Landscape ecology and sustainability research

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Abstract

The idea of sustainability requires conformity of ecological, economic and social aspects of development in order to bridge the gap between the world's poor and rich people. Insights derived from landscape ecology confront this aim with the heterogeneity of natural resource distribution and availability on the earth, with the biotic diversity resulting from it, and with the different human land use traditions arising from both. These have produced a variety of civilizations of different developmental stages, but unified by missing the sustainability path in preferring resource exploitation for conservation. It is this preference that has brought about modern economic and social welfare, though in an unequal manner, and therefore cannot simply be reversed - all the less so as both civilizations and interest groups attach different, and competing value systems to natural resources and their utilization. The article sketches landscape-ecological approaches to sustainability based on ecotope and ecosystem research, demonstrating a differentiated land use development taking into account biodiversity, conservation, restoration as well as economically and socially sustainable resource utilization practices. It is the recognition of nature's services to the very existence of humankind, that is the landscape-ecological key to a practicable sustainable development.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-18
Number of pages18
JournalZeitschrift fur Geomorphologie, Supplementband
Volume139
StatePublished - 2005

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