Global research priorities for historical ecology to inform conservation
Historical ecology integrates insights from history, anthropology, paleontology, and ecology to understand long‑term ecological and social change. A global team identified priorities in methods, community engagement, policy, and climate impacts, highlighting how the field now bridges disciplines and partners with communities to apply past knowledge to future conservation.
Subject Tags
- Climate impacts
- Conservation Planning
- Community-based conservation
Abstract
Historical ecology draws on a broad range of information sources and methods to provide insight into ecological and social change, especially over the past ∼12000 yr. While its results are often relevant to conservation and restoration, insights from its diverse disciplines, environments, and geographies have frequently remained siloed or underrepresented, restricting their full potential. Here, scholars and practitioners working in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments on 6 continents and various archipelagoes synthesize knowledge from the fields of history, anthropology, paleontology, and ecology with the goal of describing global research priorities for historical ecology to influence conservation. We used a structured decision-making process to identify and address questions in 4 key priority areas: (1) methods and concepts, (2) knowledge co-production and community engagement, (3) policy and management, and (4) climate change impacts. This work highlights the ways that historical ecology has developed and matured in its use of novel information sources, efforts to move beyond extractive research practices and toward knowledge co-production, and application to management challenges including climate change. We demonstrate the ways that this field has brought together researchers across disciplines, connected academics to practitioners, and engaged communities to create and apply knowledge of the past to address the challenges of our shared future.
Citation
McClenachan, L., Rick, T., Thurstan, R.H., Trant, A., Alagona, P.S., Alleway, H.K., Armstrong, C., Bird, R.B., Rubio-Cisneros, N.T., Clavero, M. and Colonese, A.C., 2024. Global research priorities for historical ecology to inform conservation. Endangered Species Research, 54, pp.285-310. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01338
TNC Authors
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Heidi Alleway
Senior Aquaculture Specialist
The Nature Conservancy
Email: heidi.alleway@tnc.org