Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
arts of the biosphere, with an important role to play in preserving global biodiversity. In addition, recognizing the
complex nature of environmental problems, they called on ecologists to forge alliances with researchers in other
disciplines, both in the natural and in the social sciences.
The SBI, therefore, represented a breaking down of the barriers that have long separated the science of ecology
from agricultural research, agroecology, and other areas of applied research. The SBI was a clear indication that
ecologists were beginning to recognize the importance of research that addresses the ecology of highly modified
systems in which humans are major ecological actors.
For more than a decade, the SBI served as an important framework for refocusing ecological research, and it was
an impetus for bringing ecological knowledge into the policy-making arena. Then in 2002, the Ecological Society of
America began taking a fresh look at the role the science of ecology should take in moving society toward sustainability.
In addition to establishing a section for Agroecology within the society, it launched the Ecological Visions Project
(EVP), outlined in
Ecological Science and Sustainability for a Crowded Planet: 21st Century Vision and Action Plan
for the Ecological Society of America
(Palmer et al. 2004a), published in April 2004 by the ESA. The action-oriented
EVP takes the SBI a step further by encouraging ecologists to focus even more strongly on how humans interface
with nature.
The EVP recommends three areas of action: “building an informed public; advancing innovative, anticipatory
research; and stimulating cultural changes [within ecology] that foster a forward looking and international ecology”
(Palmer et al. 2004a:5).
The authors of the EVP document note that previous work on the ecology of natural systems has “uniquely
positioned researchers to create an ecology of the future: a science that reshapes the view of key ecological questions
and a science that explicitly recognizes and incorporates the dominant influence of humans” (Palmer 2004a:8). They
also observe that “many ecologists who once concentrated their research on systems with “minimal” human influence
are now focusing on how humans interface with nature … and are now considering the relevance of their work for
policy” (Palmer et al 2005:8).
These same authors see a role for ecology that closely aligns it with agroecology:
Our future environment will largely consist of human-influenced ecosystems, managed to varying degrees, in which
the natural services that humans depend on will be harder and harder to maintain. The role of science in a more sustainable
future must involve an improved understanding of how to design ecological solutions, not only through conservation and
restoration, but also by purposeful invention of ecological systems to provide vital services. Shifting from a focus primarily
on historical, undisturbed ecosystems to a perspective that acknowledges humans as components of ecosystems, together
with new research on ecosystem services and ecological design, will lay the groundwork for sustaining the quality and
diversity of life on Earth (Palmer et al. 2004b:1252).
At the same time that ecologists are recognizing the importance of “human-influenced systems,” agroecological
researchers and others who study these systems are putting ever greater emphasis on ecologists' traditional
concerns by studying the role highly managed systems play in preserving the integrity of natural ecosystems and
protecting global biodiversity. The ultimate goal of research in both disciplines is fundamentally the same — sustained
functioning of the biosphere as a whole.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
4.
Why are the small-scale, integrated farming
systems of traditional farmers in a better posi-
tion to provide important ecosystem services
than large-scale conventional systems?
1.
What are some of the possible ways that organi-
sms typical of natural ecosystems can contri-
bute to the sustainability of agroecosystems?
5.
What kind of criteria should be used to determine
which species in the agricultural landscape are
the most important to preserve and enhance?
2.
What principal changes must occur in the way
present-day conventional agroecosystems are
managed in order for them to contribute to the
conservation of biodiversity as well as to satisfy
human needs for food production?
6.
How is the landscape perspective important in
sustainable agriculture management?
3.
Why is the biodiversity of smaller, less obvious
organisms in ecosystems, such as fungi and
insects, of potentially greater importance
to sustainability than that of the larger, more
obvious mammals and birds?
INTERNET RESOURCES
The Ecotope Mapping Working Group
www.ecotope.org
The site of the landscape agroecologist Erle
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