Taking cultural landscapes into account: Implications for scaling up ecological restoration
Résumé
Conceptual frameworks for landscape restoration commonly take an approach focused on ecological (biotic and abiotic) aspects. Yet the recent initiatives demanding that restoration be scaled up to restore millions of hectares of degraded land often encounter socio-cultural challenges too, such as competing land-use interests and low stakeholder engagement. Thus, consideration also needs to be given to cultural landscapes, broadly defined as regions that reflect the long-term interactions between people and the environment. Based on a literature survey we here identify and then discuss features from cultural landscapes-ecological restoration research, which can be relevant to ecological restoration upscaling. Overall, research encompassing cultural landscapes is revealed as less narrowly-focused than that on landscape ecology linked with ecological restoration: our selected studies quite frequently considered social and landscape aspects in addition to ecological aspects. Geographically, research is strongly biased towards Europe and North America, although the most ambitious restoration targets are in the tropics. Taking cultural landscapes into account could enhance restoration by (1) moving towards a transdisciplinary approach thereby offsetting the overemphasis on ecological aspects, and (2) mitigating issues of land use and stakeholder engagement. Further research, paying special attention to the tropics, should aim at integrative approaches that would contribute to scaling up restoration, not only in single large-scale projects but also through the sum of small but concerted actions.
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