Landscape Diversity and Agroecosystem Management - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 323

including humans. Learning how to manage in this way
will require collaboration between conservation biologists,
agricultural researchers, farmers, rural sociologists, and
others, as well as new directions in research. Examples of
necessary research include the following:

Unmanaged land, parks, preserves

5%

Commercial
forestry

Agriculture and
animal production

20%

50%

• Determining how to design and manage agro-

ecosystems so that they provide habitats for
species other than agricultural species.

25%

Human settlement
(roads, housing,
industry, mining, etc.)

• Understanding the complex relationships

between ecosystem diversity and the ecological
processes necessary for providing essential
ecosystem services.

FIGURE 22.7 Use of the world's land area. Data from Pimentel,
D., U. Stachow, D. A. Takacs, J. W. Brubaker, A. R. Dumas, J.
J. Meaney, J. A. S. O'Neil, D. E. Onsi, and D. B. Corzilius.
1992. Conserving biological diversity in agricultural and forestry
systems. BioScience 42: 354-362, and Vitousek, P. M., H. A.
Mooney, J. Lubchenco, and J. Melillo. 1997. Human domination
of Earth's ecosystems. Science 277: 494-499.

• Carrying out conservation studies on agricul-

tural lands so that larger-scale projects can
begin to take place, linking more resources and
covering larger areas.

• Making agroecology the bridge between con-

servation and land use in order to sustainably
manage the natural resource base upon which
all plants, animals, and humans depend.

ecosystem services, thus contributing to conservation
of global biodiversity.
Potentially, more species of plants and animals might
be located on land under some degree of human manage-
ment. Numbers per unit area might be quite small, but
total numbers will eventually be high because we are
dealing with such a large land surface. If agroecosystems
in particular are managed and designed in ways that make
them more friendly to native species — diversifying crop-
ping systems in time and space, using agroforestry
designs, reducing pesticide use, and so on — the land-
scapes of which they are a major part can support a greater
diversity of organisms. Vertebrates can be provided with
larger habitats, better food sources, and corridors for
movement. Native plants can have more suitable habitats
and find fewer barriers to dispersal. Smaller organisms,
such as belowground microbes and insects, can flourish
in the less adverse conditions and thus benefit other
species because they are such important elements in eco-
system structure and function.
In short, by managing agricultural landscapes from
the point of view of biodiversity conservation as well as
production, all organisms can benefit in the long term,

• Finding ways to support farmers and their orga-

nizations, so that they benefit from the use of
practices that are conducive to providing and
conserving ecosystem services in the landscape.

• Searching for institutional and social arrange-

ments that support integrated landscape
management.

• Developing more interdisciplinary approaches

to research and problem solving.

The full potential for linking agroecosystems and natu-
ral ecosystems, however, can be realized only with fun-
damental changes in the nature of agriculture itself. The
bottom line is that agriculture must adopt ecologically
sound management practices, including diversification
and the use of biological controls and integrated pest man-
agement as replacements for synthetic pesticides, ferti-
lizers, and other chemicals. Only with such a foundation
can we attain the goal of a sustainable biosphere.

THE ECOLOGICAL VISIONS PROJECT

“Within the discipline of ecology, our thinking has … evolved from a focus on humans as intruders on the natural world
to humans as part of the natural world.”

-Margaret Palmer et al. (2005:4)

In 1988, the Ecological Society of America initiated an effort to define research priorities in ecology for the close
of the 20th century. This effort became The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative (SBI), published as a special report in
the journal Ecology in 1991 (Lubchenco et al., 1991). The SBI described “the necessary role of ecological science
in the wise management of the Earth's resources and the maintenance of the Earth's life support system,” and defined
a “critical research agenda” to fill that role.
Significantly, the authors of the SBI moved well beyond a concern with the natural and least-modified ecosystems
that have historically been the focus of ecology. They saw managed ecosystems — including agroecosystems — as integral