State governments, ecosystem management, and the enlibra doctrine in the US

Some state governments in the US are beginning to adopt ecosystem management policies and practices for conserving natural resources. For the most part, the policies are consistent with the concept of sustaining both economies and the environment. In the western US, state-level ecosystem management programs are meant to increase the influence that states have on the Federal Ecosystem Management Initiative that applies to public lands. This is the intent of the emerging Enlibra doctrine of the Western Governors’ Association for managing the environment on federal lands. This paper discusses the ecosystem management policies that exist or are being developed throughout the 50 states of the US, and compares principles of the ecosystem management concept in the federal government, state governments, and the Enlibra doctrine. Basically, the programs contain similar components and objectives, and they all lack sufficient representation of the tenets of ecological economics. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.