Wow,,, I found an info about a good book for urban and regional planner in the world.. let me to tell u about this book... the title is "Landscape and urban planning cover for 2010"
this is the editorial...
“The interconnection between society and the environment are
profound and must be the basis for our future science endeavors”
of U.S. Forest Service researchers. There is more to this statement
than one might suspect. Researchers within the U.S. Forest Service,
university professors, and private industry are now making
significant insights into the connections between people and their
environments. These insights are helping land managers make better
decisions about the future use of federal lands and private lands
as well.
Gaining a meaningful perspective on this human–environment
relationship does not come easy. It takes a reorientation by these
researchers to view the relationship differently. In times past conventionalwisdomallowed
us to view land as a platform upon which
society stood to extract its needs and desires from the environment
without reproach. The only relationship between humans and land
was one of physical contact. Then a breakthrough began to change
this perspective. It may have started when people began to fly. Flying
meant seeing the landscape from an unfamiliar perspective. The
landscape was now seen from a new viewpoint.
In this perspective humans were no longer perched above the
landscape. Now they were placed within it. More significantly
human actions were now perceived as part of the problem that
created the visible mosaic we call our environment. Environmental
scientists applied their science to reveal the linkages between
social and ecological systems. They were, in effect, identifying
humans as members of the ecosystem and amajor contributor to its
problems.
Land planners were quick to see the significance in this relationship.
They realized good planning means creating successful
linkages between people and their ability to produce and utilize
landscapes and their physical resources. Whether it be in an urban
landscape, a suburban development, a rural farmstead or a wilderness
cabin, a good land planner enables the user to become an
ecological resident.
The environment viewed as network of human interactions and
naturally occurring phenomena was changed again with the advent
of space travel. Now humans had a global perspective of their environment
and others environments as well. The connection between
social systems and ecological systems was made clearer still. More
importantly we were able to see just how powerful and destructive
human activities were to our ecosystems. We were beginning
to realize we were threatening humanity with dramatic failures.
We realized we must search for ways to reverse and mitigate our
negative impacts on our separate environments.
The search is now on for ways to gain insight into our problem
of reversing our negative impacts on our environment. The
U.S. Forest Service has been given its mission to do so. It is also
important for others to do their part. Scientists continue to analyze
various ways to promote better social, cultural and institutional
activities that will ultimately bring about positive change within
the human–environment relationship.
The study of ecosystems continues. Important insights have
been compiled that are advancing our ability to upgrade our management
plans. We know we need to relate actions for mitigation
to the varying scales of landscape both spatially and temporarily.
We know we must relate scientific insights to ongoing practices as
well as promoting new ones. We have learned that any new management
proposal has to be adaptable within the local and regional
management structure if it is to be successful.
Among the many alternatives one basic human–landscape relationship
stands out. Over the past millennium humans have been
developing an ever evolving capability to protect and create better
landscapes through the manipulation, and restoration of their
local vegetative communities. Humans have learned through this
association that vegetation reflects many environmental factors
important to plants. In turn we have come to realize many aspects
of vegetation are potentially significant as indicators of good or bad
environmental practices.
The cover for 2010 presents four images of very special sites.
Each of these sites have some important factors in common. First,
each site represents the managing institution’s respect for the local
vegetative communities contained within the landscapes found
there. The existing land use structure for each site is complex.
It represents a protection, restoration, recreation, and conservation
component. Each site is supported by institutional and social
constructs that have long tern ecological protection goals. Each
site’s land use strategy was started decades ago. The future for
each is dependent upon the support of the people who live nearby
and those who frequent the sites. Finally each site provides visitors
with the opportunity to rediscover the positive aspects of the
human–landscape relationship. The physical setting, visual beauty,
changing ecological conditions and spatial qualities serve to regenerate
in the visitor a human desire for a simpler life, for renewal
and a fresh intimacy with their environment.
Top Left: Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.A.
This reserve is one hundred and fifty acres in size, located on
Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. Eighty-four acres are in second growth forest. The remainder, some sixty-six acres, is dedicated
to gardens, ponds and meadows for its visitors. The site formally
housed the Bloedel family in a French country house built in 1931.
Today the house serves as a visitor center along with its neighboring
small log and frame summer cabins.
Walking tours allow visitors to view a waterfall, overlooks and
gardens developed along the edge of the steep stream channel as
it flows through the property to the sea. The gardens contain thousands
of perennials, wildflowers and more than fifteen thousand
cyclamen plants, one of the largest plantings in the world.
There are Japanese gardens filled with deciduous trees and a
rock and sand zen garden designed by Dr. Koichi Kawana, a professor
of landscape architecture at the University of California. There
is a moss garden and access to a bird refuge, a dense Northwest
forest preserve full of Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar and Hemlock
and a reflection garden.
The reflection garden is made up of a rectangular pond which
contains a natural spring, a hedge of evergreens backed up by the
surrounding northwest forest tree species. The serenity created
by the simple design puts the visitor in a calm and contemplative
frame of mind. Herein lies the basic purpose of the site. Here
the visitor can reflect on the best visual pleasures the vegetation,
the changing weather patterns, changing seasons and surrounding
ecosystem can offer.
Top Right: Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada
The Butchart Gardens is fifty-five acres in size located on Vancouver
Island just north of Victoria, B.C. This National Historic site
was created in 1908 by Jennie Butchart, the wife of a Canadian
Industrialist, in an abandoned limestone quarry. The climate is
Mediterranean in character with a warm/dry summer followed by a
wet/cool winter. There is a peaksummergrowing season, the shoulder
seasons of spring and fall and the low growing season of winter.
The gardens continue the Victorian tradition of seasonally changing
the spectacular floral displays. The twenty-six greenhouses covering
nearly two acres, growing trial areas, tree and shrub nurseries
and an army of plant specialists help keep this garden in year-round
operation.
The paths are well placed so as to put the visitor in contact with
all the variations and settings the garden has to offer. Visitors come
from all point on the globe to experience the seasonal displays.
Guide pamphlets help the visitors easily find the daily, weekly, and
seasonal displays. The terrain, landscape settings, trees and planting
areas combine to provide every visitor with a personal reason
to return.
This garden is world reknown for the variety and continually
changing floral and leaf displays over the four seasons. You can visit
at any time during the year and even at night during the summer
season to view plant species in various setting displays. If there is
a joy in plants it is to be found in glorious diversity here.
Middle Panorama: Elk Falls Provincial Park, Vancouver Island,
B.C., Canada
Elk Falls Provincial Park is located west of Campbell River on the
east central coast of Vancouver Island. It is named for the 25mhigh
waterfall that cascades down to the rocky channel below: the park
is located within a second growth Douglas Fir forest. The Quinsam
River runs through the heart of the park providing visitors with
hiking trails, campgrounds, beautiful scenery and seasonal salmon
fishing.
This park is a jump off point for day trips to Gold River, Sayward,
Kelsey Bay, Rock Bay and the Sayward Forest area. This area
of British Columbia affords visitors seasonal recreational activities
during the late spring, summer and early fall. Winters and the cold
rains and snow fall clears all but the most determined visitors out of
the park. The salmon runs are perhaps the most spectacular event
to be witnessed in the region. Ocean going salmon return to these
rivers from the Pacific. The salmon are now a small fraction of the
original numbers found here just a few decades ago.
This park and others like it help protect the landscape, the forest
cover, the drainage ways and the fish populations that depend on
it. People who walk along the stream side paths are looking at the
remnants of a fishery that is in peril. The future of the Pink, Coho,
and Chinook Salmon residing in this area are dependent upon these
park sites as part of their future survival.
Bottom panorama: Limahuli Garden and Reserve, Kaua’i Island,
Hawaii, U.S.A.
Limahuli Garden and Reserve is a member of the National
Tropical Botanical Garden program. This program is a 501 (c) (3)
corporation created by congressional charter in 1964. NTBG supports
are derived from government, individual, and public and
private foundations. The NTBG has grown to include two thousand
acres of gardens and preserves.
Limahuli Garden and Reserve is located on the north shore of
Kaua’I near Makana Mountain next to the Pacific Ocean. Limahuli
means “turning hands” in Hawaiian. The name recognizes the
ancient Hawaiians who built agricultural terraces out of lava rock
and planted cultivars of Kalo (Taro), an important food crop. The
preserve is home to this plant and other native species associated
with the early inhabitants to the Islands.
Limahuli covers almost on thousand acres of land and includes
habitats from lowland mesic forests to mountain rainforests. The
ecological health of the habitats range from pristine to highly
degraded. The preserve is closed to the public. Here work is focused
on twelve species that are Federally listed as Threatened or Endangered.
The NTBG conservation effort places special emphasis on
nine “candidate” species through its Prevention and Extinction Program
(PEP).
The panorama shows the public access portion of garden area
where environmental conservation practices are demonstrated.
The center opened in 1995. A walk through lava rock terraces built
by LImahuli’s early inhabitants provides visitors with a close up
look at the cultural practices and landscape designs created by these
Polynesian immigrants to the islands centuries ago.
Reference
Bartuska, A., 2005. Research and Development, 2004 Annual Report. USOA Forest
Service, Washington, DC, 45 p.
J. Rodiek
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban
Planning, College of Architecture, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77843-3137, USA
E-mail address: jrodiek@archmail.tamu.edu
Available online 21 October 2009
this is the editorial...
“The interconnection between society and the environment are
profound and must be the basis for our future science endeavors”
(Bartuska, 2005). So stated Chief Deputy of Research and Development
Ann Bartuska in her 2005 annual report to the U.S. ForestService. There is an intuitive basis for accepting such a statement
on face value. However intuitive statements are not the hallmarkof U.S. Forest Service researchers. There is more to this statement
than one might suspect. Researchers within the U.S. Forest Service,
university professors, and private industry are now making
significant insights into the connections between people and their
environments. These insights are helping land managers make better
decisions about the future use of federal lands and private lands
as well.
Gaining a meaningful perspective on this human–environment
relationship does not come easy. It takes a reorientation by these
researchers to view the relationship differently. In times past conventionalwisdomallowed
us to view land as a platform upon which
society stood to extract its needs and desires from the environment
without reproach. The only relationship between humans and land
was one of physical contact. Then a breakthrough began to change
this perspective. It may have started when people began to fly. Flying
meant seeing the landscape from an unfamiliar perspective. The
landscape was now seen from a new viewpoint.
In this perspective humans were no longer perched above the
landscape. Now they were placed within it. More significantly
human actions were now perceived as part of the problem that
created the visible mosaic we call our environment. Environmental
scientists applied their science to reveal the linkages between
social and ecological systems. They were, in effect, identifying
humans as members of the ecosystem and amajor contributor to its
problems.
Land planners were quick to see the significance in this relationship.
They realized good planning means creating successful
linkages between people and their ability to produce and utilize
landscapes and their physical resources. Whether it be in an urban
landscape, a suburban development, a rural farmstead or a wilderness
cabin, a good land planner enables the user to become an
ecological resident.
The environment viewed as network of human interactions and
naturally occurring phenomena was changed again with the advent
of space travel. Now humans had a global perspective of their environment
and others environments as well. The connection between
social systems and ecological systems was made clearer still. More
importantly we were able to see just how powerful and destructive
human activities were to our ecosystems. We were beginning
to realize we were threatening humanity with dramatic failures.
We realized we must search for ways to reverse and mitigate our
negative impacts on our separate environments.
The search is now on for ways to gain insight into our problem
of reversing our negative impacts on our environment. The
U.S. Forest Service has been given its mission to do so. It is also
important for others to do their part. Scientists continue to analyze
various ways to promote better social, cultural and institutional
activities that will ultimately bring about positive change within
the human–environment relationship.
The study of ecosystems continues. Important insights have
been compiled that are advancing our ability to upgrade our management
plans. We know we need to relate actions for mitigation
to the varying scales of landscape both spatially and temporarily.
We know we must relate scientific insights to ongoing practices as
well as promoting new ones. We have learned that any new management
proposal has to be adaptable within the local and regional
management structure if it is to be successful.
Among the many alternatives one basic human–landscape relationship
stands out. Over the past millennium humans have been
developing an ever evolving capability to protect and create better
landscapes through the manipulation, and restoration of their
local vegetative communities. Humans have learned through this
association that vegetation reflects many environmental factors
important to plants. In turn we have come to realize many aspects
of vegetation are potentially significant as indicators of good or bad
environmental practices.
The cover for 2010 presents four images of very special sites.
Each of these sites have some important factors in common. First,
each site represents the managing institution’s respect for the local
vegetative communities contained within the landscapes found
there. The existing land use structure for each site is complex.
It represents a protection, restoration, recreation, and conservation
component. Each site is supported by institutional and social
constructs that have long tern ecological protection goals. Each
site’s land use strategy was started decades ago. The future for
each is dependent upon the support of the people who live nearby
and those who frequent the sites. Finally each site provides visitors
with the opportunity to rediscover the positive aspects of the
human–landscape relationship. The physical setting, visual beauty,
changing ecological conditions and spatial qualities serve to regenerate
in the visitor a human desire for a simpler life, for renewal
and a fresh intimacy with their environment.
Top Left: Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.A.
This reserve is one hundred and fifty acres in size, located on
Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. Eighty-four acres are in second growth forest. The remainder, some sixty-six acres, is dedicated
to gardens, ponds and meadows for its visitors. The site formally
housed the Bloedel family in a French country house built in 1931.
Today the house serves as a visitor center along with its neighboring
small log and frame summer cabins.
Walking tours allow visitors to view a waterfall, overlooks and
gardens developed along the edge of the steep stream channel as
it flows through the property to the sea. The gardens contain thousands
of perennials, wildflowers and more than fifteen thousand
cyclamen plants, one of the largest plantings in the world.
There are Japanese gardens filled with deciduous trees and a
rock and sand zen garden designed by Dr. Koichi Kawana, a professor
of landscape architecture at the University of California. There
is a moss garden and access to a bird refuge, a dense Northwest
forest preserve full of Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar and Hemlock
and a reflection garden.
The reflection garden is made up of a rectangular pond which
contains a natural spring, a hedge of evergreens backed up by the
surrounding northwest forest tree species. The serenity created
by the simple design puts the visitor in a calm and contemplative
frame of mind. Herein lies the basic purpose of the site. Here
the visitor can reflect on the best visual pleasures the vegetation,
the changing weather patterns, changing seasons and surrounding
ecosystem can offer.
Top Right: Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada
The Butchart Gardens is fifty-five acres in size located on Vancouver
Island just north of Victoria, B.C. This National Historic site
was created in 1908 by Jennie Butchart, the wife of a Canadian
Industrialist, in an abandoned limestone quarry. The climate is
Mediterranean in character with a warm/dry summer followed by a
wet/cool winter. There is a peaksummergrowing season, the shoulder
seasons of spring and fall and the low growing season of winter.
The gardens continue the Victorian tradition of seasonally changing
the spectacular floral displays. The twenty-six greenhouses covering
nearly two acres, growing trial areas, tree and shrub nurseries
and an army of plant specialists help keep this garden in year-round
operation.
The paths are well placed so as to put the visitor in contact with
all the variations and settings the garden has to offer. Visitors come
from all point on the globe to experience the seasonal displays.
Guide pamphlets help the visitors easily find the daily, weekly, and
seasonal displays. The terrain, landscape settings, trees and planting
areas combine to provide every visitor with a personal reason
to return.
This garden is world reknown for the variety and continually
changing floral and leaf displays over the four seasons. You can visit
at any time during the year and even at night during the summer
season to view plant species in various setting displays. If there is
a joy in plants it is to be found in glorious diversity here.
Middle Panorama: Elk Falls Provincial Park, Vancouver Island,
B.C., Canada
Elk Falls Provincial Park is located west of Campbell River on the
east central coast of Vancouver Island. It is named for the 25mhigh
waterfall that cascades down to the rocky channel below: the park
is located within a second growth Douglas Fir forest. The Quinsam
River runs through the heart of the park providing visitors with
hiking trails, campgrounds, beautiful scenery and seasonal salmon
fishing.
This park is a jump off point for day trips to Gold River, Sayward,
Kelsey Bay, Rock Bay and the Sayward Forest area. This area
of British Columbia affords visitors seasonal recreational activities
during the late spring, summer and early fall. Winters and the cold
rains and snow fall clears all but the most determined visitors out of
the park. The salmon runs are perhaps the most spectacular event
to be witnessed in the region. Ocean going salmon return to these
rivers from the Pacific. The salmon are now a small fraction of the
original numbers found here just a few decades ago.
This park and others like it help protect the landscape, the forest
cover, the drainage ways and the fish populations that depend on
it. People who walk along the stream side paths are looking at the
remnants of a fishery that is in peril. The future of the Pink, Coho,
and Chinook Salmon residing in this area are dependent upon these
park sites as part of their future survival.
Bottom panorama: Limahuli Garden and Reserve, Kaua’i Island,
Hawaii, U.S.A.
Limahuli Garden and Reserve is a member of the National
Tropical Botanical Garden program. This program is a 501 (c) (3)
corporation created by congressional charter in 1964. NTBG supports
are derived from government, individual, and public and
private foundations. The NTBG has grown to include two thousand
acres of gardens and preserves.
Limahuli Garden and Reserve is located on the north shore of
Kaua’I near Makana Mountain next to the Pacific Ocean. Limahuli
means “turning hands” in Hawaiian. The name recognizes the
ancient Hawaiians who built agricultural terraces out of lava rock
and planted cultivars of Kalo (Taro), an important food crop. The
preserve is home to this plant and other native species associated
with the early inhabitants to the Islands.
Limahuli covers almost on thousand acres of land and includes
habitats from lowland mesic forests to mountain rainforests. The
ecological health of the habitats range from pristine to highly
degraded. The preserve is closed to the public. Here work is focused
on twelve species that are Federally listed as Threatened or Endangered.
The NTBG conservation effort places special emphasis on
nine “candidate” species through its Prevention and Extinction Program
(PEP).
The panorama shows the public access portion of garden area
where environmental conservation practices are demonstrated.
The center opened in 1995. A walk through lava rock terraces built
by LImahuli’s early inhabitants provides visitors with a close up
look at the cultural practices and landscape designs created by these
Polynesian immigrants to the islands centuries ago.
Reference
Bartuska, A., 2005. Research and Development, 2004 Annual Report. USOA Forest
Service, Washington, DC, 45 p.
J. Rodiek
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban
Planning, College of Architecture, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77843-3137, USA
E-mail address: jrodiek@archmail.tamu.edu
Available online 21 October 2009
