Your assignment one is ” In this individual research assignment, students will assess a Canadian company’s major expansion in the context of how well they incorporated the six key aspects of Ecosystem Based Management.”

The company you will choose will be a Canadian municipality, a Town or City. These are businesses in that they are incorporated entities who conduct a fair amount of business. Municipalities also have lots of projects, are easily accessible with lots of public documentation and not least of all, many are leaders in applying ecosystem thinking!

Best wishes for good learning in assignment one.

The six elements of EBM are:

Unit 2 is a fundamental building block of this course. You will be introduced to Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) and six key aspects that support that.. These six concepts will be part of a new model to be adapted into future business planning exercises in the course. Understanding this aspect of the course is essential to developing an appreciation of the need for a holistic and sustainable approach to business and human activity planning.

The six key elements that you will explore are:

1. integration of ecological, social, and economic goals and recognition of humans as key components of the ecosystem;

2. consideration of ecological- not just political- boundaries;

3. accounting for the complexity of natural processes and social systems and using an adaptive management approach in the face of resulting uncertainties;

4. engaging multiple stakeholders in a collaborative process to define problems and find solutions;

5. incorporating understanding of ecosystem processes and how ecosystems respond to environmental perturbations; and

6. concerned with the ecological integrity of coastal-marine (or any other) systems and the sustainability of both human and ecological systems.

The development of this knowledge of ecosystem planning will equip you to be able to critique planning activities in relation to the quality of the holistic or sustainable components of that plan. You will work with this concept for the rest of the course.