Common Ground

The Sharing of Land and Landscapes for Sustainability

Mark Everard

Common Ground explores the shifting relationship between human society and the landscapes that bear it. Examining the changing understandings of the natural world and its management and exploitation, environmental activist Mark Everard presents solutions in the nature of ecosystem services.

Notwithstanding our total dependence on the Earth’s natural resources, the relationship between humanity and the land has shifted significantly and frequently throughout our tenure, brief as it is relative to the evolution of planetary life. Appropriating increasing proportions of nature’s resources to meet our shifting and growing demands, we have been degrading the quality and extent of ecosystems, nearly destroying their capacities to meet the needs of a burgeoning population.

The book offers a fresh and vital whole-system approach to the key under-pinning the issue of sustainability. Everard looks ahead to what is required to live sustainably, respecting the central role of landscapes in supporting human wellbeing into the long-term future.
 

Contents

• Introduction
1. Privatisation of the land
2. Reclaiming the common good
3. The ends of the Earth
4. Shifting conceptual landscapes
5. A landscape at our service
6. The great food challenge
7. Valuing land and landscapes
8. Living landscapes
9. Lessons for tomorrow’s world
10. The people’s land
 

About the Author

Dr. Mark Everard’s work in all four sectors of society–private, public, academic and voluntary–has taken him across five continents to undertake applied research, policy development and capacity-building relating to the ways in which people connect with ecosystems. The author of six other books, over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and over 150 technical magazine articles, Mark is also a communicator on sustainability and wider aquatic matters on TV and radio. He has served on numerous government advisory and expert groups in the UK, as well as advising other governments and multinational corporations on sustainability matters.