ABSTRACT
A relatively new applied scientific discipline, conservation biology, has emerged to attempt to address the complex relationship between human activities and the protection of ecological systems. Another important ecological concept is that of ecosystem management. It has been said that conservation biology leads to ecosystem management. Adaptive management and ecological resilience are two sides of the same coin. Ecological resilience is necessary for adaptive management approaches to be viable. Adaptive management theory teaches us that environmental management and regulatory decisions are unavoidably based upon incomplete information. An important concept in developing ecologically based management or regulatory systems ecology is the idea of starting with an environmental baseline. Ecological risk assessments have been used since the 1980s, albeit in a more limited and less sophisticated manner that its current uses. Ecological risk assessment is used to evaluate many diverse types of environmental risks related to exposure to one or more environmental stressors, including chemical stressors, physical stressors, and biological stressors.
