Capitalizing on forty years of intensive ecological studies, this
anthology presents a collection of widely dispersed major publications
on theoretical and practical Mediterranean, global environmental and
landscape issues. These range from Mediterranean ecosystems and
vegetation types in California and Israel, to the significance of fire
in the evolution of cultural Mediterranean landscapes in the Pleistocene
and Early Holocene with special reference to Mt. Carmel; and from the
development of Tanzania Masailand, a sociological and ecological
challenge to multifunctional, self-organizing biosphere landscapes and
the future of our Total Human Ecosystem.
Each chapter features a comprehensive study of ecological and landscape
issues, synthesized in the introduction, and woven with autobiographical
experiences. The concluding chapter calls for a transdisciplinary shift
in all environmental scientific fields and particularly in landscape and
restoration ecology, to cope with the complex, closely interwoven
ecological, socio-economical, political and cultural crises facing human
society during the present crucial transition from the industrial to the
post-industrial, global information age.
Updating and broadening the scope of the groundbreaking Springer book on
Landscape Theory and Applications by the author and Lieberman (1994),
this is a unique transdisciplinary attempt based on advanced systems
complexity theories, which link the natural and human sciences. It will
be of value for all those dealing with land and landscape study in the
broadest sense as academic scientists, researchers and scholars,
professionals and practitioners and students.
