Impacts of Local Land-Use on the Global Ecological Crisis

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 4490

Special Issue Editors

Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Land Management and Environmental Protection, College of Natural Sciences, University of Rzeszów, ul. Zelwerowicza 4, 35-601 Rzeszów, Poland
Interests: forest ecology and management; agroecology; silvopastoralism and wooded farmlands; conservation; landscape dendroecological reconstruction
Department of Landscape Planning and Design, Faculty of Forestry, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Istanbul 34473, Turkey
Interests: landscape prioritization for conservation and restoration; land use change; vulnerable ecosystems and species detection; landscape history; rural and cultural landscapes; historical ecological knowledge; ancient woodlands and microhabitats; ecological design
Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK
Interests: ancient woodland and peatland heritage; environmental, historical and tourism issues; historical ecological knowledge; land-use change; landscape history; perceptions and history of alien and exotic species; rural and cultural landscapes; wetland loss and the history of peat and peat cutting; health and wellbeing and nature
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Olympic Legacy Park, 2 Old Hall Road, Sheffield S9 3TU, UK
Interests: links between cultural diversity and biological diversity; data-science-policy-implementation interfaces; international environmental law and policy; protected Area science and management; coastal ecosystem management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit papers for a Special Issue of the open access journal Land entitled “Impacts of Local Land-Use on the Global Ecological Crisis”.

The separation of ecology from land use is driven by external forces, such as corporate economics, financial markets, and global approaches to economic efficiency. These have led to considerable demonstrable declines in environmental quality. This detachment has generated significant challenges for long-term sustainability. These challenges include the large-scale degradation of ecological systems and the need for widespread restoration. Indeed, from urban centres to rural landscapes, the challenges for restoring ecological systems have grown enormously in recent decades. The processes associated with the underlying “cultural severance” occur at different scales, from individuals (micro-) and communities (meso-) to international (macro-) economies. Cultural severance is the breakdown of traditional and customary land uses associated with rural depopulation, globalization, and the replacement of local community-driven resource use by national and international capital-based or politically driven intensive exploitation. The latter may be intensive monoculture farming, farmland afforestation, or infrastructural and residential development—these are examples of land use decoupled from local ecology. Much of this change has occurred in the last two centuries, although the progression of this process has increased exponentially in recent decades. The long-term impacts on ecological systems at every scale are now a global challenge.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is undercutting highly globalized systems of food chains and networks of energy and fertilizer supply. The looming global crisis may become a bitter reality-check for the world’s globalized approach to land use and centralized conservation policies. Anxiety about food production and provision of economic staples may soon replace previous concerns of merely satisfying comfort and luxury. This demands serious debate about the rationality and feasibility of present global environmental ambitions. Will we still be ready to pursue the ambitious goals of climate and conservation policies developed in an era of optimistic belief in global concerted actions and programmes? Can mass tree planting outside existing forests still be used as a “flagship” tool for improving carbon sequestration? Furthermore, can we afford to sacrifice productive farmland for large “rewilding” projects?

In the context of the modern commodification of nature, in contrast to traditional land uses, land and landscapes have been exploited as ecologically and culturally “neutral spaces”. On the other hand, successful traditional, self-sustaining husbandry (without external subsidies) depends entirely on the wise adaptation of the farming activity to the local ecological and environmental context, including soil, hydrology, and terrain. In other words, traditional agriculture is directly dependent on local ecology. Such a dependence requires a continuous learning of the land and from the consequences of the interactions between man and the environment. This is the way of development of the “traditional ecological knowledge” to harness the landscape's ecological potential to rural economies. However, most of the modern conventional agriculture has moved from traditional knowledge to a dependence on the technological inputs of fertilizers, machinery, cheap petrochemical energy, and others, undermining its resilience in the times of global crisis.

With local community controls over ecological systems weakened or lost, and overtaken by top-down centralized mechanisms, the land’s ecological performance deteriorates. Therefore, it seems that economic and social initiatives to solve major global environmental challenges may be ineffective or counterproductive, unless approaches to development and land use are refocused. Simultaneously, failing globalized food production and supply systems imply a need for the revival of local land governance and the reconnection of local economies with local ecologies. Any initiatives of global countermeasures in responses to the present economic and political crises should be considered temporary emergency measures. These should not lead to ever-more globalised approaches to land stewardship and use.

We seek contributions representing a wide spectrum of studies documenting, firstly, the impacts of globalization on biocultural systems and, secondly, the benefits of ecological systems to human interests. The contributions should help to evidence the importance of local land use integration through ecological patterns and dynamics, both past and present. The research paradigms may be addressed through 1) examples of surviving, local, self-reliant, rural economies; 2) documented studies of ecological decline caused by cultural severance; and 3) transformations aimed to restore connectivity in economic land uses in the eco-cultural context. Documented examples of good practices are especially welcome, as are case studies of the early stages of environmental remediation and transformation.

This Special Issue will help to (1) identify factors responsible for the “cultural severance” of land use and evaluate its impacts on biocultural systems; (2) highlight the costs and risks associated with top-down “universal” policies and solutions to environmental problems; and (3) provide examples and concepts of sustainable and durable land use systems in harmony with local ecologies. The Special Issue will be of great interest and value to researchers, decision-makers, and educators across a wide range of fields, including farming, forestry, biology, ecology, conservation, planning, economy, sociology, and environmental history.

Dr. Andrzej Bobiec
Dr. Simay Kirca
Prof. Dr. Ian Rotherham
Prof. Dr. Peter Bridgewater
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cultural severance
  • biocultural heritage
  • ecosystem services
  • environmental costs of subsidised land use
  • farmland abandonment
  • land afforestation
  • natural capital
  • biodiversity offset
  • future farming
  • local community
  • local land-use governance
  • rewilding
  • re-naturing
  • feral landscapes

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 6069 KiB  
Article
The Longevity of Fruit Trees in Basilicata (Southern Italy): Implications for Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation
by Jordan Palli, Michele Baliva, Franco Biondi, Lucio Calcagnile, Domenico Cerbino, Marisa D’Elia, Rosario Muleo, Aldo Schettino, Gianluca Quarta, Nicola Sassone, Francesco Solano, Pietro Zienna and Gianluca Piovesan
Land 2023, 12(3), 550; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12030550 - 24 Feb 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2034
Abstract
In the Mediterranean basin, agriculture and other forms of human land use have shaped the environment since ancient times. Intensive and extensive agricultural systems managed with a few cultured plant populations of improved varieties are a widespread reality in many Mediterranean countries. Despite [...] Read more.
In the Mediterranean basin, agriculture and other forms of human land use have shaped the environment since ancient times. Intensive and extensive agricultural systems managed with a few cultured plant populations of improved varieties are a widespread reality in many Mediterranean countries. Despite this, historical cultural landscapes still exist in interior and less intensively managed rural areas. There, ancient fruit tree varieties have survived modern cultivation systems, preserving a unique genetic heritage. In this study, we mapped and characterized 106 living fruit trees of ancient varieties in the Basilicata region of southern Italy. Tree ages were determined through tree ring measurements and radiocarbon analyses. We uncovered some of the oldest scientifically dated fruit trees in the world. The oldest fruit species were olive (max age 680 ± 57 years), mulberry (647 ± 66 years), chestnut (636 ± 66 years), and pear (467 ± 89 years). These patriarchs hold a unique genetic resource; their preservation and genetic maintenance through agamic propagation are now promoted by the Lucan Agency for the Development and Innovation in Agriculture (ALSIA). Each tree also represents a hub for biodiversity conservation in agrarian ecosystems: their large architecture and time persistence guarantee ecological niches and micro-habitats suitable for flora and fauna species of conservation significance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Local Land-Use on the Global Ecological Crisis)
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22 pages, 9786 KiB  
Article
Centennial Change and Source–Sink Interaction Process of Traditional Agricultural Landscape: Case from Xin’an Traditional Cherry Cultivation System (1920–2020)
by Maolin Li, Yongxun Zhang, Changhong Miao, Lulu He and Jiatao Chen
Land 2022, 11(10), 1863; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101863 - 21 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1450
Abstract
In contrast to modern agriculture, long-standing traditional agricultural practices such as agricultural heritage systems (AHS) are important inspirations for promoting harmonious human–land relations. However, some AHS have been in danger as their traditional agricultural landscapes (TALs) were changed by rapid modernization and urbanization. [...] Read more.
In contrast to modern agriculture, long-standing traditional agricultural practices such as agricultural heritage systems (AHS) are important inspirations for promoting harmonious human–land relations. However, some AHS have been in danger as their traditional agricultural landscapes (TALs) were changed by rapid modernization and urbanization. Thus, how do we figure out the change processes? What conservation measures can be taken? Taking the Xin’an Traditional Cherry Cultivation System in the loess hilly areas of Henan Province as a case, this study introduced the source–sink landscape theory to analyze the structure and process of the TAL during 1920–2020. Results show that, during 1920–1950, the traditional rural landscape (TRL) and the agricultural (natural) ecological landscape (ANEL) in the TAL were relatively balanced because they were source and sink to each other. Since 1985, the source expansion and sink resistance of both TRL and ANEL have been greatly hindered by the sink growth of modern village landscapes (MVL). As the core source landscape, TRL needs salvage protection for inheriting local characteristics by effective measures. TAL conservation should highlight rurality preservation through expanding the protection scope of TRL, endowing the MVL with more indigenous cultural features, etc. All these may contribute to rural vitalization and sustainable development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Local Land-Use on the Global Ecological Crisis)
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