Transdisciplinary challenges for sustainable management of mediterranean landscapes in the global information society

Zev Naveh

doi:10.3097/lo.200914

Abstract

The present chaotic transformation from the industrial to the global information society is accelerating the ecological, social and economic unsustainability. The rapidly growing unsustainable, fossil energy powered urbanindustrial technosphere and their detrimental impacts on nature and human well-being are threatening the solar energy powered natural and seminatural biosphere landscapes and their vital ecosystem services. A sustainability revolution is therefore urgently needed, requiring a shift from the "fossil age" to the "solar age" of a new world economy, coupled with more sustainable lifestyles and consumption patterns. The sustainable future of viable multifunctional biosphere landscapes of the Mediterranean Region and elsewhere and their biological and cultural richness can only be ensured by a post-industrial symbiosis between nature and human society. For this purpose a mindset shift of scientists and professionals from narrow disciplinarity to transdisciplinarity is necessary, dealing with holistic land use planning and management, in close cooperation with land users and stakeholders. To conserve and restore the rapidly vanishing and degrading Mediterranean uplands and highest biological ecological and cultural landscape ecodiversity, their dynamic homeorhetic flow equilibrium, has to be maintained by continuing or simulating all anthropogenic processes of grazing, browsing by wild and domesticated ungulates. Catastrophic wildfires can be prevented only by active fire and fuel management, converting highly inflammable pine forests and dense shrub thickets into floristically enriched, multi- layered open woodlands and recreation forests.

Highlights

The object of this essay is to discuss some of the major transdisciplinary challenges, facing the global information society, for landscape ecologists, conservationists, restorationists, stakeholders and decision makers on land use in Mediterranean uplands
In spite of the great advances in science and technology, the emerging global information society has not been able to resolve the deep ecological crisis yet that was created in the last century, caused by rapid population growth and urbanization and coupled with the intensive consumption of fossil fuels, agricultural products, forest products and fresh water supplies
All international and local initiatives and conservation projects and advanced research methods, such as those suggested by Papanastasis and Chouvardas (2005) and Perevolotsky (2005) for integrative landscape ecological management practices, will have sufficient impact to prevent further landscape degradation only if they will strive towards new, post-industrial symbiotic relations between nature and its biosphere landscapes and the emerging global information society, as part of the above-mentioned sustainability revolution in the Mediterranean Basin

Summary

Introduction

The object of this essay is to discuss some of the major transdisciplinary challenges, facing the global information society, for landscape ecologists, conservationists, restorationists, stakeholders and decision makers on land use in Mediterranean uplands. We are in the critical chaos phase, in which the presently accelerating severe ecological, cultural and socio- economic crisis of our Total Human System leaves human society little time for the choice of navigating this transition from the threatening breakdown to a breakthrough towards a sustainable world Such a breakthrough is a „chaos point“, during which any input or influence on the system, small, can replace existing trends by new trends and processes. This is well reflected in the special January 2009 issue of „Frontiers in Ecology and Environment“ Vol.7,devoted to ecosystem services – with the objective to identify and quantify the resources and processes that nature provides to people for the creation of a credible, replicable, reliable and sustainable framework for landscape planning, conservation management and decision making That all these efforts are transdisciplinary challenges has been clearly shown in this issue by the report on the initiatives of „Nature Capital Project“, as implemented in Hawaii (Daily et al 2009).

Mediterranean Biosphere Landscapes as Dynamic Human Perturbation-Dependent

Findings

Discussion and Conclusions