Mapping Human Impacts on Global Ecosystems
Anthropogenic Biome Maps Show How People Have Shaped the World
Feb 4, 2009
People love mapping themselves. From the history of exploration to the in-depth GPS linked road maps of current cities, humans have mapped their place on the planet.
Maps Reflect Human Changes to Ecosystems
Anthropogenic biome maps are a way to map peoples' impact on ecosystems. They show cities, cropland, managed forests and rangeland as well as wild areas of the world. These maps are an interesting and eye-opening way to view the scope of human change.
A biome is an ecological term that describes a large area with a similar climate and similar communities of plants, animals, and soil. One example of a biome is the temperate coniferous forest. Anthropogenic biomes are also known as anthromes or human biomes. This term describes human change by melding the changes that people have made with the more traditional view of a biome as an area defined by climate and geography. People have changed the climate, ecosystem diversity, and the nature of the wild places on the earth. These new anthropogenic biome maps reflect human-induced change.
Anthropogenic Biome Maps Question What is Natural
Maps that incorporate human changes to global ecosystems bring up some interesting questions about the role of humans in global ecosystems. What is nature? Are people natural? Traditional views of nature place it as something that is not human. Wild forests are places far away from humans. However, even in places that are rarely touched by people, human beings have had an impact. Reshaping climate, changing the ozone layer, moving chemicals into the atmosphere: all of these human impacts change ecosystems that may rarely be touched by people, but the human impact is still there.
Erle Ellis is a professor of Geography at the University of Maryland and a major researcher in the area of anthropogenic biome mapping. He focuses on the need to incorporate human landscapes into our way of thinking about landscape. He states that people have shaped nature and that societies need to learn how to value reshaped nature. In his view, humans are an important part of the global ecosystem, and they can work to reshape biodiversity by increasing or decreasing it, depending on the circumstances.
Anthromes Encourage Positive Participation in Environmental Management
While this might seem like an approach to ecosystem and biodiversity management that will lead to additional degradation, Ellis does not see it that way. He focuses on the need for people to give up on the idea that nature is something far away out there, something that is fragile and needs protecting but that is not relevant to peoples' everyday lives. Biome maps track the profound changes people can make to global ecosystems. People must take responsibility for managing global ecosystems and create a world where humans participate as active, positive managers of nature. Humans can no longer think about nature as something that is far away from people and needing protection: nature is here, everywhere, and people are changing and managing it, for better or for worse.
Restoration and Permaculture: Philosophies That Complement Anthrome Maps
Emerging ecological philosophies and practices such as ecological restoration and permaculture explicity involve people in a positive reshaping of earth's environments. Those who practise ecological restoration work to understand how people have changed ecosystems and work to restore water flow, soil, and other ecological interactions to the way they are in areas where people have not had such an impact. For example, removing a stream from concrete and planting vegetation near that stream allows it to flow more naturally, create soil, develop a wet ecosystem near its banks, and attract local wildlife.
Permaculture is a philosophy that encourages practitioners to increase the biodiversity of an area through intensive gardening. Permaculture gardens are functioning ecosystems, and while they are made by humans, the goal is to create food-producing systems that function well with a minimum of human intervention.
People are still working to reconcile what human impacts on the planet mean. Are they positive, negative, or simply a fact to accept and work with? Are anthropogenic biomes the new normal, or should people try to reconstruct wild nature? Understanding the human role in nature is a challenge for our civilization in the decades to come.
Sources:
Kunzerman, Theo (ed). 2008. Allianz Knowledge. The Earth We Created. Interview with Erle Ellis.
Ellis, Erle and Navin Ramankutty (Lead Authors); Mark McGinley (Topic Editor). 2008. "Anthropogenic biome maps." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth November 26, 2007; Last revised January 3, 2008; Retrieved January 19, 2009]
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