If the past teaches, what does the future learn?

The fifth annual lecture of the Landscape Research Group was given by Professor Carole Crumley on 3 December 2015 at the Architectural Association in London, entitled: “If the past teaches, what does the future learn? Exploring historic knowledge landscapes for clues to a just and liveable future.”

Landscapes entangle both the practical and the emotional characteristics of their past in ways that trip up the present. Because we experience landscapes as complicated by these strong and often opposed modes of perceiving them, decisions about landscape management are rarely simple. Sometimes, to simplify decisions, we discount the past and favour more modern assessments. But what if both valuable knowledge and the satisfaction of traditions carried forward could be extracted from the history of landscapes?

A new framework called historical ecology offers a useful array of concepts and methods for studying the past and future of the relationship between people and their environments. Its holistic, ethical, and place‐ based approach can ‘grow’ regional expertise for managing the future.

The LRG event was not recorded, but below is an earlier lecture with Carole at the Stockholm Resilience Centre from 2007, on historical ecology.