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Myths and Realities of Ecology, Design and Ecosystem Health in the Metropolitan Landscape College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) recently reorganized as the College of Design, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. April 22, 2006

This symposium sought to (re)defi ne the role of ecological knowledge in the practice of landscape architecture. Skillfully organized by Dr. Laura Musacchio, it proposed to “explore the relationship between conservation science and design and the growing concern about how to integrate the natural world and the human world into mutually benefi cial and sustainable environments.” This was the third in a series of H. W. S. Cleveland Symposia at the University of Minnesota. Funded by a gift in 1991, the Cleveland Endowment enriches the intellectual life of the Department by bringing visiting professors and notable speakers together with students and faculty to discuss the role of landscape architects in society. The Endowment is an apt legacy for Horace W. S. Cleveland, a highly innovative practitioner, who helped defi ne the profession of landscape architecture through his writing and practice. In opening the conference, Thomas Fisher, Dean of CALA, enthusiastically debunked two commonly expressed myths; that ecology or conservation science and design are somehow incompatible; and that the academy is divorced from the realworld problems that confront society. He offered strong support for efforts that address real issues of sustainability, through integrated multidisciplinary research and scholarship. After a brief introduction about her work and the Cleveland Symposia Series, Dr. Musacchio set the context. She offered key defi nitions of the metropolitan landscape and of the “it depends” problem, which is the answer that designers get from conservation scientists asking for metrics for applying ecological principles to a specifi c design situation. Further, she argued that despite decades of conservation planning and landscape research, the question, “What is natural in a metropolitan landscape?” remains defi nitively unanswered, while different perspectives about the question have defi ned myths about naturalness and ecosystem health. Many of these myths are creating realities that may or may not be desirable for the long-term ecological and cultural sustainability of metropolitan landscapes. Jianguo Wu, Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Science at Arizona State University, advocated the use of spatially explicit ecological footprints as a means of understanding and measuring the impacts of worldwide urbanization on biodiversity and delivery of ecosystem services. In his paper, “Urban Landscape Ecology: Quantifying the Spatiotemporal Patterns of Cities,” he defi ned key concepts and principles of landscape ecology and explained their applicability to enhancing the sustainability of metropolitan landscapes. Noted Landscape Ecologist, Paul Opdam, of the Land Use Planning Group in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, the Netherlands and ALTERRA Research Institute, presented his extensive research on recreational landscapes in “Designing Metropolitan Landscapes for Biodiversity: Deriving Guidelines from Metapopulation Ecology.” Using examples from his research and work in landscape planning and design with citizens in the Netherlands, he illustrated the value of the ecosystem network concept as a tool for creating landscape designs that provide ecologically sustainable conditions for a chosen level of biodiversity in metropolitan landscapes. Robert Thayer, Professor Emeritus, Landscape Architecture, University of California at Davis, speculated about the landscape implications of a post “oil peak” future on one hand and continually expanding worldwide information fl ow via electronic communication on the other. In “The World Shrinks, the World Expands: Information, Energy and Relocalization,” he postulated that relocalizing physical goods, resources and Conferences and Exhibits