Importance
The use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and management of landscapes. It is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is "greater than the sum of its parts." There are many attempts to respond to ecosystems in an integrated way to achieve "multi-functional" landscapes, and various interest groups from agricultural researchers to conservationists are using the "ecoregion" as a unit of analysis.
The "Global 200" is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation.
Ecologically based movements like bioregionalism maintain that ecoregions, rather than arbitrarily defined political boundaries, provide a better foundation for the formation and governance of human communities, and have proposed ecoregions and watersheds as the basis for bioregional democracy initiatives.
Read more about this topic: Freshwater Ecoregions
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
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—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
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—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)