Ecosystem management

is concerned with how to manage the complex interaction of ecological and social systems in order to provide sustainable values to societies, even when scientists and managers do not know enough to accurately predict the behavior of those systems. [fn]Source: (USAID 2005) from "USAID Biodiversity Primer"[/fn] … An approach to maintaining or restoring the composition, structure, function, and delivery of services of natural and modified ecosystems for the goal of achieving sustainability. It is based on an adaptive, collaboratively developed vision of desired future conditions that integrates ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional perspectives, applied within a geographic framework, and defined primarily by natural ecological boundaries.