Making ecosystem-based science into guidelines for ecosystem-based management: The Greater Fundy Ecosystem experience

The Greater Fundy Ecosystem (GFE) project is an attempt to design and implement a plan to manage a landscape on an ecologically sustainable basis. The overall aim is to protect ecological structures, functions, and processes while providing sustainable flows of goods and services for people. A key element of the GFE project is the integration of a protected area into its regional landscape as a single greater ecosystem. At the core of the GFE project is Fundy National Park (FNP), a small (206 km 2) national park located on the upper Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada. The landscape surrounding the park is managed mainly for industrial forestry, often to the park boundary. The contrast between the park and adjacent landscape led to concerns that the ecological integrity of FNP was being affected and that these stresses should be defined and, if needed, mitigated. During our research and the development of guidelines related to the maintenance of forest biodiversity, it became apparent that successful implementation of an ecologically sustainable landscape relies on several key things. These include: a landscape-level appreciation of ecological process; stand-scale application of best-management practices; a political climate that supports change in forest management practices; and a vehicle for stakeholders to work for change. The Fundy Model Forest, one of ten such sites in Canada, was the vehicle that allowed partners to reach a comfortable balance of objectives with values for the environment and economy. Fundy National Park represented a benchmark for conducting comparative research of the impact of industrial forestry and "natural" forest. In our work we found that the large protected area was instrumental in distributing the perceived costs of biodiversity over an ecologically defined forestry operation. Industrial forest managers were more willing to adopt objective-based guidelines than restrictive practice-based rules. The process of making science into guidelines requires recognition of the limitations of science and the stage when that science must be replaced by professional judgment.