Ecologies as a complement to ecosystem services? Exploring how landscape planners might advance understanding about human–nature relationships in changing landscapes

Abstract

One of the key challenges for landscape planners is to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services. In this context, alternative concepts such as ecologies have potential to complement ecosystem services when applied to human–nature relationships in changing landscapes. The objectives of this article are: (1) to review how landscape planners use major critical approaches to translate the meaning of ecosystem services and (2) to introduce why ecologies provides helpful insights to complement ecosystem services. A conceptual framework examines how landscape planners use critique to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services. This framework is then revised as a scenario to reframe the meanings of ecologies and ecosystem services. Landscape planners use three critical approaches to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services to advance the understanding of human–nature relationships in changing landscapes. Yet, they identify some important issues and gaps that emerge when it is applied. These issues and gaps are part of the rationale for why landscape planning is at a crossroads with ecosystem services. This rationale is then extended to create a scenario for why a revised conceptual framework is needed for landscape planners to reframe the meanings of ecologies and ecosystem services. The translational challenge of ecologies and ecosystem services is an example of the key role that landscape planners play in developing a deeper understanding of human–nature relationships.