Parks, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and nature preserves occupy a small percentage of our land area, but they protect valuable cultural and biological resources. Parks have evolved from elite pleasure grounds to popular recreation areas. The number of North American monuments and wildlife areas has grown in recent years, but many new conservation areas are controversial and are being challenged by industry interests.
Wildlife lands and parks serve multiple, often contradictory demands, including many forms of recreation, wildlife habitat, and extraction of timber, minerals, oil, and gas.
Global protected areas have expanded nearly tenfold in the past 50 years, to nearly 10 percent of world land area. These lands must meet diverse needs, however, including hunting and farming, and actual protection is rarely as secure as it looks on paper.
In developing countries, wildlife lands have often suffered poaching and encroachment from farmers and loggers. Recent efforts, such as the Man and Biosphere program, have attempted to compromise between human and ecological needs.
Landscape ecology is the study of the reciprocal effects of spatial patterns and ecological processes. History and human actions are important considerations in understanding most ecological functions at a landscape scale.
Patchiness and heterogeneity are characteristics of most landscapes. Movement of organisms and materials among patches helps regulate conditions in many ecosystems.
Ecosystem management involves managing whole landscapes over long time scales, taking human needs into account, and maintaining biodiversity and ecological systems.
Restoration ecology is the science of restoring, rehabilitating, or recreating ecological systems. Wetland mitigation, grassland restoration, and species conservation are all important themes of restoration ecology.
The goals of restoration ecology include maintaining original species in their original locations. Just how authentic restoration can be, or should be, is a major topic of debate.
Floodplains and wetlands provide essential ecosystem services. Reversing the decline of wetlands and floodplains is an important issue in environmental restoration. In theory, floodplain and wetland restoration should be cost-effective, as well, since they could reduce the costs of flood damage.
