A Couple of Common Systems Underlying Protected Area Problems

Its been a couple of weeks since I have been able to post, as we have started on a significant remodel of our home. Basically, the family and dining rooms and kitchen have been gutted and will be replaced with a totally new design and interior. Our main outside deck is also being replaced. That work, and living upstairs has kept me occupied.


But last time, I spoke about systems thinking, and mentioned the idea of a ‘fixes that fail’ system. This is one of the systems that characterizes protected area planning and management. Basically, in a fixes that fails system, an action is implemented that has side effects occurring after a delay that were unintended. These side effects counterbalance the primary effect of the original “fix”. I had mentioned campsite closures in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness as an example, which is graphically represented here. Such closures, based on an event-oriented perspective, resulted in more impact, not less. Another example, is the long established Forest Service fire suppression policy. That policy viewed each naturally occurring fire as an event, and not part of a larger, and dynamic, ecosystem process. As a result, fire suppression led to accumulated fuels, which in a drought increased risk of fire and thus led to larger, more intense fires, just the opposite of what was intended. Now that policy has been changed, but the fact remains that it took nearly 75 years for the delay between fire suppression and fuel accumulation to be recognized.

Another common system plaguing protected areas is a ‘shifting the burden’ system. In this system, a problem has several potential solutions. Decision makers select a symptomatic solution because it appears to be effective and has an apparent time frame advantage over a more fundamental solution. Upon implementation, the solution turns out to have a number of unintended side effects, one of which is to solve only symptoms, not the problem itself. One could say that problem displacement represents a shifting the burden solution—see figure. Numerous examples of this occur in protected areas, such as limiting visitor use (one group or type of visitor always is discriminated against, and thus shoulders the burden).

The lesson here is understanding that there is a system underlying the problem that one sees. Knee jerk reactive management can make things worse or lead to consequences neither intended nor desired.