A strategy for ecology in an era of globalization

www.frontiersinecology.org © The Ecological Society of America T processes associated with globalization – the “growing integration of economies and societies” (World Bank 2001) – can lead to increases in the rate and scale of environmental degradation (MA 2005; Najaf et al. 2007). Patterns of degradation are also changing, in association with new transportation and production systems and interactions with changing climate (Lambin et al. 2003; Aide et al. 2006; Gutiérrez et al. 2006). New technologies and increased labor and capital mobility also mean that opportunities for ecosystem recovery can appear more rapidly (Aide and Grau 2004; de Soysa and Neumayer 2005; Liu et al. 2006). Environmental degradation and opportunities for restoration increasingly occur in areas of the world where there are few professionally trained ecologists; this includes much of Latin America (Martínez et al. 2006). As a result, the consequences of land-use change in these regions are often unanticipated and there is inadequate knowledge to support the development of more sustainable, alternative management systems. Even when new challenges and opportunities generated INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION