Regional problems need integrated solutions: Pest management and conservation biology in agroecosystems

Ecosystems produce goods and services that are essential for the wellbeing of humans and other organisms. The earth’s expanding human population is altering both pattern and process in ecosystems, and hence is impacting the provision of ecosystem goods and services at a variety of scales. Food production and other ecosystem services, such as the many benefits provided by forests, are not exclusive of one another at a regional scale. Although it is becoming obvious that uncoordinated local management is inadequate to address regional ecosystem changes in the face of regional drivers of change, few regional governments have addressed the need for holistic landscape management of regional ecosystem services. We compare and contrast two regional programs, the agricultural agenda of integrated pest management (IPM) and an as-yet hypothetical, fragmentation-oriented conservation agenda that we term ‘Regional Fragmentation Management’ (RFM). IPM has a strong practical foundation but is weak on theory. RFM has a stronger theoretical base, but is weak on practice and has mainly focused on protected areas. Both programs address only a small subset of the larger question of how to effectively maintain regional production of regional ecosystem services. Some of the successes of IPM practitioners in building institutions and achieving societal acceptance for their program, particularly in relation to regionally coordinated (‘areawide’) pest management, suggest that regional ecosystem management is plausible. IPM offers some ingredients of an institutional role model for a broader, more ambitious program that seeks to manage regional ecosystem services and processes in a sustainable manner. As the looming crisis of global climate change brings a potential window of opportunity for the introduction of novel approaches for managing deforestation, closer synergies between conservation and agriculture at regional scales seem not only possible, but essential.