Is Embracing Change Our Best Bet?
Restoration ecology and conservation
biology are both under pressure to
adapt to accelerated anthropogenic
global change. Pristine areas free from human
infl uence no longer exist and, arguably, have
not for thousands of years ( 1). Major landcover
transformations for agriculture affected
vast territories more than 3000 years ago ( 2).
Large mammal extinctions in the late Pleistocene
(circa 12,000 years ago) were related to
human expansion ( 3). And relocation of nowwidespread
naturalized species was already
happening 4230 years ago, when domestic
dogs (dingos) were introduced into Australia
by way of southeast Asia ( 4). Thus, humansculpted
landscapes are what we have been
mostly managing for millennia. Because the
rate of alteration has dramatically increased
over the past 200 years, those ancient localized
impacts now affect most of the world.
Additionally, other indirect impacts act at a
planetary scale—e.g., increased carbon dioxide
concentration and nitrogen deposition
Publication Date: 2013
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