The imperative for planetary management

Background/Question/Methods and Results/Conclusions

The planet has evolved over billions of years as a linked physical and biological system that has set the composition of its atmosphere, produced soils and ecosystems and ecosystem services.  Human activity has increasingly intervened in that system through land use change, destruction and degradation of natural ecosystems, mismanagement of natural resources and the release of greenhouse gases. As a consequence humanity faces a number of challenges requiring management response, e.g. various measures in response to sea-level rise like the barriers to protect the Venetian lagoons from storm surge. And additional class of management response is to reduce the scale of the challenges by managing and restoring ecosystems at a planetary scale.