Abstract:
A large conserved wildland that is developed for its
biodiversity and ecosystem services in a non-
damaging way is an anthroecosystem. For that matter, so
is a large city with its agroscape and trade links. If a large
wildland is to survive today, it must be conserved by an
“ecosystem approach for sustainable use of biological
diversity.” I view a conserved wildland as a somewhat
disorderly garden that produces its crops in unconventional
kinds of sacks and boxes. It is multi-cropped and multi-
tasked, and has multi-users. And it requires the same
intensity of care and thinking as does any highly successful
agroscape or urban centre (Janzen 1998a, b, 1999a, b).
Conservation into perpetuity demands the abandonment of
models in which society is fenced out and the wildlandplaced in passive institutional custody.
The Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in
northwestern Costa Rica (http://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr)
is such an ecosystem approach to the sustainable use of
biological diversity and its resultant ecosystems. The ACG
is one of 11 such conservation units at various stages of
evolution in Costa Rica. Altogether they cover about 25%
of the country and form the Sistema Nacional de Areas de
Conservación (SINAC) (http://sinac.ns.minae.go.cr). In
this essay on wildland management theory,
