Ecological Principles for Managing Land Use

Summary

This paper was prepared by the Ecological Society of America's Committee on Land Use. Key ecological principles for land use and management deal with time, species, place, disturbance, and the landscape. The principles result in several guidelines that serve as practical rules of thumb for incorporating ecological principles into making decisions about the land.

Humans are the major force of change around the globe, transforming land to provide food, shelter, and products for use. Land transformation affects many of the planet's physical, chemical, and biological systems and directly impacts the ability of the Earth to continue providing the goods and services upon which humans depend. Unfortunately, potential ecological consequences are not always considered in making decisions regarding land use. In this paper, we identify ecological principles that are critical to sustaining ecosystems in the face of land-use change. We also offer guidelines for using these principles in making decisions regarding land-use change.

A critical challenge for land use and management involves reconciling conflicting goals and uses of the land. The diverse goals for use of the land include:

• resource-extractive activities (e.g., forestry, agriculture, grazing, and mining);

• infrastructure for human settlement (housing, transportation, and industrial centers);

• recreational activities;

• services provided by ecological systems (e.g, flood control and water supply and filtration);

• support of aesthetic, cultural, and religious values; and

• sustaining the compositional and structural complexity of ecological systems.

These goals often conflict with one another, and difficult land-use decisions may develop as stakeholders pursue different land-use goals. Local versus broad-scale perspectives on the benefits and costs of land management also provide different views. In this paper, we focus on sustaining ecological systems which also indirectly supports other values, including ecosystem services, cultural and aesthetic values, recreation, and sustainable extractive uses of the land.

To meet the challenge of sustaining ecological systems, an ecological perspective should be incorporated into land-use and land-management decisions. Specifying ecological principles and understanding their implications for land-use and land-management decisions are essential steps on the path toward ecologically based land use.