Upcoming events in Agroecology
Steve Gliessman, UC Santa Cruz, is organizing an International Agroecology course scheduled for July 8-21, 2007. For more information, please visit the course web site at http://www.agroecology.org/shortcourse.htm. Questions regarding the course can be emailed to vvadakan@nullucsc.edu or contact the course organizer, Bee Vadakan at 831-459-5818, Fax. 831-459-2867.
ESA’s Agroecology Section is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the 2007 Annual Meeting organized oral session Agricultural Landscapes: Critical for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Restoration coordinated by Doug Boucher, Hood College. This session will demonstrate the critical importance of agricultural landscapes for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, and will discuss biological, economic and social processes that promote ecologically favorable and socially just agricultural systems.
Many thanks to Doug for organizing this activity! Details appear below.
Also, on Wednesday 8th 6:30 pm-8:00 pm we will be having a joint mixer with the Applied Ecology, Long Term Studies, and Rangeland Ecology sections.
Hope to see you all in San Jose! (See www.esa.org/sanjose for meeting details.)
Agricultural Landscapes: Critical for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Restoration
Tuesday, 7 August 2007, 8:00 AM-11:30 AM
Ballroom Salon III (San Jose Marriot)
Agriculture, the most far-reaching way that human beings affect ecosystems, is increasingly recognized as critical for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. Many landscapes created by agriculture can be ecologically destructive, but others can contain refuges for many species, promote succession to forest or serve as nuclei for ecological restoration. A recent series of workshops at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis developed approaches to agricultural landscapes both theoretical and empirical that integrate their economic, social, and biological values and can guide policies to promote both sustainable use and ecological restoration. In this viewpoint, agriculture is seen not simply as fields and cropping systems, but at broader scales in both space and time, emphasizing landscape-level processes and succession over periods of decades. Farming systems are assessed not only in terms of productivity and income but also for their value in preserving biodiversity and serving as the basis for ecological restoration. Secondary ecosystems are valued as reservoirs for biodiversity, socio-economically productive elements of agricultural systems, and key stages in restoration processes. Most fundamentally, human welfare and biological conservation are viewed not as contradictory, but rather as complementary goals that can and should be integrated and promoted by the agricultural landscapes of the futureParticipants and Titles
Berry J. Brosi and Gretchen Daily, Stanford University. The future of biodiversity and ecosystem services in human-dominated landscapes: the bees’ eye view
Shinsuke Uno, University of Michigan; Brenda Lin, Earth Institute, Columbia University; and Stacy Philpott, University of Toledo – Relationships between coffee agroecosystem management and biodiversity: a guide for restoration aimed at increasing species richness and socio-economic benefits
Florencia Montagnini, Yale University – Biodiversity, food security and nutrient management in Mesoamerican homegardens
Karen D. Holl, University of California, Santa Cruz; Rakan A. Zahawi, Organization for Tropical Studies; Rebecca Cole, University of California, Santa Cruz and Catherine A. Lindell, Michigan State University – Local vs. landscape level effects on recovery of biodiversity in abandoned agricultural land
Bruce G. Ferguson, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur and Clara L. Miceli-M̩ndez, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas РDispersal of Neotropical Tree Seeds by Cattle as a Tool for Ecoagricultural Restoration
Miguel Martinez-Ramos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Guadalajara – Long-term secondary forest dynamics of milpas and pastures in wet versus dry agricultural landscapesJ
John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, University of Michigan. The environmental effects of social inequality in tropical agricultural landscapes
Post contributed by Fabian Menalled, Montana State University