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Richard Forman
Harvard University
Twenty-five years ago in America, Grateful Dead stickers
were plastered on cars, Ronald Reagan was President,
and implications of the Endangered Species Act were
dawning on society. I had just finished catalyzing
a book on
a million-acre piney landscape near Philadelphia and
New York. The chapters fit ecology’s perspective
and paradigm of the time…soil, streams and rivers,
fire, genetics, birds, human effects, and so forth.
In writing the summary chapter the absence of a conceptual
or theoretical framework was striking. Ecology texts
said nothing on the subject. Yet, after our previous
work on forest size and species number, I realized
that
this forested landscape was effectively a huge land
mosaic, where the arrangement of patches is central
to ecological
understanding.
Today, barely a generation later, few ecologists
would do a study without considering implications
of or at the landscape scale. Meanwhile, ecological
principles
for the landscape are rapidly penetrating and being
used by many key fields dealing with land…forestry,
landscape architecture, biological conservation,
transportation, urban and regional planning.
So, what is this spreading
landscape ecology? Some say it is simply the ecology
of landscapes, such as
forested, suburban, desert, and agricultural areas.
That means the study of interactions between organisms
and the environment (ecology) in land areas where local
ecosystems and land uses are repeated in similar form
(landscapes).
Look carefully at the big picture out
an airplane window or on an aerial photo. The land
mosaic displays
a distinctive spatial pattern or structure. It works
or functions, that is, things flow and move through
the pattern. The pattern is dynamic, changing over
time. The structure or pattern is normally composed
entirely of patches (rounded/elongated, large/small,
etc.), corridors or strips (wide/narrow, straight/curvy…),
and background matrix (continuous/discontinuous, perforated
or not…). Such simple but rigorous attributes
opened up the concept of a landscape, well known
in other disciplines, to scientists as a research
frontier.
More to the point, landscape ecology focused exactly
at the scale of human activity.
The remarkable growth
and body of concepts, theory and principles of landscape
ecology is well known (e.g.,
books by Forman, Turner et al., Naveh & Lieberman,
Saunders & Hobbs, Burel & Baudry, H. & O.
Decamps, Lindenmayer & Franklin, Ingegnoli, Farina,
Bennett, Gutzwiller, & other scholars). The field
was international and ecumenical from the beginning,
welcoming any people and concepts that further our
understanding of the ecology of landscapes. The richness
of resulting approaches provided hybrid vigor, plus
survival and growth of the most promising themes.
Principles are put right to work for society. Neat!
Look at today and tomorrow. Forestry was the first
major field to recognize the significance of landscape
ecology, and today foresters widely know, use, and
in some cases develop landscape ecology principles.
Landscape architecture also picked up and contributed
to landscape ecology concepts, which are increasingly
incorporated in practice and projects. Biological conservation,
stimulated by conservation biology, has, like the other
fields, both contributed to and used landscape ecology
principles, in this case to protect rare species. Geography
as a scholarly field, not surprisingly, greatly contributed
to and incorporated landscape ecology in its perspective.
Wildlife biology, agriculture, soil conservation, water
resources, and range science have recognized the new
thinking but seem ripe for much greater usage. Consider
two other fields, transportation and urban and regional
planning.
America’s four-million-mile public-road network
alive with a quarter-billion vehicles reaching nearly
everywhere is the giant on the land embracing us. It’s
an engineering marvel and economic success story, and
connects the land for us. But the road system also
splits nature into countless pieces, and bathes most
with traffic noise and pollutants. Landscape ecology
is at exactly the scale of road systems. In fact, one
little epiphany for me was the sudden realization that
the road system, so prominent in most landscapes, was
the least ecologically known part. Working with rather
than against transportation engineers, planners and
social scientists opened doors for me to understand
the huge problems facing transportation, and to collaborate
in the search for solutions. Promising solutions directly
tied to principles, plus existing examples from abroad,
were the key to the initial and gathering acceptance
of landscape ecology in transportation (Road
Ecology,
2003). As a bonus, ecologists see opportunities for
research and societal problem-solving.
Urban and regional
planning focuses on large cities and metropolitan areas,
but less so on suburban and
sprawl areas. Recently I was invited to do a long-range
plan based on the Land Mosaics (1995) book for an urban
region, the Greater Barcelona Region (the fifth largest
in Europe and about the size of the Greater Boston
Region). The Mayor and Chief Architect (head planner)
chose a landscape ecologist rather than an urban planner
or a conservationist, because nature and people had
to be meshed, including the diverse dimensions of each.
Natural systems and their human uses within the urban
region had to improve over decades while population
growth and development continued. No model for the
work was found. So, 55 principles from landscape ecology,
transportation, hydrology, town planning, etc. were
stated as a foundation. The principles were integrated
with the distinctive spatial patterns, functioning
and dynamics of the region to produce the plan, which
included a range of somewhat-novel detailed solutions
(Mosaico territorial para la region metropolitana
de Barcelona, 2004). Most plans end up on
shelves, and history will record where this one goes.
Nevertheless,
urban and regional planning advances by analyzing proposed
plans, implemented plans, and unplanned areas. Incorporating
landscape ecology principles into plans should not
be difficult and should lead to regular use by urban
and regional planners.
To conclude, obviously I’m energized by the
amazing growth and application of landscape ecology
over barely a blink of American history. I fill Harvard’s
PAES professorship in landscape ecology, am genuinely
stimulated by teaching and students, carry on research,
write books, contribute public service, maintain vibrant
international interactions, participate in a surprising
range of professional meetings, and simply have fun.
But I’m on a search. I want to see the land degradation
spiral reversed, and cannot wait forever. What is the
most promising paradigm or model today to sustain both
nature and people? Of the six to eight possibilities
that come to mind, none seems as promising as landscape
ecology. We all need a vision on which to collaboratively
hang our hats…and change the world.
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