The Baseline Concept in Biodiversity Conservation: Being Nostalgic or Not in the Anthropocene Era

Description

The Anthropocene era has been marked by such significant human pressure that it has led to the sixth mass extinction. The Baseline Concept in Biodiversity Conservation interprets human domination of the Earth as the process of gradual landscape change, the execution of which is neither linear nor homogeneous. This book is structured around three key questions: Where and when did everything go wrong? How do we define baseline states for biodiversity conservation strategies? How are reference states mobilized in a concrete way through case studies? Today, biodiversity conservation faces a dilemma that this book sheds light on: return to states less modified by humans than today but in a world that has changed significantly; or, let the nature of tomorrow express itself where it still can but without a road map. Cover Half-Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction PART 1: Defining Baselines 1. Temporal Baselines: Finding a Tipping Point in the Past 1.1. Preamble 1.2. Introduction 1.3. Recognition problem: how do we define a new unit of time? 1.4. When did we enter the Anthropocene? 1.4.1. 50,000 years BP: the end of the Pleistocene and the extinction of megafauna 1.4.2. 5–7000 years BP: the Neolithic and the increase of methane and CO2 1.4.3. 1610: “Columbian exchange”, low CO2 level and cooling of the Little Ice Age 1.4.4. End of the 18th century: the First Industrial Revolution 1.4.5. The mid-20th century: the great acceleration and the fallout of radionuclides 1.5. A temporal baseline on the fringe of the Anthropocene 1.6. Conclusion 2. Spatial Baselines: Is Going Elsewhere Easier Than Going Back in Time? 2.1. Preamble 2.2. Introduction 2.3. What is a spatial baseline? 2.3.1. In search of naturalness… 2.3.2. On the basis of which indicators? 2.3.3. In search of truly comparable sites 2.3.4. A single site or a collection of sites? 2.4. Emblematic examples of singleand multi-site spatial baselines 2.4.1. The Białowieża Forest, a baseline for European forests? 2.4.2. Characterization of the ecological status of rivers in the United States 2.5. Conclusion 3. Mapping What is Left of Nature 3.1. Preamble 3.2. Introduction 3.3. Zoning of spaces of perceived wilderness: the wilderness of some is not that of others 3.4. Locating the last wild spots: where is there any baseline nature left? 3.5. Nature areas broken down into facets and gradients: are there tipping points in space? 3.6. Anthropization of nature: summarizing the influence of humans in a single index 3.7. Anthromes: ending the divide between the natural and the anthropogenic? 3.8. Conclusion 4. The Baseline: A Social Construction 4.1. Introduction 4.2. The baseline evolves over time: the shifting baseline syndrome 4.3. How is the baseline constructed? 4.4. Debating the baseline 4.5. Conclusion 4.6. Acknowledgments PART 2: Using Baselines to Conserve Nature 5. Rewilding by the Return of Ghosts of the Past 5.1. Preamble 5.2. Introduction 5.3. Contemporary ecosystems populated by ghosts? 5.3.1. Extinctions and disappearances of species 5.3.2. Impacts of extinctions and disappearances on ecosystems 5.4. Rewilding to repair 5.4.1. How far back do we go to rewild? 5.4.2. How is rewilding achieved? American, Russian and European trends 5.5. Criticisms and controversies around rewilding 5.5.1. Ecological criticism 5.5.2. Ethical criticism 5.5.3. Social criticism 5.5.4. Cultural and political criticism 5.6. Conclusion 6. Spontaneous Rewilding through Land Abandonment 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Land abandonment: a form of spontaneous rewilding 6.2.1. Active versus spontaneous rewilding 6.2.2. New open spaces resulting from spontaneous rewilding 6.2.3. Encouraged or tolerated spontaneity 6.3. Quantifying and mapping spontaneous rewilding areas related to land abandonment 6.3.1. Context 6.3.2. Material and methods 6.3.3. Results 6.4. Increasing awareness of rewilding areas 6.4.1. Identifying areas of land abandonment before they are urbanized 6.4.2. (Re)giving a place to open spaces 6.5. Conclusion 7. Geoprospective: Looking for Potential Scenarios 7.1. Introduction 7.2. The baseline as a shared and objective knowledge base 7.3. The baseline as a way to improve confidence in scenarios 7.4. The baseline for the exploratory evaluation 7.5. The baseline as an objective to be reached 7.6. Conclusion 8. The Place of Ecological Knowledge in Policies for Ecological Neutrality: No Net Loss and Biodiversity Offsetting 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Global overview of the application of the mitigation hierarchy 8.2.1. The success of NNL policies at the international scale: thepolitical promise 8.2.2. The application of the mitigation hierarchy in France: a recent regulatory evolution 8.2.3. The implementation of NNL policies: a high degree of heterogeneity at the international level 8.2.4. Methods for calculating the ecological equivalence 8.3. The question of a baseline in NNL policies: between ecological and socio-economic perspectives 8.3.1. Ecological perspectives 8.3.2. Socio-economic perspectives 8.4. Implications of NNL policies for biodiversity conservation: ethical and political perspectives 8.5. Conclusion PART 3: Examples of the Use of Baselines 9. The Variability of Baselines Mobilized in Littoral Protected Areas: The Anthropocene as a Dividing Line? 9.1. Introduction 9.2. The prehistoric baselines of paleo-rewilding 9.3. The historical baselines of prior states to development intensification 9.4. The contemporary baselines as historical hybrids between nature and culture 9.5. The negotiated, controlled and adapted baselines in the Anthropocene 9.6. The baselines of novel ecosystems in free evolution 9.7. Conclusion: the Anthropocene at the origin of new baselines for Littoral Protected Areas 10. Baselines and French Forests 10.1. By way of introduction: “the legendary virgin forest of Doussard” 10.2. Forestry “cardiology”; forestry “systoles” and “diastoles” 10.2.1. Forest systoles 10.2.2. Forest diastoles 10.2.3. Phases of silvigenesis: when only certain attributes are retained 10.3. The baseline of French forests examined through the lens of historical ecology 10.3.1. The vicissitudes of forest cover since the Holocene 10.3.2. Baselines: compasses or daymarks? 10.4. French forests in the Anthropocene era: chosen or endured states? 10.4.1. A state chosen according to a geography of conservation 10.4.2. A state undergoing global changes 10.5. Baselines and French forests: illustrating our forests together 11. How Can We Maintain Traditional Agro-Pastoral Landscapes? 11.1. Introduction 11.2. How does an agrarian landscape evolve? 11.2.1. Nested subsystems 11.2.2. A system in constant evolution 11.3. Example of the natural grassland–hedgerows combination 11.3.1. Initially, a few hedge fences around the cultivated fields 11.3.2. Division of the soil and multiplication of fences 11.3.3. Extension of fodder crops 11.3.4. The hedge fence loses its usefulness, then becomes a nuisance 11.3.5. In the end, which baseline(s) should be retained? 11.4. What exactly do the restored spaces represent? 11.4.1. A mosaic of spaces 11.4.2. Inability to identify a historical baseline 11.4.3. So what exactly do these baselines represent? 11.5. What to do then with this forgotten or reinvented past? 11.5.1. Three possibilities 11.5.2. Maintaining an ecological memory at all costs 11.5.3. Extending the agricultural memory and accepting the creation of new agro-pastoral landscapes 11.6. Conclusion Conclusion: The Baseline Concept: A Narrow Path Between False Trails and True Impasses A narrow path: debating the baselines to aim for better shared choices A geographical look at the notion of a baseline and nature References List of Authors Index Other titles from iSTE in Ecological Science EULA