July 5-10, 2015, Portland, Oregon.
During the world congress Crossing Scales, Crossing Borders: Global Approaches to Complex Challenges IALE-Europe organised the following symposium:
Shaping Landscape Ecology approaches worldwide in different regional contexts
Multiple approaches to the landscape have emerged in different regional contexts worldwide. Some approaches are commonly identified as having American or European roots. These roots have further evolved in landscape ecology communities around the world – cross-fertilizing with other disciplinary perspectives; responding to specific landscape challenges; engaging in unique dialogues between nature and culture; mobilizing new tools for linking pattern and processes, as well as, pattern and people at different scales; and linking landscape structures, management and values. This symposium gathered insights into these regional perspectives related to evolving concepts, approaches and methodological developments. A lively discussion followed the oral presentations. The overall conclusions underlined that there are no regional specific approaches, but more a combination of disciplines contributing to LE overall, which interact in different ways in different contexts, due to the different questions landscape ecology is faced with. Therefore, we should not stress the regional dimension, but more the interactive dimension of landscape ecology in its capacity to cope with different real world questions.