Ecosystem management is an approach to natural resource management that aims to ensure the long-term sustainability and persistence of an ecosystem's function and services while meeting socioeconomic, political, and cultural needs. Although indigenous communities have employed sustainable ecosystem management approaches implicitly for millennia, ecosystem management emerged explicitly as a formal concept in the 1990s from a growing appreciation of the complexity of ecosystems and of humans' reliance and influence on natural systems (e.g., disturbance and ecological resilience).

Building upon traditional natural resource management, ecosystem management integrates ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional knowledge and priorities through diverse stakeholder participation. In contrast to command and control approaches to natural resource management, which often lead to declines in ecological resilience, ecosystem management is a holistic, adaptive method for evaluating and achieving resilience and sustainability. As such, implementation is context-dependent and may take a number of forms including adaptive management, strategic management, and landscape-scale conservation.

The term “ecosystem management” was formalized in 1992 by F. Dale Robertson, former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Robertson stated, “By ecosystem management, we mean an ecological approach… [that] must blend the needs of people and environmental values in such a way that the National Forests and Grasslands represent diverse, healthy, productive and sustainable ecosystems.”

A variety of additional definitions of ecosystem management exist. For example, Robert T. Lackey emphasizes that ecosystem management is informed by ecological and social factors, is motivated by societal benefits, and is implemented over a specific timeframe and area. F. Stuart Chapin and co-authors emphasize that ecosystem management is guided by ecological science to ensure the long-term sustainability of ecosystem services, while Norman Christensen and coauthors emphasize that it is motivated by defined goals, employs adaptive practices, and accounts for the complexities of ecological systems. Peter Brussard and colleagues emphasize that ecosystem management balances preserving ecosystem health while sustaining human needs.

As a concept of natural resource management, ecosystem management remains both ambiguous and controversial, in part because some of its formulations rest on contested policy and scientific assertions. These assertions are important for understanding much of the conflict surrounding ecosystem management. For instance, some allege that professional natural resource managers, typically operating from within government bureaucracies and professional organizations, mask debate over controversial assertions by depicting ecosystem management as an evolution of past management approaches.

A fundamental concern of ecosystem management is the long-term sustainability of the production of goods and services by ecosystems, as "intergenerational sustainability [is] a precondition for management, not an afterthought." Ideally, there should be clear, publicly stated goals with respect to future trajectories and behaviors of the system being managed. Other important requirements include a sound ecological understanding of the system including ecological dynamics and the context in which the system is embedded. An understanding of the role of humans as components of the ecosystems and the use of adaptive management is also important. While ecosystem management can be used as part of a plan for wilderness conservation, it can also be used in intensively managed ecosystems (e.g., agroecosystems and close to nature forestry).

Core principles and common themes of ecosystem management:

Sustainable ecosystem management approaches have been used by societies throughout human history. Prior to colonization, indigenous cultures often sustainably managed their natural resources through intergenerational traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). In TEK, cultures acquire knowledge of their environment over time and this information is passed on to future generations through cultural customs including folklore, religion, and taboos. Traditional management strategies vary by region; examples include the burning of the longleaf pine ecosystem by Native Americans in what is today the southeastern United States, the ban of seabird guano harvest during the breeding season by the Inca, the sustainable harvest practices of glaucous-winged gull eggs by the Huna Tlingit, and the Maya milpa intercropping approach (which is still used today).