Getting Humans Back Into Nature: A Dissertation

From the dissertation abstract:

"I propose an ecosystem approach to planning, and lay out the parameters of the world-view necessary to take such an approach to an integrative regional planning.... I use cases from the interwoven history of ecological science and social theory, habitat conservation planning, heat island mitigation, urban forestry, impervious surface management, regional goods movement, and disaster planning, to synthesize a description of what it means, pragmatically, to think and plan in an integrative and ecological way."

From the conclusion:

"Conventional approaches to habitat conservation have relied centrally on the designation of reserves exclusive of human use to support various endangered and threatened plant and animal species, in an effort to assure their long-term survival and recovery.

...However, recent developments in ecosystem ecology-such as patch dynamics and perturbation ecology-are showing that there are other sorts of interventions that can be used to support and reinforce the establishment of the more traditional set-aside reserves approach to conservation planning. In one sense, the call from contemporary ecosystem ecology is to better integrate humans as components of ecosystems, rather than relying on the separation of land uses for human and natural communities [McDonnell & Pickett, 1993]. This approach-adaptive ecosystem management-focuses on establishing protocols to assure the integrity of ecological processes and functions vital to the health and well-being of organisms and entities, including humans, within the region. Recognizing the inherent, but highly contingent, connectivity between components of the web of life and the often less obvious bio-geo-chemical processes that constitute nature, we must use just such a way of recognizing this nested inter-dependence in planning across levels of ecosystem organization."

"...Integrating our cities and urban regions back into nature is an objective we should take seriously, both because it reduces adverse environmental impacts, thus reducing pollution treatment and remediation costs. Such a strategy, if based on contemporary ecosystem ecological, landscape ecological, and urban ecological research-based knowledge, would significantly reduce the ecological footprint of human habitation, thus effectively increasing planetary carrying capacity. Together, these potential benefits provide a sound and savvy science-based approach to contemporary regional sustainability planning."

[Ashwani Vasishth, Ph.D., is a planner in Southern California, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at California State University, Northridge.]