Dr. Elena Daniela Concepción Cuevas
What does the Anthropocene mean to you?
Regardless of whether or not it is officially accepted as a geological period, to me the concept of the Anthropocene is fundamental to understand the scope and magnitude of the changes that human activity has caused on the planet since the Industrial Revolution, and especially more intensely and accelerately since the second half of the 20th century. What is not named does not exist, this is why I believe it is necessary to use this term. It is also important to highlight its close link with Global Change, which encompasses and synthesises a large number of interrelated phenomena that seriously alter and threaten the functioning of Earth's natural systems on which we all rely and thus compromise our own well-being, and even survival, and which have their ultimate origin in human activities. Given the extent and complexity of the social and ecological changes we are triggering, I am convinced it is essential to coin a specific term that highlights the central role we play, not only as the main drivers of impacts on Earth, but also as the facilitators of their reversal in favour of nature and ourselves.
How does the Anthropocene play a role in your work?
As a landscape and conservation ecologist the Anthropocene is the central setting of my research. I am primarily interested on the impacts of distinct land use and cover changes (LUCC) on biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services (BES), and on how conservation efforts can be better allocated and integrated through distinct policy tools to provide the greatest social-ecological benefits. The expansion of intensive agriculture and urbanisation, together with the abandonment of extensive production systems, are major drivers of LUCC. Likely synergistic impacts of distinct LUCC co-occur in the landscape, which however have usually been examined separately. In this context, the Anthropocene, the overall objective of my research is the coherent and integrated analysis of the responses of key components of BES to such human-induced LUCC. I am particularly interested in evaluating different policy and management tools for the effective protection of BES in the face of these drivers of global change. All this with the aim of assessing how conservation efforts could be better allocated and coordinated with other policies to provide the greatest socio-ecological benefits.
What project(s) are you working on during your fellowship at the Forum Basiliense?
As a Forum Basiliense fellow, I aim to advance in the design and launch of a trans- national and disciplinary research consortium that help support the conservation of nature and its contributions to people in cultural landscapes. In particular, I intend to draw up a research proposal to examine the drivers and the impacst of rural immigration on the social-ecological structure and functionality of cultural landscapes over Europe. Rural depopulation and the abandonment of extensive land-use systems leads to the homogenization and loss of diversity and functionality of cultural landscapes. Counter-urbanisation, driven by rural immigration from urban areas, can counteract this trend, supporting in the renewal of diverse and multifunctional landscapes. However, there is a noticeable lack of research about the social-ecological drivers and consequences of rural immigration. In fact, the social-ecological characteristics of rural territories that attract urban migrants are not yet well known, as neither are the impacts that this causes on the landscape. In a recent review I co-led [1] we found evidences that there is a new counter-urbanisation momentum, supported by the extensive network of socio-economic linkages that still exists along rural-urban gradients. Although this incipient rural immigration may lead to urban sprawl, touristification, gentrification and loss of rural identity, it can also counterbalance the dominant trends of rural abandonment and intensification and push forward sustainable rural development and landscape multifunctionality. Public policies and other socio-economic actors have a key role to play in driving rural in-migration processes along either trajectory. To capitalize on this opportunity and offer science-based recommendations for revitalizing cultural landscapes, it is crucial to enhance our understanding of the counter-urbanisation phenomenum, its drivers and impacts on social-ecological systems and landscape functionality.