‘As Earth's testimonies tell’: wilderness conservation in a changing world

Abstract

Too often, wilderness conservation ignores a temporal perspective greater than the past 50 years, yet a long-term perspective (centuries to millennia) reveals the dynamic nature of many ecosystems. Analysis of fossil pollen, charcoal and stable isotopes, combined with historical analyses and archaeology can reveal how ongoing interactions between climatic change, human activities and other disturbances have shaped today's landscapes over thousands of years. This interdisciplinary approach can inform wilderness conservation and also contribute to interpreting current trends and predicting how ecosystems might respond to future climate change. In this paper, we review literature that reveals how increasing collaboration among palaeoecologists, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists and ecologists is improving understanding of ecological complexity. Drawing on case studies from forested and non-forested ecosystems in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australia, we discuss how this integrated approach can inform wilderness conservation and ecosystem management.

European Wilderness in a Time of Farmland Abandonment

“…Such developments gave "wilderness" the impetus to evolve towards a more relevant concept for the twenty-first century, incorporating both human dimensions and needs as well as new research results from areas such as paleoecology or climate science (Gillson and Willis 2004). A science-based understanding of the human influence on ecosystems informs presently one of the main current conservation approaches (Brooks et al 2006;Kalamandeen and Gillson 2007).…”

Maintaining Disturbance-Dependent Habitats

“…The interaction between human pressure and natural changes (e.g. non-anthropogenic climatic changes) could also have led to the crossing of tipping points (Gillson and Willis 2004;Kaplan et al 2010;Leadley et al 2014). Returning the landscapes to their historical conditions would thus be unachievable, if even desirable.…”

“…Nonetheless, besides human impacts on the landscapes, other biotic and abiotic alterations have also led to the current ecosystem composition. The climate has changed during the past millennium and some species have gone extinct while others have invaded, all these changes influencing ecological processes (Gillson and Willis 2004;Hodder et al 2009). The interaction between human pressure and natural changes (e.g.…”

“…Maintaining disturbance-dependent habitats after the withdrawal of those human activities is a difficult restoration process. It can be guided by knowledge of the past (Vera 2000;Gillson and Willis 2004;Willis and Birks 2006;Sandom et al 2013b), and by improving our ability to understand ecosystem dynamics and projecting potential restoration pathways. This means identifying the most desirable outcome in terms of both biodiversity and resilience.…”

“…the pre-historical baseline, is an important step to understand natural dynamics and disturbances, and guide the restoration of self-sustaining systems (Svenning 2002;Gillson and Willis 2004;Willis and Birks 2006). However, the composition of the "pre-Neolithic landscape" (Hodder et al 2009) is still the subject of active debate.…”