COMMENTARY ‘Full’ world versus ‘empty’ world paradigm at the time of globalisation A. Farina a, *, A.R. Johnson b , S.J. Turner c , A. Belgrano d a Institute of Ecology and Environmental Biology, The University of Urbino, Campus Scientifico Sogesta, 61029 Urbino, Italy b Department of Environmental Toxicology, Clemson University, 509 Westinghouse Rd., PO Box 709, Pendlenton, SC 29670-0709, USA c Department of Biological Sciences, St. Cloud State University, 262 Math and Science Center, 720 4th Avenue South, St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498, USA d Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, 167 Castetter Hall, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1091, USA Received 12 April 2002; received in revised form 17 September 2002; accepted 6 October 2002 Abstract The Mediterranean region is characterised by a high diversity mainly due to the integration between natural (land heterogeneity) and human (stewardship) processes. Cultural landscapes are the results of such coevolutive processes. A better understanding of the mechanisms that have assured along the millennia, the maintenance of biological as well as ecological processes seems of extreme importance for our future survival. In North America, a frontier mentality persists in the cultural mindset and rich biodiversity is associated only with remote areas, reflecting a model of an empty world in which human development is completely isolated from the natural (wild) processes. This vision is in contrast with the full world vision of the Mediterranean dwellings. Plasticity, adaptation to disturbance, and the persisting of biological refugia can be considered the most relevant factors responsible for the Mediterranean dynamics. These factors are rare or impossible to find in the North America context from which the dominance of the economic capital over the natural and cultural ones is a very popular model exported worldwide. In this commentary the full world paradigm is presented as an extension of the concept of resilience and ascendancy to propose a new grammar that incorporates self-organisation of natural and human dominated systems into a process of diffuse globalisation of economics and human behaviour. # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Biodiversity; Ecological complexity; Globalisation; Ecosystems 1. Introduction Biodiversity exists at different levels of biologi- cal organisation, from genes to landscapes (Noss, 1990; Angermeier and Karr, 1994; Farina, 2000) and is unevenly distributed across the Earth (Myers, 1990). At present time, biodiversity is declining at an alarming speed (Pimm et al., 1995), with unprecedented effects on ecological complex- ity and specifically affecting the quality of our life (Naeem et al., 1994). However, it appears that some regions that have experienced long-term * Corresponding author. E-mail address: farina@uniurb.it (A. Farina). Ecological Economics 45 (2003) 11  /18 www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon 0921-8009/03/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0921-8009(02)00255-0