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3) Organize a research and monitoring agenda that will provide long-term data bases <br />that may be used to separate variability due to natural and human disturbances (e.g., <br />precipitation, discharge, nutrient loading, primary productivity, population trends of <br />indicator organisms such as the bull charr in the Flathead case history). Utilize <br />university scientists independently and in cooperatives with agency research and <br />management personnel to plan monitoring programs and collect and interpret data. If <br />planned properly, monitoring programs can be both an ongoing evaluation of BMPs <br />and an assessment of environmental change at the catchment level. The latter may be <br />expected to provide insights into the effects of regional or global influences on the <br />catchment. <br />4) Examine management actions from an ecosystem point of view. Formally evaluate <br />the risks that management actions portend and develop alternatives that can be <br />activated if monitoring or research data suggest interferences are manifesting. <br />5) Provide a mechanism (we recommend a commission) that brings managers, <br />researchers and publics into a forum for open debate. The objective is education and <br />information transfer before management actions are implemented. <br />Conclusion: Reconnecting Catchment Ecosystems <br />Ecology as a science has evolved into an understanding of landscapes as <br />interconnected patches that vary in scale from a single rock in a stream to whole <br />catchments (Gillis 1990, Naiman et al. this volume). Research is focused on processes, <br />time frames and disturbances that control the transfer of materials and energy through <br />catchment landscapes. Management in this context refers to actions that limit <br />interference of human disturbances to the extent that catchment ecosystems are <br />sustained in a natural quasi-equilibrium. <br />In many catchments human disturbance has eliminated or severely <br />compromised natural connectivity. Catchment management in the future may logically <br />involve reconnecting patches into landscapes. One example might be re-establishing <br />floodplain springbrooks as functional patches (e.g., as important rearing areas for <br />salmonids). This may involve removal of revetments and allowing flood-pulse events to <br />reconnect the channel and the floodplain (Figure 2). Integrated forest, agricultural lands <br />and urban management portends many other avenues to allow damaged catchment <br />ecosystems to recover. <br />Threats to catchments usually manifest measurably in aquatic habitats as <br />problems related to stream regulation, eutrophication and other forms of water <br />26