Comparing the Ecosystem Approach with sustainable use

The Ecosystem Approach and sustainable use represent two approaches, at two different scales, to the management of living natural resources and biodiversity conservation. Both approaches have been endorsed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which has provided an important institutional context for their development and elaboration. Each approach establishes a certain goal and offers direction and recommendations on how that goal is to be realised. Both approaches are characterised at a high level of generality. This is appropriate in that both are intended to be applied in a wide variety of circumstances, but it has raised questions about their exact meaning and manner of implementation. One pressing issue, which is the subject of this paper, concerns the relationship between the two approaches. It is suggested that the Ecosystem Approach provides an over-arching framework for biodiversity management, with sustainable use as one element within that framework.