Must # 1: Heed the results of Dietrich Dörner’s research, as covered in his book, The Logic of Failure. About the book, Michael Crichton says:
Future environmentalists will heed Dietrich Dörner’s “The Logic of Failure.” Mr. Dörner is a cognitive psychologist who invited academic experts to manage the computer simulations of various environments (an African herding society, a town in Maine). Most experts made things worse. Those managers who did well gathered information before acting, thought in terms of complex-systems interactions instead of simple linear cause and effect, reviewed their progress, looked for unanticipated consequences, and corrected course often. Those who did badly relied on a fixed theoretical approach, did not correct course and blamed others when things went wrong. Mr. Dörner concludes that our failure to manage complex systems such as the environment reflects bad habits of thought, over-reliance on theory and lazy procedures. (Quoted from The Wall Street Journal, 9/29/05.)
Must # 2: Realize that managing the environment is more an art than a science. In Prussian field marshal Graf von Moltke’s words:
Strategy is a system of makeshifts. It is more than a science. It is bringing knowledge to bear on practical life, the further elaboration of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances. It is the art of acting under the pressure of the most demanding conditions. . . . That is why general principles, rules derive from them, and systems based on these rules cannot possibly have any value for strategy. (Quoted from The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dörner, p. 97.)
Must # 3: Absorb every point of Michael Crichton’s essay, "Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century,” taking its warnings and suggestions to heart. For an excerpt from Crichton’s essay, as well as Internet access to all of it, go Dave Iverson’s Forest Policy - Forest Practice weblog by clicking here.
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