Unfortunately, because of a lack of familiarity with the subject and negative perceptions, many professionals in environmental education, science, and management have overlooked agriculture as a potentially valuable partner and resource. It is time for a more complete awareness of and vigorous cooperation with agriculture in the pursuit of environmental conservation and management. Partnerships with agriculture promise realistic, constructive, and holistic attitudes and approaches for problem solving in environmental research, management and remediation. Diverse knowledge already gained by agricultural research on organisms, soils, water, genetics, physiology, pathology, population dynamics, and other concerns in agroecosystems has great potential for scientific and technical transferability to wildland management. Opportunities for partnerships exist in many areas of research and application, and promise benefits for both agriculture and wildlands.
Many agriculturists possess insights and abilities potentially transferable to wildland studies.
Conversely, people familiar with wildland species and ecosystems could make valuable contributions to emerging areas of agriculture such as sustainable farming systems and the biological control of diseases and pests. Understanding of the biological, physical, and functional similarities, differences, and interrelationships of wild and agricultural ecosystems provides essential, practical insights into the management of compatible and sustainable systems. Similarities include common genetic bases, similar qualitative nutrient requirements, common soil requirements, and dependence on, or impact of, microbial interfaces or symbiotic associations in carbon cycling, other life-support activities, and disease. Differences include mutually exclusive ecosystems developed through different evolutionary adaptations, markedly diminished genetic diversity in agroecosystems, greater nutritional and other input demands in agricultural species, greater potential for soil erosion in cultivation, and strong exclusionary and genetically selective pressures imposed on microbial species and populations under agriculture. Potential Benefits of Partnerships A general benefit of networking people inside and outside of agriculture is a more realistic, direct, and productive forum within which solutions to problems in environmental conservation can be debated, developed, evaluated, and implemented for a sustainable biosphere.