Grand challenges for the future of ecological engineering

Ecological engineering is an idea and field whose time has already come, but what will it be in the future? It can be a leader in environmental sustainability, but this will not be easy to achieve. Three grand challenges need to be met and integrated into practice to accomplish this ambitious goal; they are the ethical, the relational, and the intellectual. The ethical challenge requires clearly articulating what is meant by the statement that ecological engineering integrates human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both, and what this then implies for codes of practice. The statement is open to ethical interpretation and invokes the key issue of balance amidst inevitable tradeoffs. The relational challenge is strategic. If ecological engineering seeks wide adoption it must develop and strengthen its relationships with other scientific disciplines and other segments of society. Key scientific partners are social science, management science, domain-specific science and technology, conservation and restoration science, engineering science and technology, and many areas of 'green' science and technology. Key social partners are business, policy, education and practitioners. The intellectual challenge requires those coming from ecological and engineering perspectives to respectively identify and fuse their key principles into a coherent, useful set that is comprehensible and accessible to all. All three challenges have to be met and integrated if ecological engineering is to significantly contribute to environmental sustainability. Given rapid environmental change, time to accomplish these tasks is limited. I call for a substantive open discourse and progress on these challenges and their integration into ecological engineering practice. If ecological engineering does not do this it risks misinterpretation, misapplication and non-acceptance, and may get lost in a sea of rapidly growing green endeavors.