Abstract
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in preceding chapters of this book. The book presents concise overview of some of the key fields of research and practice in environmental planning. Many of the social and institutional processes that produce urban and environmental change, such as levels of urban economic capital investment, or immigration policy, lie outside the control of environmental planners. The emerging global consensus on carbon abatement, for instance, favours artificially constructed market exchange mechanisms, rather than planning, as mitigation tools. As Steffen Lehmann, Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes, Georgia Garrard and other contributors to this book all recognise environmental planners must strive to better understand natural processes, must use that understanding to identify opportunities and constraints to development, must work with nature not against it in framing potential solutions to planning problems, must preserve biodiversity and protect the integrity of ecological systems, and must work towards ecological sustainability.