This section notes current legal, policy, and programmatic context for the major conservation/policy nexus issues presented in the preceding chapter.
Ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation
The DoD formally established a policy for an ecosystem approach to natural resources management and for the conservation of biological diversity in its 1996 Conservation Instruction (DoDI 4715.3) with current policy being consolidated in DoDI 4715.03 with changes applied in August 2018.19 This and earlier versions of the DoD Biodiversity Handbook informally reinforce that policy. The DoD Policy regarding ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation was derived largely from the recommendations of the “Keystone Center Policy Dialogue on a Department of Defense (DoD) Biodiversity Management Strategy” (Keystone Center, 1996). The Keystone Center, a private non-profit organization, helps individuals and organizations approach environmental and scientific dilemmas and disagreements creatively and proactively. The center assisted the DoD in addressing the issue of biodiversity conservation through a series of dialogues involving the military, the academic community, environmental organizations, and concerned individuals.20
19 https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/471503p.pdf?ver=2019-02-28-120916-070
20https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA597063.pdf
The key elements of DoDI 4715.03 related to ecosystem management include the following goals, principles, and guidelines:
The goal of ecosystem-based management is to ensure that military lands support present and future training and testing requirements while preserving, improving, and enhancing ecosystem integrity. Over the long term, that approach shall maintain and improve the sustainability and biological diversity of terrestrial and aquatic (including marine) ecosystems while supporting sustainable economies, human use, and the environment required for realistic military training operations.
Principles and guidelines for ecosystem management:
Maintain and improve the sustainability and native biodiversity of ecosystems.
- Administer with consideration of ecological units and timeframes.
- Support sustainable human activities.
- Develop a vision of ecosystem health.
- Develop priorities and reconcile conflicts.
- Develop coordinated approaches to work toward ecosystem health.
- Involve the military operational community early in the planning process.
- Develop a detailed ecosystem management implementation strategy for
- installation lands and other programs.
- Meet regularly with regional stakeholders (e.g., state, tribal, and local
- governments; nongovernmental entities; private landowners; and the public)
- to discuss issues and to work towards common goals.
- Incorporate ecosystem management goals into strategic, financial, and
- program planning and design budgets to meet the goals and objectives of the
- ecosystem management implementation strategy.
- Seek to prevent undesirable duplication of effort, minimize inconsistencies,
- and create efficiencies in programs affecting ecosystems.
- Rely on the best science and data available.
- Use benchmarks to monitor and evaluate outcomes.
- Use adaptive management.
- Implement ecosystem management through installation plans and programs.
Biodiversity conservation on DoD lands and waters shall be promoted when consistent with the mission and practicable to achieve the following goals:
- Maintain or restore remaining native ecosystem types across their natural range of variation
- Maintain or reestablish viable populations of all native species in an installation’s areas of natural habitat, when practical.
- Maintain evolutionary and ecological processes, such as disturbance regimes, hydrological processes, and nutrient cycles.
- Manage over sufficiently long-time periods for changing system dynamics.
- Accommodate human use in those guidelines.
Each of the military services has incorporated policies regarding ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation into their natural resources directives. These policies are subject to periodic review and revision because of their relationship to so many other natural resources management issues (e.g. sustainability, encroachment, etc.).
Next Page: Programs that facilitate management at landscape and ecosystem scales
Author
J. Douglas Ripley, Environmental Consultant U.S. Air Force (Retired)
With updates and Additional contributions by: James van Ness, Senior Level Attorney Advisor Office of the Secretary of Defense