Implications of Records of Catastrophic Change for the Development of an Ecosystem Approach to Environmental Decision-Making
by
Nancy C. Weeks Doubleday
Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1S 5B6

In Canada, the development of an "ecosystem approach" in environmental law and policy represents one strategy for providing a conceptual framework for integration of the findings of the social and physical sciences in the process of environmental decision-making. However the integration of the possibility of catastrophic change within an ecosystem approach is rarely, if ever, attempted, as ecological studies are generally conducted during a relatively short time-interval. As a result of better understanding of processes of catastrophic change and recovery in the Holocene, an opportunity exists for policy-makers to conceptualise a temporal dimension for ecosystem approaches to decision-making that transcends conventional human planning horizons and assumptions of static, initial conditions.

Date received: April 15, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caji-03.