ERA OF LAND MANAGEMENT PLANNING AND RESOURCE MODELING: CHANGING TIMES FOR HABITAT MANAGERS

Abstract

America was brought into the modern conservation era by Theodore Roosevelt and Grifford Pinchot at the turn of the century. The public was taught that resources on this land taken in their entirety were great but not limitless and that the strength and well-being of the country required careful resource preservation and multi-purpose development and use. Fazio and Gilbert (1981) documented the evolution of resource management in America by five discernible stages: Era of Abundance (Nation’s beginning to 1850), Era of Exploitation (1850-1930); Era of Habitat and Harvest (1930-1970); Era of People and Environment (1970-present). It is my contention that the Era of People and Environment ended in 1980 and in 1981 resource management in the United states entered a new era. I call this era the Era of Land Management Planning and Resource Modeling. this era brings with it new social demands, new tools for natural resource managers and the mandate to keep ecological stability in focus in all land management and species population decisions. Habitat managers no longer have the freedom or choice to practice what R.W. Behan (1986) called “single-product myopia.”