An approach to defining greater park ecosystems and its application to Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland)

• Main Author: Keough, Karl
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholars Commons @ Laurier 1998
• Subjects: Natural Resources and Conservation; Natural Resources Management and Policy; Gros Morne National Park; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/397; https://scholars.wlu.ca/context/etd/article/1396/viewcontent/MQ24383.PDF

Ecosystem management is an integrative, cooperative, adaptive approach to resource management that has evolved in response to the growing number of environmental and resource problems over the past several decades. One such problem, the threat to the world’s biodiversity, may be attributed to the destruction, degradation, and fragmentation of habitat resulting from the expanding human population, and the inability to set aside in strict nature reserves, sufficient habitat for wide-ranging mammals and fully functioning ecosystems. The Greater Park Ecosystem concept may be seen as the embodiment of ecosystem management in national parks and a response to the threat to biodiversity. A major challenge to effective implementation of such an idea is defining the boundaries of the management unit or ecosystem. Delineation of these boundaries may be guided by principles of protected area design, as well as by previous efforts to delineate ecosystem boundaries. However, any approach used to delineate the boundaries of a Greater Park Ecosystem should be consistent with the objectives and principles of ecosystem management, both its ecological (substantive) and sociopolitical (process) aspects. In this study an evaluation of previous efforts to delineate ecosystem boundaries was carried out. It concluded, based on criteria drawn from the literature on ecosystem management, national parks management, and protected area design, that no single approach adequately addressed the problem of protecting native biological diversity in national parks, in the face of increasing pressures from beyond the park boundaries. The approach suggested in this study addresses substantive ecological concerns as well as the process of boundary delineation itself. It considers abiotic, biotic, and cultural features and processes of the park region, particularly those that traverse official park boundaries. The location of significant and/or representative features and processes guides the preliminary placement of the Greater Park Ecosystem boundary, ...