US-IALE 2018

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PLENARY PRESENTATION: A ‘How To’ Guide for Researchers Engaging in Landscape Change - Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore, Iowa State University

To be an ecologist in this age is to live in “a world of wounds:” our Earth has been widely trampled by people and threats to the things we love far outnumber causes for celebration. While some choose to harden their shells to the reality of environmental degradation, many more of us are engaged in efforts to preserve, conserve, and restore what we can. Here I present my story of engaging in with farmers, rural communities, businesses, and government to preserve biodiversity, conserve soil, and restore ecological function to agricultural landscapes in Iowa, a leading agricultural state with disproportionate influence on US farm bill legislation. I argue that the agricultural sector is a particularly important one for ecologists to engage because, worldwide, it has been responsible for more habitat conversion, water pollution, and global warming potential than any other segment of the economy, and the demand for food and other agricultural products is unlikely to subside. I furthermore argue that the concepts, knowledge, and tools of landscape ecologists are highly relevant to agriculture, but require expansion to more fully include the social in addition to the natural sciences to make more widespread progress toward achieving environmental outcomes. I share examples of how my research teams have done so to great effect in Iowa, and suggest lessons that may be more broadly applicable to landscape change efforts elsewhere.