Monoscapes - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 45

surrounding undesignated area, with policing appearing to help, partic-
ularly in stopping illegal logging. The most effective parks were those with
clearly marked boundaries and close and cordial relations between
authorities and local communities. 44
Nature clearly existed perfectly well before humans intervened, and will
do so after we disappear. But for the moment, we must recognize that most
landscapes are fundamentally shaped by human imagination and action.
This is a continuous dance, a tight coupling of nature and humans, the
outcome of which is what we see around us every day. Equally, though,
we should not conclude that all nature is an emergent property of human-
environment connections. 45 Baird Callicott and colleagues suggest
a middle way for conservation biology. These polarities are helpful
metaphors and rhetorical devices in order to focus debate; but most people
in practice stand somewhere on a spectrum between extremes. There
are such things as wildernesses, and there is a need for protection and
controls. Most 'wild' nature, though, is an emergent property of human
interventions; globally, most biodiversity occurs in human-dominated
ecosystems. This means that human decisions and visions matter, as they
can make a difference by provoking all of us to think and act differently.
But do we have the desire to redesign this relationship? Can we, as if by
alchemy, imagine different outcomes?
Modernism and Monoscapes
Around the time that Muir and Thoreau were writing about wildernesses,
Brandes was forming forest policy in India, the first national park was
being established in the US, the enclosures had finally ended in the UK,
and the Japanese were coming to the end of their Edo period. Edo was
the largest city in the world in the 19th century, with more than 1 million
people and a population density three times as great as today's Tokyo. For
close to three centuries, Edo gave rise to extraordinary artistic and cultural
innovation, producing all of the major Japanese art traditions - tea
ceremonies, flower arranging, Noh and Kabuki dramas, distinctive styles
of architecture, urban design and landscape painting.
According to architect Kisho Kurokawa, 'Edo was known as the city of
blossoms' - a metaphor for innovation, but also for the greenness of the city's
parks and gardens. Kurokawa believes that one of the most important
features of Edo was the hybrid organic nature of design. Diversity was
good, and anything that worked could be used in urban or rural space.
This was not a recipe for chaos, because principles of harmony determined
what would work. But diversity meant synthesis, and the synergistic