How can environmental problems be solved when they cross boundaries and involve diverse people? What kind of leadership and institutions will bring success? From experience in the greater Yellowstone region, Susan G. Clark looks at leadership and policy in managing natural resources. She assesses accomplishments toward sustainability over the past forty years.

Focusing on The Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee, a federal group of heads of national parks, national forests, and national wildlife refuges, Clark identifies fundamental leadership tasks needed, explains what changes in skill will be required, and makes many practical recommendations for every leader, citizen, and group involved with large-scale conservation anywhere worldwide.

The black-footed ferret, once thought extinct, was rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981. In this book, Tim Clark tells the story of subsequent efforts to save the black-footed ferret, showing how it points up the necessity of finding new ways to conserve and restore species. According to Clark, the problems facing conservation are not fundamentally biological but stem from human systems -- policy decisions, organizational priorities, and professional rivalries. The focus in conservation, he says, must shift from science to practical problem solving.Clark first describes and analyzes efforts to restore the black-footed ferret after 1981 and looks at the processes, people, institutions, and programs that were involved in that endeavor. Finding that the ferret case illustrates many things that go wrong in the implementation of complex environmental policy, Clark then proposes fresh approaches to endangered species recovery. He gives guidelines for improving decisionmaking and development of policies; for devising organizational strategies and structures that are more conducive to learning; and for a new civic professionalism that will raise the standards for performance and better meet society's needs. This policy-oriented approach, he contends, will open up new avenues, methods, and hope for species recovery.A very important work that will be widely read, discussed, and argued. -- Steven J. Bissell, Colorado Division of WildlifeA valuable contribution to a general science policy field where clear and sophisticated thinking is rare. -- Garry D. Brewer, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Natural resources issues are complex, often emotional, and almost always political. Efforts to improve natural resources management practices must take into account the scientific aspects of an issue plus these other dimensions. This book explains how to address and resolve the human issues underlying natural resources problems. It shows how the policy sciences -- a systematic method for analyzing and proposing solutions -- can be applied to any natural resources policy and management problem. The policy sciences approach proves flexible, widely applicable, and useful in developing realistic alternatives in diverse situations.

The book begins with a discussion of what natural resources are, how people make decisions about using them, and how the policy sciences can be used toward improving policy and management practices. Ten case studies inside and outside the United States follow. Policy science methods are applied to such problems as endangered species conservation, urban parks, the development of energy projects, the relations between national parks and people who live near them, ecotourism and biodiversity, and the relation between human rights and environmental conservation in refugee situations.