LTER Europe – developing a new approach to ecosystem research, its communication and implementation
The outcomes of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2004), Global Environmental Outlook (2007) and reports of EEA (2007, 2005) on the state of European environment clearly showed that the future of nature management depends on changing the way individuals think about the environment and its impact on human well-being, decision makers consider and treat environmental values, scientists communicate their findings, and financial resources are mobilized and allocated to solve environmental problems.
Thus an important step, in both science and management, was to understand that complexity and persistence of environmental problems emerge from continuous interplay between nature and society. These two entities ought to be considered as one, highly dynamic, and to a certain extent unpredictable system. In consequence, new approaches to nature management need to refer to interdisciplinary, long-term, and multi-scale research, incorporating traditional knowledge and taking into account the potentials of eco-technologies and ecological engineering to achieve sustainability. They also need to address a variety of drivers to environmental change and provide tangible results that could be implemented through regional consultancy and local participation.
These new demands formed part of the framework for the development of the European Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER-Europe) and its formal foundation in 2007.
The poster presents the role of the emerging network in facilitating development of new strategies for environmental research and monitoring, integration of existing approaches, exchange of know-how and expertise. It also demonstrates network’s perspectives as catalyst of applied socio-ecological research and as a platform for generating policy and technology solutions.
