Book description
In North America, concepts of Historical Range of Variability are being
employed in land-management planning for properties of private
organizations and multiple government agencies. The National Park
Service, U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management,
U. S. Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy all include elements of
historical ecology in their planning processes. Similar approaches are
part of land management and conservation in Europe and Australia. Each
of these user groups must struggle with the added complication of rapid
climate change, rapid land-use change, and technical issues in order to
employ historical ecology effectively.
Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural
Resource Management
explores the utility of historical ecology in a management and
conservation context and the development of concepts related to
understanding future ranges of variability. It provides guidance and
insights to all those entrusted with managing and conserving natural
resources: land-use planners, ecologists, fire scientists, natural
resource policy makers, conservation biologists, refuge and preserve
managers, and field practitioners. The book will be particularly timely
as science-based management is once again emphasized in United States
federal land management and as an understanding of the potential effects
of climate change becomes more widespread among resource managers.
John Wiens is a landscape ecologist and conservation scientist who was
on the faculties of several universities in the United States before
joining The Nature Conservancy as Chief Scientist in 2002. He has
published over 200 scientific papers and six books, and has conducted
research in Europe, South America, and Australia as well as the United
States. He is currently Chief Conservation Science Officer at PRBO
Conservation Science in California and is a visiting faculty member at
the University of Western Australia in Perth. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
Hugh Safford is Regional Ecologist for the USDA Forest Service Pacific
Southwest Region, which includes California, Hawaii, and the Pacific
Territories, and a research faculty affiliate with the Department of
Environmental Science and Policy, University of California-Davis.
Greg Hayward, Regional Wildlife Ecologist with the U. S. Forest Service
in Alaska is a population ecologist with a passion for helping resource
managers understand the trade-offs associated with difficult land
management decisions. As a conservation practitioner Greg brings an
academic perspective from faculty positions at the University of Idaho
and University of Wyoming. Greg's research extends from boreal owls and
flying squirrels to Amur tigers and cutthroat trout with a focus on the
consequences of broad scale ecological disturbance on wildlife dynamics.
Casey Giffen, most recently a biological scientist with the U. S. Forest
Service National Office in Washington, DC, specializes in regulatory
compliance and land management planning. Prior to working with the
National Office she spent time in the eastern and western regions of the
country working in forest management and natural resource planning. She
has over 15 years of experience working with national, regional, and
forest-level land management programs.
