| Abstract: |
The world can be considered to be a complex organism with direct and indirect interactions and dependencies. In their systematic assessment of this organism, the physical sciences normally exempt the effect of mankind from their analyses while the social sciences rarely incorporate the natural sciences into their models of human behavior as motivating forces. One exception, natural resource economics, integrates renewable and nonrenewable natural resources into the economic allocation problem as a set of constraints limiting economic opportunities in a dynamic setting. Even these models, whose mathematical complexity implies accuracy and sophistication, are naïve in their implications for actual world ecosystems because of their narrow focus and perspective. Even in a deterministic framework, dynamic interactions can introduce variable and uncertainty in future outcomes. When stochastic effects are formally modeled outcomes can become both counter-intuitive and paradoxical. Dealing with this uncertainty and associated risk requires the adoption of a different methodological approach. From an anthropocentric perspective, the ecosystem model should provide information that can be used by the manager to balance the different stakeholder demands as communities whether virtual or geopolitical vie for access to the natural resources in the an uncertain and risky ecosystem. Science for science sake is insufficient to achieve this goal, physical and social scientists can only provide this information through an integrated management framework that makes a concerted effort to focus on the community. |
