Progressiveness Among Farmers as a Factor in Heterogeneity of Farmed Landscapes

Human attitudes and actions, broadly interpreted, are fundamental factors in landscape ecology and the management of disturbance. The obvious reason is that humans have always had, and continue to have, a major impact on landscapes. Humans may be the source of disturbance (such as in the generation of air pollution; see Bormann, Chapter 3), but they may also create landscapes (see Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10). Human action on the land is the result of attitudes derived from a complex of ideas, motivations, and experiences. If, as Risser (Chapter 1) suggests, humans are to be included within landscape ecology, then we must include within our studies the attitudes and motivations underlying human action in creating or responding to landscape disturbance. The role of farming in the rural agricultural landscape provides an example of this phenomenon.