Proceedings - Teaching and Learning Centre - Simon Fraser ...

Fraser River Action Plan 3rd Research Workshop
Evaluating the Ecosystem
Objective Setting Process in the Salmon River Watershed
K. Grant
Resource Management and Environmental Studies
University of British Columbia
This presentation reviewed the application of the “ecosystem objective setting process” in the Salmon River
watershed, and then outlined a current research project to evaluate the success of the process. The “ecosystem
objective setting process” is a process by which a community complies and reviews relevant information about
the ecosystem in which they live, and then develops a long-term vision for their ecosystem based on what the
community knows, and how ecosystem residents want to live. The vision is articulated in terms of “ecosystem
objectives” (narrative statements which describe the desired state of an ecosystem). Over the past year, the
Salmon River Watershed Roundtable has undertaken the ecosystem objective setting process in the Salmon
River watershed. The main objective of the evaluation project was to:
1. place the case study in the context of current literature on watershed management and collaborative
processes;
2. describe the procedures used in the case study;
3. evaluate the success of the process from both the participant’s and academic point of view; and,
4. make recommendations regarding the applicability of the process to other watershed ecosystems.
Data collection methods included record collection, participant observation, interviews with process participants
and a survey of watershed residents. Results of this study should be available in the form of a graduate thesis in
August, 1996.
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