The Ecosystem Approach
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Date
1978-07
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Abstract
Description
This is a Special Report of the Great Lakes Research Advisory Board to
the International Joint Commission in response to the Commission's request
for further advice on the scope and implications of the ecosystem approach
in problem identification, research and management in the Great Lakes Basin
advocated by the Board in its 1977 Annual Report.This ecosystem approach is based on a man-in-a-system concept rather
than on the system-external-to-man concept inherent in the 1972 Great Lakes
Water Quality Agreement.Incorporation of this approach within the advisory and management functions of the Commission and Parties, respectively, necessitates
political recognition of the Great Lakes Basin as an Ecosystem
composed of the interacting elements of water, air, land and living organisms,
including man, within the Basin. It further necessitates explicit recognition
of exchange of materials such as atmospheric pollutants into and out of the
Basin, in biospheric perspective. The ecosystem approach provides the philosophic
basis for a view of man as part of nature. It directs the efforts of
the Parties and the Commission toward treatment of the patient (the Ecosystem)
rather than the symptoms or disease. It relates the biological and technological
activities of man to the carrying capacity of the Ecosystem, linking the
human body to the biosphere.
Keywords
Egosystem, Great Lakes Basin, Transboundary Problems