On Frank Golley’s International and Interdisciplinary Insights for a Twenty-First Century Earth Stewardship Based on Environmental Ethics - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 427

processes across the landscape. The fragmentation and loss of suitable habitats are
increasing rates of species extinction in many areas (Lovejoy 2002 ; Raven et al.
2011 ; Pimm et al. 2014 ) and threatening the capacity of ecosystems to sustain their
essential processes (Covich et al. 2004 ; Naeem et al. 2009 ; Loreau 2010 ). The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ( 2005 ) provided a global view of ecosystem
services that ecologists, economists, and many others can evaluate by considering
alternative future in the context of environmental ethics that Golley championed
(Carpenter et al. 2009 ).

29.7 Learning from Long-Term Research on Tropical

Ecosystems

Frank Golley contributed to developing concepts linking ecosystems, landscapes,
and historic legacies to how people manage whole ecosystems. Golley ( 1993 ) sug-
gested that these “response systems” are dynamic ecosystems whose “state at any
particular time is contingent upon its history and the environment…it has a recipro-
cal relation to its environment and is not merely responding to it.” This view is dis-
tinct from the earlier static perspective that dominated previous uses of the concept.
Golley emphasized the importance of long-term information about an ecosystem's
history and specifi c antecedent effects for understanding the past as part of the basis
for considering management options. Golley was effective in communicating this
view within a wide international community as well as at the US National Science
Foundation during his 2-year appointment as director of the growing ecosystem
program.
Golley's contributions also refl ect the importance of environmental ethics from
an international, multi-cultural perspective and the need for long-term research
leading to better understanding of ecosystems and the sustained production of goods
and services based on biodiversity. As a result of his international research and
teaching, Golley was involved in studies of different management approaches to
tropical forest and agricultural ecosystems. His work with the World Bank,
UNESCO, and the National Science Foundation provided many opportunities to
make the point that healthy ecosystems are of great value to people, and that these
values are based on sustaining the biosphere's diversity.
A series of studies in tropical locations yielded new ideas about how ecosystems
function following different types of disturbance. These studies illustrate how
Golley viewed the importance of different rates of ecological and cultural changes
in Neotropical ecosystems in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Venezuela (Boxes 29.1 ,
29.2 , and 29.3 ). He recognized the need for a diverse set of site-based, long-term
studies to generate comparable information on how the “response systems” varied
following disturbances. Golley compared results from different sites and developed
his ideas on the importance of connections and hierarchical ordering among many
direct and indirect interrelationships (Wu 2014 ). Golley's focus on “connectedness”
provides some lessons for resolving similar challenges today. These studies also