Interdisciplinary US-European Workshop on Landscape-Based Cultural Ecosystem Services

政策制定者和普通公众与科学家一样认识到，人类的福祉取决于维持地球生态系统的健康和活力。美国国家科学基金会的这一奖项将支持从美国各地选出的10位生态学家、社会科学家和景观规划师，与欧洲同事一起参加为期5天的研讨会，致力于推进对文化生态系统服务的科学理解，包括审美和娱乐体验、文化遗产和地方感。文化服务本身就受到美国、欧洲和世界各地人们的高度重视，其特定的起源、组成和欣赏的表达方式受到区域环境和文化历史和背景的微妙影响。对文化服务的赞赏也在决定人们对旨在保护生态系统和生态过程的政策的倾向方面发挥着核心作用，这些政策提供了必要的、但往往不太直观地得到重视的服务，特别是监管和支助服务。研讨会的主要目标是评估和记录文化生态系统服务的科学状况，特别关注美国和欧洲背景之间的异同；制定和推动完成所需研究和教育的议程；更好地将文化服务纳入更广泛的生态系统服务科学和政策框架；确定和促进利用公众支持其他重要但不太容易得到重视的生态系统和服务的机会。该研讨会将汇集来自美国和欧洲的生物物理和社会科学观点，美国通常强调自然生态系统和景观价值，而欧洲则更关注改良的生态系统及其相关的文化遗产价值。研讨会的主要成果包括美国和欧洲跨学科合作研究项目的具体建议，以解决已确定的需求。PI和他的同行，维也纳BOKU自然资源与应用生命科学大学的Andreas Muhar博士正在共同协调研讨会，并计划于2009年11月在奥地利伦茨的WasserKluster Lunz研究站举行会议。

Policy makers and the general public have joined scientists in recognizing that human wellbeing depends on sustaining the health and vigor of the earth's ecosystems. This NSF award provides support for 10 ecologists, social scientists and landscape planners selected from across the US to participate with European colleagues in a 5-day workshop devoted to advancing scientific understanding of cultural ecosystems services, including aesthetic and recreational experiences, cultural heritage, and sense of place. Cultural services are highly valued in their own right by people in the US, Europe and throughout the world, with the particular origins, compositions and expressions of appreciation being nuanced by regional environmental and cultural histories and contexts. The appreciation of cultural services also plays a central role in determining peoples' dispositions toward policies aimed at protecting ecosystems and ecological processes that provide essential, but often less intuitively appreciated services, especially regulatory and support services. The principal goals of the workshop are to assess and document the state of science for cultural ecosystems services, with specific attention to similarities and differences between US and European contexts; to develop and promote an agenda for accomplishing needed research and education; to better integrate cultural services into the broader ecosystems services science and policy framework; and to identify and facilitate opportunities to leverage public support for other essential but less readily appreciated ecosystems and services. The workshop will bring together bio-physical and social science perspectives from the US, where natural ecosystems and landscape values have typically been emphasized, and Europe, where there has been greater focus on modified ecosystems and their associated cultural heritage values. Key products from the workshop include specific proposals for collaborative US and European interdisciplinary research projects to address identified needs. The PI and his counterpart Dr. Andreas Muhar of the BOKU University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna are coordinating the workshop together and aim to hold the meeting at the WasserKluster Lunz research station in Lunz, Austria in November 2009.