Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I Introduction and concepts
- PART II Landscape structure and multi-scale management
- PART III Landscape function and cross-boundary management
- PART IV Landscape change and adaptive management
- PART V Landscape integrity and integrated management
- PART VI Syntheses and perspectives
- 18 Bridging the gap between landscape ecology and natural resource management
- 19 Landscape ecology of the future: A regional interface of ecology and socioeconomics
- 20 Epilogue
- Index
- Plate Section
20 - Epilogue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I Introduction and concepts
- PART II Landscape structure and multi-scale management
- PART III Landscape function and cross-boundary management
- PART IV Landscape change and adaptive management
- PART V Landscape integrity and integrated management
- PART VI Syntheses and perspectives
- 18 Bridging the gap between landscape ecology and natural resource management
- 19 Landscape ecology of the future: A regional interface of ecology and socioeconomics
- 20 Epilogue
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
Recently a landscape ecology colleague and I were consulting in Costa Rica for the President and his Minister of Natural Resources and Energy. In the Minister's tenth-floor office overlooking the stunning red roofs and palms of the capital, we studied a protected-areas map of the country. Seven large green blobs are magnets for international eco-tourism, the leading income for the national economy. I commented on the extraordinary accomplishment of having these large areas protected. The Minister mentioned that in the previous decade his country had the highest deforestation rate in the world. Then he off handedly added: “Protected areas are really only as good as the Costa Rican economy.” “What? Aren't they permanently protected? International organizations helped protect them. Doesn't the whole world visit them, and keep an eye on them?” “Maybe. But now you should go immerse yourself in one.”
The single-engine Costa Rican air force plane dropped through a torrential rain to a grassy strip, and we soon reached an eco-tourist lodge in the large Tortuguero National Park and Conservation Area. Tortuguero is known for its sea turtles that leave bulldozer-like holes and tracks on the beach. The rain barely stopped for two days. At night guests enjoyed a rainforest slide show, followed by a nightlife walk with awesome reverberating howler monkeys over us. The next day we went by motorized log boat winding forever through rainforest and mangrove swamp to a village on stilts. Soccer with the local boys preceded lunch with the mayor. I asked him about a few dwellings I had seen en route, each with a clearing, some cows, chickens, and children.
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- Information
- Integrating Landscape Ecology into Natural Resource Management , pp. 466 - 472Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002