Defining ecological engineering in relation to sustainable development and ecology

Abstract

Ecological engineering was defined several decades ago, both in the academic field and - at least in France - in management. However, ecological engineering seems to be re-emerging as an academic field and as a cornerstone concept in French ecologists' writings. We first summarize Barbault et Pavé (2003)'s point of view on why ecological engineering now seems rehabilitated. We next propose a definition of ecological engineering, in accordance with the two reasons for its re-emergence, i.e. the prevalence of the concept of sustainable development and the development of applied ecological sub-disciplines. We end the paper by discussing some problems and characteristics of ecological engineering that stem from this definition.