ABSTRACT
Recognition that complex systems and situations cannot be understood or dealt with piecemeal leads logically to consideration of the ecosystem level of organization. At this level, major properties and processes result, not from summation, but from integration and co-evolution of biotic communities and abiotic environments. Ecosystems resemble organisms in being open, far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic systems with input and output environments; but they differ from organisms in the way in which they develop and are controlled. A holistic or holoeconomic approach is especially important in assessing land use. Only in this manner can non-market life-support goods and services of natural environments be properly valued and effectively preserved.
