Interview: Extolling the Value Of Forests Shaped by Humans

Susanna Hecht, a political ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been a controversial figure in the conservation community, which is not surprising given her assertion that many of the world’s deforested lands are recovering and that forests altered by human activity play a vital ecological role. Her studies of humanity’s interaction with forests have revealed how major social forces, such as globalization, affect our environment, sometimes in unanticipated — and positive — ways. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Hecht argues it’s time to start thinking about a new strategy for the world’s forests, one that focuses less on setting aside preserves for wildlife and biodiversity and more on the unprotected areas where people live. Hecht espouses what she calls the “new rurality,” which wrings the most biodiversity from a patchwork landscape of crops, pastures, agroforestry plantations, and abandoned farmland reverting to forest. “There has been a recognition,” says Hecht, “that inhabited environments can have major conservation values.”

Read the interview