Ecosystem management is an integrative, adaptive method for planning and implementing interventions in ecological systems to sustain or restore their structure, function, composition, and services over the long term. It emphasizes system-level objectives, such as maintaining biodiversity, ecological integrity, and resilience, rather than optimizing single components or outputs. Methodologically, it combines ecological modeling, long-term monitoring, stakeholder involvement, and scenario-based decision analysis within an adaptive management cycle of hypothesis-driven actions and iterative evaluation. Ecosystem management explicitly incorporates spatial heterogeneity, cross-scale ecological processes, and uncertainty, and often uses tools such as GIS-based landscape analysis, environmental indicators, and decision-support systems to guide management actions and evaluate trade-offs among competing ecological and socio-economic goals.
Desertification is accelerating under climate change, threatening biodiversity, food security, and human well-being across the Mediterranean Basin, southern Europe, and the Middle East. Water scarcity and land degradation ...
Ecology
Jan 31, 2026
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34
Trees play a central role in life on Earth. They store CO₂, provide habitats for animals, fungi, and insects, stabilize soils, regulate water cycles, and supply resources that humans rely on—from timber and food to recreation ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 28, 2026
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3988
For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about ...
Ecology
Jan 27, 2026
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19
New research indicates that restoration of peatlands can result in climate mitigation within just a few decades. In Finland, some 60,000 hectares of previously forestry-drained peatlands have already been restored, comprising ...
Environment
Jan 27, 2026
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17
Governance arrangements that fit social-ecological context help support fishery sustainability.
Agriculture
Jan 27, 2026
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12
Incidents that make us consider the relationship between humans and wild animals are happening all over Japan, from bear attacks to crop damage by wild animals. How should we interpret the current situation, and how should ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 26, 2026
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17
In recent years, Nepal has been heralded as a global leader in community-based forest conservation. By handing over nearly a third of its nationally owned forest to local villagers in the 1980s, the country reversed years ...
Environment
Jan 26, 2026
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75
The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted in 1994, helped quell mounting tensions between timber companies and environmentalists. It protected large swaths of old-growth forest in Washington, Oregon and California to preserve habitat ...
Environment
Jan 21, 2026
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21
The success of restoration efforts hinges on involving local communities. That was the finding of our recent study which explored restoration programs around the world.
Plants & Animals
Jan 16, 2026
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19
Lions in Kenya respond very differently to human land use, climate and conservation practices. That is the conclusion of thesis from Leiden biologist Monica Chege. A uniform approach is therefore insufficient. "Effective ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 13, 2026
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