Where Does Ecological Wisdom Come from? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

On October 17-18, 2014, the first international symposium on Ecological Wisdom for Urban Sustainability was held in Chongqing, China. The symposium engaged more than 200 participants from eight different countries and diverse disciplines (e.g., philosophy, ecology, architecture, landscape architecture, planning, engineering, literature) (Healey in Symposium on ecological wisdom for urban sustainability a great success 2014; Young in Landscape Urban Plann 166:27-36, 2016a). Besides having a fruitful and inspiring symposium, participants reached the consensus that answering several important questions is needed to move ecological wisdom research forward. These questions include: What is ecological wisdom? Where does it come from? How is it related to ecological knowledge? What are the general principles of ecological wisdom? Subsequently, a team of participants convened for a post-symposium workshop. This review is a result of these activities, which answers important questions raised above. In addition, this chapter speculates on how ecological wisdom can become (more) actionable in contemporary planning, design, and management. The chapter concludes with a proposal for future research.