ABSTRACT
Biogeography is associated with both the geographical and the biological sciences which continue to nourish its development. The new biogeography incorporates welcome contemporary theories on the short-term and episodic nature of climatic and geological changes, and updated Darwinism provides a temporal framework for theoretical comparison and context. In that context, the complexity of the history of biogeography reflects its current dilemmas and debates. Broader-based biogeographical view would keep conservation policies in touch with the economic, social and technical realities of land usage and, in the end, protect heritage sites within the tempo of land-use change. It is, however, biogeography, with pedology, that provides the biophysical arena where land-use systems convert natural energy for man’s dietetic and technological consumption. There are far too many scientific challenges and pressing problems of environmental monitoring and management to allow internecine quibbles on academic territoriality to interfere with progress in pure and applied research.
