions

• Network organizations perform important functions– Steering function and a way to manage the complexity inherent

in networked settings

– Create stability and encourage investments in network processes

– Provides resources to encourage, organize, and support activities at the policy-making and operational levels

– Improve a network’s problem-solving capacity


Summary & Conclusions

• Ecosystem management is advanced governance and there is no substitute for well managed programs– Management matters– Need good director and staff and have them work as a team– Wide range of skills required to manage network processes

• Build on early successes and expand efforts over time – Pick issues where there is strong intersectoral support and

celebrate the small wins to get the bandwagon rolling– Implementation tends to be a trial and error process as

practitioners learn how to work together in productive ways– Path-dependent quality - some activities will be preparatory to

others


Questions?

Improving Ecosystem Governance: Lessons from Watershed Management Programs in the United States

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