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understanding and co-inhabiting the biosphere; (2) undertaking the transdisciplinary
work of long-term socio-ecological research networks; and (3) integrating ethics
and ecological sciences through environmental citizenship. Bringing these broad
areas together will contribute to overcoming the geographical and philosophical
gaps that limit effective Earth Stewardship.
Keywords Biocultural ethics • Ecological economics • Environmental justice •
Intercultural • Long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER)
Earth Stewardship implies a paradigm shift that links facts and values, multiple forms
of ecological knowledge and practices, and broadens the mission of the ecological
sciences. To confront global environmental change it is necessary, but not suffi cient,
to conduct long-term socio-ecological research. It is also necessary to act. Earth stew-
ardship calls ecologists to engage not only in the production of knowledge, but also in
public discourse, as well as in decision making, education, and governance. As a
means of engaging science and society in rapidly reducing the rates of anthropogenic
damage to the biosphere, the Ecological Society of America launched the Earth
Stewardship Initiative in 2009 (Power and Chapin 2009 ; Chapin et al. 2011a , b ). 1
Since then, this call for action has been appealing not only to ecologists, but also to
anthropologists, sociologists, engineers, economists, religion scholars, philosophers,
1 Note that the ESA defi nes Earth Stewardship as a science. Chapin et al. ( 2011a , p. 89) defi ne it as
“science that facilitates the active shaping of trajectories of social-ecological change to enhance
ecosystem resilience and human well-being.” The concept has since evolved to be “a strategy to
shape the trajectories of change…;” i.e., the application of sustainability science to problem solv-
ing (Chapin et al. in this volume [Chap. 12 ] ). In this topic we focus on it as a transdisciplinary
science, embedded in social and cultural action. Within the ESA, Earth Stewardship has as ante-
cedents the notions of ecosystem stewardship (Chapin et al. 2009 ) and planetary stewardship
(Power and Chapin 2009 ), and beyond the ESA it is paralleled by the Planetary Stewardship
Initiative developed internationally as part of the scientifi c planning for Future Earth (Steffen et al.
2011 ). See chapters by Callicott and by Chapin et al. in this volume [Chaps. 11 , 12 ] .
S. T. A. Pickett
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies , Millbrook , NY , USA
e-mail: picketts@caryinstitute.org
M. E. Power
Department of Integrative Biology , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA
e-mail: mepower@berkeley.edu
J. J. Armesto
Departamento de Ecología , Pontifi cia Universidad Católica , Santiago , Chile
Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity , Santiago , Chile
e-mail: jarmesto@bio.puc.cl
R. H. May Jr.
Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI) , San José , Costa Rica
e-mail: royhmay@gmail.com
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