Prologue: Building Sustainable Coastal Landscapes

摘要

Today's 5 billion+ Homo sapiens divert a substantial portion of the world's biological and geological resources to their direct use, while indirectly and continuously creating new and undesirable equilibria for natural systems across the continuum from local to global scales. These trajectories of long-term change must be addressed effectively— and soon—before further declines in the quality of life become permanent and before the decline in critical living resources reaches crisis thresholds, perhaps within 50 years. As the current rate of environmental degradation continues, or even accelerates, there will be fewer and less effective opportunities to set the world on a corrective course. Our cultural attitudes and behaviors can and must evolve to successfully turn this huge global juggernaut of consumption and use away from unsustainable trajectories and toward sustainable relationships between humans and the natural world. We do not believe that the existing set of institutions and behaviors can or will create the appropriate incentives for stakeholders to protect the intrinsic value of ecosystems. New institutions and behaviors are required to create and sustain the fundamental contributions necessary to make informed policy and management decisions that address urgent social needs, including sustainability.