Ronald C. Baird Sea Grant Science Symposium

Papers available from the 5th Baird Symposium
The Evolution of Ecosystem Based Management: From Theory to Practice, the 2006 Marine Law Symposium held at Roger Williams University School of Law and 5th Ronald C. Baird Sea Grant Science Symposium, provided analysis of ecosystem based management—a multi-faceted, integrated approach that strives to maintain healthy, productive and resilient ecosystems. The symposium emphasized the management and protection of the marine environment, with discussion of challenges, lessons, and solutions related to socio-economic and political factors influencing implementation of ecosystem-based management within the terrestrial environment and the goods and services required by user populations, including humans. Presentations and discussion revealed that the rapid changes in human demography and spatial distribution over the short-term make a strong argument for more comprehensive, integrated approaches to coastal resource management. Such approaches include environmental ethics—the success of which depends on achieving not just conservation goals but serving economic, cultural, and social needs as well; a systems-based analysis of watershed management (or “ecozoning”); adaptive management; and ecosystem modeling to engage local resource users. 

Invited speakers who contributed to the discussion elaborated further in their respective submissions on ecosystem-based management below.

• Ronald C. Baird, Ecosystem Based Management of Coastal Resources: Performance Enhancement at the Science Policy Interface
• Dorinda G. Dallmeyer, Incorporating Environmental Ethics into Ecosystem-based Management
• Alan Desbonnet and Barry A. Costa-Pierce, Considering an “Ecofunctional-zoning” Approach to Ecosystem-based Management for Narragansett Bay
• Kevin McAleese, Ecosystem-Based Management Lessons from Recent Applications in Terrestrial and Marine Settings