Phase I Inventory of Current EPA Efforts to Protect Ecosystems

This Inventory includes summaries of projects that involve EPA and its partners in place-based management and ecosystem protection - an approach intended to integrate environmental management with human needs, consider long-term ecosystem health, and highlight the positive correlations between economic prosperity and environmental well-being. The purpose of this document is to let readers throughout EPA and outside the Agency know of the increasing amount and variety of ecologically oriented activities in which EPA is participating and the many places at which these activities are occurring. The Inventory was prepared under the direction of EPA's Ecosystem Protection Task Force. The Inventory covers ongoing projects and was compiled from submittals by Regions, Headquarters Program Offices, and EPA Laboratories. Except for minor editorial changes, the summaries appear exactly as submitted. About half of these project summaries were submitted originally to the Watershed Protection Approach 1993/94 Activity Report, and the other were submitted in response to Task Force requests issued Agency-wide. The submittal process was voluntary and as a result the Inventory is not comprehensive. The Introduction includes a brief description of the Inventory, background information about emerging EPA policies concerning place-based management and ecosystem protection, criteria for projects listed, and thoughts on revising and improving the Inventory over time. Following the Introduction, Part One summarizes EPA's largest ecologically oriented projects; these are large-scale initiatives that cover areas of at least 100,000 square kilometers. Part Two, which constitutes most of the report, is organized by EPA Region and includes summaries of ongoing, place-based projects at the local scale (less than 100,000 square kilometers). Part Three describes multi-site projects and programs, in which generally the same ecosystem-oriented activity is carried out at a number of placed distributed throughout the Region or nation. A national map or local-scale and large-scale project locations appears on page 5, and a Region-specific map accompanies each Regional projects chapter. To allow each Regional chapter to stand alone, projects that extend across Regional boundaries are summarized under each Region in which they occur.