Key questions for 21st Century ecosystem management

• How do we implement ecosystem-scale policy, while respecting and making best use of the roles and responsibilities of the multiple levels of jurisdictions with legal authority in a bi-national region?
• How do we create efficiency and streamline complexity across multiple programs, while protecting unique fields of expertise, institutional memory, local responsiveness, etc., that the diverse programs bring to management, research and regulation?
• How do we support effective solutions that deal with the needs of specific places (e.g. communities, watersheds, key wetlands, shorelines) while also developing solutions and responses to impacts from the global commons – such as climate change, atmospheric deposition of toxic pollutants, etc.?
• To reduce and eliminate pollution, how do we strike a balance between permit-based regulation and newer approaches that rely on incentives, consent decrees and other planned prevention approaches? What is effective under which circumstances, and is there an optimal mix of approaches? How do we take steps toward maximum reduction of pollution instead of assuming that pollution is just part of business as usual?
• How do we establish equitable and ecologically sound management of natural resources? What about consumptive uses?
• How do we create democratic and inclusive systems that engage a broad public spectrum in decision-making, and also engage the best expertise of leaders in science, environment, health and business?
• As global warming further changes the biosphere and has dramatic impacts on world fresh water supplies, how do we design regulatory and management systems that can best safeguard freshwater resources and other critical ecosystem functions?