Ecosystem Thinking Research Articles

Beyond identity crisis: The challenge of recontextualizing ecosystem delimitation

In a series of papers, three important system ecologists, Bernard C. Patten, Sven E. Jorgensen and Milan Straškraba attempt to revise the old ecosystem field and construct a new systems ecology. Inevitably, their attempt is faced with some of the same problems that led the field to decline. The indefiniteness of ecosystem boundaries is one of them, maybe the most important. Systems’ ecology failure to define ecosystem boundaries was considered a significant obstacle for the conceptualization of the ecosystem as a valid organizing unit of nature and resulted in a disciplinary identity crisis. To surmount this crisis, the authors introduce into the field innovative ideas which have their origin in the so-called postmodern network theories. These ideas reinforce the concept of environment and allow for a relative conception of space, which might have beneficial effects in delimiting ecosystems. However, the problem-solving potential of these ideas is not activated because the authors remain stitched to the Odumian mode of ecosystem thinking and avoid recontextualizing the old building blocks.

Ecosystem Thinking in the Northern Forest—and Beyond

Regionally based, collaborative efforts from diverse stakeholders are critical to identify and address diverse and complicated environmental challenges. We present here an example from the Northern Forest Ecoregion of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, which currently is being degraded by a variety of simultaneous environmental impacts, including acid rain, fragmentation of landscapes, mercury and salt pollution of water resources, invasive alien species and diseases, and climate change. We propose five sustained, multigenerational actions to protect and restore the vital ecosystem functions of the Northern Forest Ecoregion.

Thinking and curriculum

Exploring thinking It is interesting wonder about situations and consider whether thinking is involved in each, and when it is, what forms of thinking are involved, and whether they are significant education. Consider following: solving a mathematics problem, following a recipe, doing dishes, writing a story, remembering a past event, feeling sorry for someone, watching a sunset, listening music, and breathing. All these involve conscious, subconscious or unconscious brain processing, but whether they involve thinking depends on how one defines thinking--in particular, whether only conscious brain processing should be considered in that definition. For me, it seems difficult separate conscious and nonconscious thinking. Nonconscious thinking can be made conscious with development of awareness (which itself can be considered be a form of thinking). Thinking within education more often has a focus on critical, creative or metacognitive. While these might provide starting points for trying define thinking, it is difficult categorise situations, such as those above, in terms of these forms. thinking is not limited these forms, and different forms often overlap in any single activity. I would like define thinking as continuous multitask processing that is inherent in every aspect of our existing, knowing and doing while we are alive. I do appreciate, however, practicality of a definition of thinking for education that limits it conscious aspects of such processing. Traditionally, from a theoretical perspective, brain has often been compared a machine with inputs and outputs. From a systems approach, it is more appropriate, as Minsky (as cited in Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991) explains, consider brain as using its processes change itself--which means that processes cannot be separated from products. For example, brains make memories, which change subsequent thinking. such a view of brain makes no mention of representation, and reflects operational closure in which the results of its processes are those processes themselves (Varela et al., 1991, p. 139). Thinking also links with philosophy and its three cornerstones: being (ontology), knowing (epistemology) and acting (ethics). Some philosophers give these different weightings, but I see them as interrelated aspects of thinking that are all relevant in domains in which we function (for example, physical, personal, social, ecological and abstract domains). I concur with statement that to live is know (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 174), and, for me, this implies that living/ being, knowing/learning and acting/doing are all inseparably linked with thinking. One can extend my notion of thinking and ask, Does an animal, plant, a stone and world itself think? Philosophers such as Spinoza saw thought as an inherent aspect of substance (Stevenson, 2005, p. 163) and this notion has appeal for many deep ecological philosophers (Naess, 2008, pp. 230-251). For me, it is not only people who are in a state of being, knowing and acting (and I consider animals and plants be complex, emerging living systems that are self-organising, comprised of subsystems and nested within bigger systems such as cultures and societies) but it is whether they think or not that is problematic. My view is that more is needed than just traditional views of thinking when considering school curriculum. I see a need include personal, social, cultural and ecosystem thinking. Justifying thinking in education While we think all time, and we learn think without being taught do so, our thinking skills can be improved. If this is seen as desirable, then considering it from an educational perspective requires a change of focus within schools. Such a change needs be justified from numerous perspectives in order convince policy makers and educators support changes. …

The ecosystem approach in corporate environmental management – expert mental models and environmental drivers in the Finnish forest industry

AbstractThe ecosystem approach has been adopted as the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and is recommended to be used widely in the integrated management of land, water and living resources, to promote conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way, also in corporations. The forest industry is a resource‐intensive branch with various impacts on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Our aims in this study were to examine (i) how the ecosystem approach is implemented in the Finnish forest industry; and (ii) to outline the mental models of environmental experts of corporations, and their conceptualization of some key terms of ecosystem thinking. We interviewed 12 experts about their opinions on the main future challenges, the risks, the mistakes of the past, the possibilities and the successes confronting the forest industry. The results were analyzed using the DPSIR (Driving forces‐Pressures‐State‐Impacts‐Responses) framework model. Finally, we give several recommendations as to how the ecosystem approach can be integrated into corporate environmental management. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Industrial ecology as mediator and negotiator between ecology and industrial sustainability

This article discusses hybrid theory development efforts within industrial ecology. The framework is Latour's (1988) Prince metaphor, which he expanded to describe machines and machinations, technology and society. Technology including industrial ecology is regarded here as mediator between nature and society. Aspects on standard ecology and principles for ecosystem thinking as background for our knowledge of natural environment are discussed, in particular the novel understanding of transformation in human and natural systems by means of panarchy and adaptive cycles. Adaptive cycles are also considered as mediation between nature and society. However, natural, scientific or biological ecology are difficult to use directly as a platform for environmental management. A diversification of ecology into soft, practical and hard ecology facilitates the understanding of the relationship between scientific ecology and industrial ecology. Combining both in a model may emerge illustrating the construction of industrial ecology and sustainable production and consumption society and showing the dynamics between nature and society.

Landscape challenges to ecosystem thinking: Creative flood and drought in the American Southwest

Stream ecology is undergoing a transition from ecosystem to landscape science. This change is reflected in many studies; work at Sycamore Creek in Arizona will be used to illustrate the challenges of this transition and several applications. Conceptual challenges involve clear determination of the organization of research objectives. Ecosystem science is largely concerned with how things work while landscape ecology focuses on the influence of spatial pattern and heterogeneity on system functioning. Questions of system scale, hierarchical structure, dimensionality, and currency must be resolved in order to productively execute research objectives. The new stream ecology is more integrative, more realistic spatially, deals with streams at a larger scale, and treats them as branched system more than former approaches. At Sycamore Creek, studies of sand bar patches and their influence on organisms and nutrient cycling illustrate how variations in patch shape and configuration can alter system outputs. Beyond sandbars, inclusion of riparian zones as integral parts of streams produces a more coherent view of nutrient dynamics than previous studies that began at the water´s edge. Integration of streams with the landscape they drain requires that streams be viewed as branched structures, not linear systems. This view in ecology is in its infancy but it provides an opportunity to identify processing hot spots along flow paths and to reveal presumptive effects of climate change in terms of spatial shifts in biogeochemical activity rather than black-box rate changes.

Rebuilding Regional Economies through Network and Ecosystems Thinking

Rebuilding Regional Economies through Network and Ecosystems Thinking

The New Advocacy for Aquatic Species Conservation

Despite evidence of the worsening condition of river and stream environments and alarming declines in certain aquatic species, the nation's policy leaders show little concern for their well being. Environmental and river conservation organizations are formulating new arguments to move aquatic species and river conservation to the forefront of the nation's environmental agenda, because the public is becoming more aware of their rapid decline. A general move within the environmental advocacy community is toward ecosystem thinking and the realization that rivers and streams contain rich biological diversity. Advocacy for the conservation of aquatic species will change over the next several years, becoming more sophisticated and involving more scientists. Reforms in federal public policy, and at the state and local level, could greatly benefit aquatic species conservation.

Bank Interchange of Transactional Paper: Legal and Economic Perspectives

Bank Interchange of Transactional Paper: Legal and Economic Perspectives