Applied Historical Ecology: A Key Frame for the Management of Landscapes

An Applied Historical Ecology

An applied historical ecology refers to the application of historical understanding in the effective management of the ecosystems (Swetnam et al., 1189).

The Significance of Chronological Environment

The chronological environment is significant for the ecologists and individuals in many ways as follows:

• The historical perceptions facilitate and enhance the peoples’ understanding of dynamic nature of the landscapes.
• Applied historical ecology provides a key frame for the reference of evaluating new patterns and various processes.
• However, the records are fragmentary essential.
• Despite the historical perspectives frequently being used, there is a complication in the selection of the appropriate reference circumstances.
• The difficulties arise from the past influences of the humans and several potential reference situations.
• Moreover, Swetnam et al. (1190) historical ecology is used in guiding the land management decisions.

Application in Land Management

For example, in southwestern US, the land management firms employ concepts of the past variability and reference conditions in implementing some land decisions. The fire scar histories on the regional and logical patterns show that increased livestock grazing reduced the causes of fire regimes and provided for grazing fields among the conflicting individuals. Through the historical perspectives, there is an appropriate allocation of land to various societies. As a result, the past ecology provides for sufficient settlement schemes among the residents of the southwestern.

Limitations and Importance

Swetnam et al. (1204) argue that despite the significance of the historical ecology there are limitations involved. The restrictions include patchy records due to the stochastic, incomplete, or transient nature of paleorecord preservation and development of the ancient environment of ecosystems. As a result, the old-time sequences suffer from a challenge in the fading records systems. Second, there is no record available for various ecosystem processes that are primarily used for management concern. However, Swetnam et al. (1205) outline that disregarding the historical ecology is perilous. Therefore, there should be continuous use of the applied historical ecology.

Work cited

Swetnam, Thomas W., Craig D. Allen, and Julio L. Betancourt. “Applied historical ecology: using the past to manage for the future.” Ecological applications 9.4 (1999): 1189-1206.