This volume brings together the contribution of certain internationally known scholars to human ecology. Each of these scholars has made a significant and lasting contribution to the understanding of the relationship between human beings and environment, and their work have implications for theoretical as well as applied interests. Looking at the range of the contributions in this volume, we may submit that the field of human ecology is truly multi-disciplinary, and that is the way in which human ecology has to be approached. The volume has twenty two papers that are classified into the following seven units. I. Perspectives on Human Ecology, II. Ecology and Health, IV. Ecology and Human Growth, IV. Ecology and Resources, V. Ecology and Biological Dimensions, VI. Ecology, Archaeological Finds and History, VII. Ecology, Disaster and Global change.
Globalization, population growth, and resource depletion are drawing increased attention to the importance of common resources such as forests, water resources, and fisheries. It is critical that these resources be governed in an equitable and sustainable way. The Commons in the New Millennium presents cutting-edge research in common property theory and provides an overview and progress report on common property research. The book analyzes new problems that owners, managers, policy makers, and analysts face in managing natural commons. It examines recent findings about the physical characteristics of the commons, their complexity and interconnectedness, and the role of social capital. It also provides empirical studies and suggestions for sustainable development. The topics discussed include the role of financial, political, and social capital in deforestation, community efforts to gain political influence in Indonesia, the Maine lobster industry, outcomes of the implementation of individual transferable quotas in New Zealand and Iceland fisheries, and design of multilateral emissions trading for regional air pollution and global warming.
Environmental Flows describes the timing, quality, and quantity of water flows required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the human well-being and livelihoods that depend upon them. It answers crucial questions about the flow of water within and between different kinds of ecosystems. What happens when the flow or the availability of water is curtailed or diverted, either naturally or by human activity? How will climate change alter the availability of water and impact aquatic ecosystems? Methodological developments from the simplest hydrological formulas to large-scale frameworks that inform water management make this book a must-read for water managers and freshwater and estuarine ecologists contending with ever-changing conditions influencing the flow of water.
Early in this volume, David Ehrenfeld describes what prophecy really is. Referring to the biblical prophets, he says they were not the "holy fortunetellers that the word prophet has come to signify....The business of prophecy is not simply foretelling the future; rather it is describing the present with exceptional truthfulness and accuracy." Once this is done, then it can be seen that broad aspects of the future have suddenly become apparent. The twentieth century is drawing to a chaotic close amidst portents of unprecedented change and upheaval. The unravelling of societies and civilizations and the destruction of nature march together--linked--a fact whose enormous significance is often lost. In Beginning Again, David Ehrenfeld has undertaken the difficult task of describing the present clearly enough to reveal the future. Out of his broad vision emerges a glimpse of a new millennium: a vision at once frightening and comforting, a scene of great devastation and great rebuilding. Ehrenfeld ranges far and wide to present a coherent vision of our relationship with Nature--its many aspects and implications--as our century opens into the next millennium. Whether he is writing about the problem of loyalty to organizations, rights versus obligations, our over-managed society, the vanishing of established knowledge, the failure of experts, the triumph of dandelions, Dr. Seuss, Edward Teller, or the future of farming, he is always concerned with the intricate interaction between technology and nature. As in his classic book, The Arrogance of Humanism, Ehrenfeld never loses sight of our fatal love affair with the fantasy of control. We now have no choice, he argues, but to transform the dream of control, of progress, from one of overweening hubris, love of consumption, and the idiot's goal of perpetual growth, to one based on "the inventive imitation of nature," with its honesty, beauty, resilience, and durability. Few American writers and even fewer scientists can describe these timeless, transcendent qualities of nature so well. In "Places," the opening chapter, David Ehrenfeld tells about nightly vigils he spent alone on the moonlit beach of Tortuguero, watching giant sea turtles emerging from the sea to lay their eggs in the black sand where they were born. "I could watch the perfect white spheres falling," he writes. "Falling as they have fallen for a hundred million years, with the same slow cadence, always shielded from the rain or stars by the same massive bulk with the beaked head and the same large, myopic eyes rimmed with crusts of sand washed out by tears. Minutes and hours, days and months dissolve into eons. I am on an Oligocene beach, an Eocene beach, a Cretaceous beach--the scene is the same. It is night, the turtles are coming back, always back; I hear a deep hiss of breath and catch a glint of wet shell as the continents slide and crash, the oceans form and grow."
Those who work with ecological perspectives often choose and use human communities as convenient locales for both research and practice. Too, individuals and groupings within a community do communicate and relate with each other in bounded or circumscribed contexts, thus interlock together and influence each other as well as their surrounding physical and political environment. In addition, communities are purposeful in that people do follow various values and beliefs, thereby displaying still another of the many properties of system-ness. Community psychologists, like applied anthropologists, some public health workers, political scientists, and sociologists, have found that the sub-groupings within a community are definable, observable, and related to each other and to the larger power structures of a particular community. As such, these groupings are inherently intriguing as integral parts of the human condition.Palmerston North represents one such typical community in New Zealand. In this study, ten community psychology oriented researchers went forth to explore and describe specific groupings, then examined these parts and relationships of an entire community of people through use of ecological points of view. The process revealed both diversity and common themes, and as well, a fascinating and pleasant place to live.
Ecosystems and Human Well-Being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decisionmakers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The book offers an overview of the project, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope, and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward. The Millennium Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystem services have affected human well-being, how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades, and what types of responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The program was launched by United National Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005. Leading scientists from more than 100 nations are conducting the assessment, which can aid countries, regions, or companies by: providing a clear, scientific picture of the current sta
Every Culture, Irrespective Of Its Simplicity Or Complexity, Has Its Own Beliefs And Practices. It Is, Therefore, Important To Study In Depth The Various Social, Cultural And Ecological Determinants Affecting Status Of Underprivileged Groups. In A Tribal Community, The Treatment Of Disease Is Not Always An Individual Or Familial Affair. The Decision Regarding The Nature Of Treatment Might Be Taken At The Community Level. One Cannot Deny The Impact Of This Psychological Support In The Context Of Treatment And Cure Which Is Very Common In Tribal Communities. The Programmes Provide A Framework Within Which Students Can Develop Their Specialist Interests In The Application Of Sustainability Principles To Various Aspects Of Environmental Management Ranging From Local Community Involvement In Local Agenda 21 To Global Environmental Issues. It Aims To Provide A Sound Grounding In Policy Analysis, As Applied To A Wide Range Of Environmental Policy Areas, For Those Without A Social Science Background. Students Learn The Ability To Critically Review Policy Implementation And The Importance Of Monitoring And Evaluation Of Evidence.The Dissertation Provides A Focus For Application Of A Range Of Approaches To The Evaluation Of Sustainable Management Policy And Practice.
An exercise of interdisciplinarity at the crossroads of humans and the environment--this could be one definition of human ecology, as it is demonstrated within this book. Examples of different branches of human ecology are shown as feasible alternatives to understand the interactions of human culture and behaviour with the natural environment from all parts of the world. Current trends, ranging from climate change to ecological knowledge and environmental co-management are deeply exploited, using a diversified array of empirical case studies. Theoretical aspects are included and examined in every case, including the evolution of culture, values and webs of information within cultures. The central theme approaches and reveals the social, cultural, economic, and ecological processes which link human beings to their environment. From a mixture of practice and theory we emerge with alternatives to mitigate and prevent the accelerating negative changes currently witnessed on our planet, where increasingly fewer people are safe. More importantly, this book provides examples showing how those whose lives are deeply rooted on a direct natural resource dependency are the first to be affected by the global trend of environmental degradation. Small-scale fishers, farmers and herders from the tropics and from cold regions have their livelihood affected by global changes, regional politics and cultural exchanges. Whether and how they will survive, adapt, or embody such changes is not known and this is one more reason to include and involve local groups when searching for sustainable solutions. In a changing world, exploring current threats and impacts of human actions on the environment is a necessity, but bringing about alternatives, some of them already part of traditional human practices, is urgent and can turn to be a promising solution. Anthropology, sociology, and ecology come together in this book, where the unifying goal of theorizing and practising interdisciplinarity in human ecology is shown by, closely tracking examples of current trends and developments. This book is a harvest from the XV International Meeting of the Society for Human Ecology, engaging over 200 people from 27 countries from all continents, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 4-7, 2007, organized by A. Begossi and P. Lopes, with the support of the Fisheries and Food Institute (FIFO) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). This volume ends by indicating several lines of thought and of analyses on current subjects, as follows: sustainability in different cultural contexts and perspectives, methods towards approaching sustainable systems, and current global concerns. Those include agriculture in tropical areas (slash-and-burn practices), climate change, and nature and human behavioural patterns, among others.
