Scientific Colloquium on Forest, Landscape and Society

摘要

The Scientific Colloquium on the occasion of the retirement of Professor Dr. FRANZ SCHMITHUSEN was held on April 8, 2005 with contributions by speakers from various European countries and the United States of America. The colourful interior of the Semper-Aula of the ETH main building was hosting an audience of about 120 people, invited guests and the general public, attending the presentations of this one day meeting. Professor Dr. KLAUS SEELAND of the Human-Environment-Systems Institute, ETHZ introduced to the colloquium's program. He stressed that landscapes are a representation of social change over thousands of years and a hologram of the social and physical history of a region. Forests are a significant dimension in this hologram. The dynamicsof natural growth and social change, of new policies and perceptions transform what is commonly taken as eternal and everlasting. New developments in society and economy cause changes in forests and landscapes. But society never has the opportunity to create them from the beginning. Landscapes are essentially a heritage of the past and can only be transformed in the present in view of what today seems to make sense in the future. Moreover, a society has no chance not to transform the landscapes it lives in. The human-environment-systems interaction, or rather in-action, because humans are always part and parcel of their environment, was highlighted as one of the salient features of human existence.