Biodiversity and landscape diversity as indicators of sustainable development

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to substantiate the restrictive content of a sustainable development concept and to show how it is implemented in the theoretical foundations of the agriculture. Today, the initial restrictive content of the concept has changed beyond recognition in a continued large-scale consumption of natural resources. Consequently, the very concept of sustainability requires clarification. It is necessary to look for its signs in natural ecosystems, where the main indicator is life itself, maintained by the biosphere in a state of stable dynamic equilibrium. Introducing monoculture, people deliberately impoverish biodiversity in agroecosystems, by transforming natural into agro-landscapes. Adaptive technologies could be the means to achieve a stable balance. In that case, the mechanisms of matter-energy metabolism in agroecosystems will be closer to the biosphere. The article lays out a set of measures through which the use of nature can be closer to general scientific ideas of sustainability.