The Greater Yellowstone policy debate: What is the policy problem?

Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding mountainous region comprise the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), a 19 million acre area that is one of the few relatively intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states. Conservationists believe that continuation of present land management practices in the region will disrupt the ecological integrity of the GYE. Many authors have identified and described these threats, but as yet there has been no sustained effort to make sense of these threats in the context of the ongoing dynamic policy debate. We develop the foundation for such understanding by examining the implicit problem definitions that have emerged from this debate. They fall into three general categories: 1) a scientific definition, 2) an economic definition, and 3) a bureaucratic definition. This process produces an exploratory definition of the policy problem, which suggests a strategy for better understanding and policy design. We propose several intervention points at which substantive, one-the-ground improvements in the management of the GYE are possible.