A scientific framework for managing urban natural areas

Due to the natural population growth and the influx of population from other areas of the county, South Florida is experiencing rapid growth. Meeting the challenge of conserving regional ecological integrity in urban and urbanizing landscapes will depend on the development of ecological reserve systems. In southeastern Florida this means managing fragmented, isolated, and frequently disturbed habitat patches for both the conservation of ecological integrity and human enjoyment. A science-based natural area management plan provides a foundation for making the best decisions possible, and the flexibility of modifying them, and fosters public confidence in the process. The scientific framework employed to develop resource management plans for Environmentally Sensitive Lands in Broward County, FL, includes setting goals and objectives based on public involvement through a scoping process and resource inventories and evaluations. Management plans are developed for each site that identify significant resources, threats, restoration potential, and public use alternatives. Management plans are viewed as hypotheses of ecosystem response, and monitoring programs as experiments designed to test them. Management plans should include provisions for modification over time as more is learned about the actual ecosystem response.