Agrarian Landscapes In Transition

Agrarian Landscapes in Transition researches human interaction with the earth. With hundreds of acres of agricultural land going out of production every day, the introduction, spread, and abandonment of agriculture represents the most pervasive alteration of the Earth's environment for several thousand years. What happens when humans impose their spatial and temporal signatures on ecological regimes, and how does this manipulation affect the earth and nature's desire for equilibrium? Studies were conducted at six Long Term Ecological Research sites within the US, including New England, the Appalachian Mountains, Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, and Arizona. While each site has its own unique agricultural history, patterns emerge that help make sense of how our actions have affected the earth, and how the earth pushes back. The book addresses how human activities influence the spatial and temporal structures of agrarian landscapes, and how this varies over time and across biogeographic regions. It also looks at the ecological and environmental consequences of the resulting structural changes, the human responses to these changes, and how these responses drive further changes in agrarian landscapes. The time frames studied include the ecology of the earth before human interaction, pre-European human interaction during the rise and fall of agricultural land use, and finally the biological and cultural response to the abandonment of farming, due to complete abandonment or a land-use change such as urbanization.

Agrarian Landscapes in Transition researches human interaction with the earth. With hundreds of acres of agricultural land going out of production every day, the introduction, spread, and abandonment of agriculture represents the most pervasive alteration of the Earth's environment for several thousand years. What happens when humans impose their spatial and temporal signatures on ecological regimes, and how does this manipulation affect the earth and nature's desire for equilibrium? Studies were conducted at six Long Term Ecological Research sites within the US, including New England, the Appalachian Mountains, Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, and Arizona. While each site has its own unique agricultural history, patterns emerge that help make sense of how our actions have affected the earth, and how the earth pushes back. The book addresses how human activities influence the spatial and temporal structures of agrarian landscapes, and how this varies over time and across biogeographic regions. It also looks at the ecological and environmental consequences of the resulting structural changes, the human responses to these changes, and how these responses drive further changes in agrarian landscapes. The time frames studied include the ecology of the earth before human interaction, pre-European human interaction during the rise and fall of agricultural land use, and finally the biological and cultural response to the abandonment of farming, due to complete abandonment or a land-use change such as urbanization.

This work addresses how human activities influence the spatial and temporal structures of agrarian landscapes, and how this varies over time and across biogeographic regions. It also looks at the ecological and environmental consequences of the resulting structural changes and the human responses to these changes.

A presentation of the challenges of European rural landscape management, exploring alternatives that incorporate place-based approaches.

European rural landscapes as we experience them today are the result of ongoing processes and interactions between nature and society. These are changing fast: the future landscapes will be different from those we know currently. Written for academics, policy-makers and practitioners, this book is the first to explore the complex histories of rural landscapes in Europe as a basis for their sound governance in future. Tensions between the needs of agricultural spaces driven by economic incentives and a variety of non-agricultural functions are explored to demonstrate current challenges and the shortfalls in the policies that address them. Using inspiring case studies that highlight the roles of regional agents and communities, the authors go further than the usual analyses to illustrate the importance of local context. Written by experts currently working to revitalise the rural landscapes of Europe, the text concludes with suggestions for improving landscape policy and planning practice.

Agricultural expansion has transformed and fragmented forest habitats at alarming rates across the globe, but particularly so in tropical landscapes. The resulting land-use configurations encompass varying mosaics of tree cover, human settlements and agricultural land units. Meanwhile, global demand for agricultural commodities is at unprecedented levels. The need to feed nine billion people by 2050 in a world of changing food demands is causing increasing agricultural intensification. As such, market-orientated production systems are now increasingly replacing traditional farming practices, but at what cost? The Agrarian Change project, coordinated by the Center for International Forestry Research, explores the conservation, livelihood and food security implications of land-use and agrarian change processes at the landscape scale. This book provides detailed background information on seven multi-functional landscapes in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Zambia and Burkina Faso. The focal landscapes were selected as they exhibit various scenarios of changing forest cover, agricultural modification and integration with local and global commodity markets. A standardized research protocol will allow for future comparative analyses between these sites. Each case study chapter provides a comprehensive description of the physical and socioeconomic context of each focal landscape and a structured account of the historical and political drivers of land-use change occurring in the area. Each case study also draws on contemporary information obtained from key informant interviews, focus group discussions and preliminary data collection regarding key topics of interest including: changes in forest cover and dependency on forest products, farming practices, tenure institutions, the role and presence of conservation initiatives, and major economic activities. The follow-on empirical study is already underway in the landscapes described in this book. It examines responses to agrarian change processes at household, farm, village and landscape levels with a focus on poverty levels, food security, dietary diversity and nutrition, agricultural yields, biodiversity, migration and land tenure. This research intends to provide much needed insights into how landscape-scale land-use trajectories manifest in local communities and advance understanding of multi-functional landscapes as socioecological systems.

This Open Access book presents feedback from the ‘Territorial Agroecological Transition in Action’- TATA-BOX research project, which was devoted to these specific issues. The multidisciplinary and multi-organisation research team steered a four-year action-research process in two territories of France. It also presents: i) the key dimensions to be considered when dealing with agroecological transition: diversity of agriculture models, management of uncertainties, polycentric governance, autonomies, and role of actors’ networks; ii) an operational and original participatory process and associated boundary tools to support local stakeholders in shifting from a shared diagnosis to a shared action plan for transition, and in so doing developing mutual understanding and involvement; iii) an analysis of the main effects of the methodology on research organisation and on stakeholders’ development and application; iv) critical analysis and foresights on the main outcomes of TATA-BOX, provided by external researchers.

Advances in Ecological Research, Part Two, Volume 64, the latest release in this ongoing series, includes specific chapters on Tropical Ecosystems in the 21st Century. Chapters in this volume cover topics such as landscape-scale expansion of agroecology to enhance natural pest control, a systematic review and ecosystem services, and the resilience of agricultural landscapes.