How can we start a global ecological design?

By using the same five stages that have been used for local and regional designs. These are:

• First, review the situation, observing patterns of movement, population change, land use, building and development, boundaries, limits, and life. Conduct ecological and functional analyses. This is especially important at the global level, to determine which species have been extirpated from local communities, but may exist elsewhere.

• Then record all of the resources, from physical resources to cultural resources. Survey the area and create base maps, from geological to zoological maps. Although this has been done for local communities, it has not yet been done on regional or a global scale, although numerous scientists have called for a global database. A biological survey for the planet would be a good start.

• Next, evaluate the interactions in terms of impacts, needs, goals, and limits. Assess the whole system and create a series of plans, from the site plans to value plans. For the planet, this means understanding the operation of cycles that connect local and regional cycles.

• Start to design, which is a community process requiring the participation of all people (including the elderly, handicapped, and poor, as well those ultrahuman beings who cannot voice their concerns). At the global level, this has to mediated through some form of representation. Synthesize simulations and models (conceptual, capability, and suitability). Make another series of plans, from landscape plans to policy plans, within a master design.

• Finally, implement the design and start to maintain it. Use appropriate measures and techniques, emphasizing native species over an adequate time period to ensure the stable processes of transformation. Provide services for continuity and management. Ecosystem design takes far more time than graphic or automobile design, due to the complexity, size and longevity of its subject. A number of factors have to be carefully assessed before design work starts. Ecosystems require a lot of observation before activities can take place. Ecosystems can be highly reactive to change. Some people value different characteristics of ecosystems than others.