Understanding Human Ecology

Understanding Human Ecology offers a coherent conceptual framework for human ecology – a clear approach for understanding the many systems we are part of and for how we frame and understand the problems we face. Blending natural, social, and cognitive sciences with dynamical systems theory, this key text offers systems approaches that are accessible to all, from the undergraduate student to policymakers and practitioners across government, business, and community. In the first edition, road-tested and refined over a decade of teaching and workshops, the authors built a clear, inspiring, and important framework for anyone approaching the management of complex problems and the transition to sustainability. Fully updated for the second edition, the book now goes further in using systems-thinking principles to explain fundamental processes of change in social–ecological systems. Revised case examples provide a working application of these principles, whilst a new discussion of the hierarchical structure of complex systems is included to guide practical policymaking. This new edition is essential reading for students and scholars of human ecology, environmental ethics, and sustainability studies.

Humans have always been influenced by natural landscapes, and always will be—even as we create ever-larger cities and our developments fundamentally change the nature of the earth around us. In Human Ecology, noted city planner and landscape architect Frederick Steiner encourages us to consider how human cultures have been shaped by natural forces, and how we might use this understanding to contribute to a future where both nature and people thrive. Human ecology is the study of the interrelationships between humans and their environment, drawing on diverse fields from biology and geography to sociology, engineering, and architecture. Steiner admirably synthesizes these perspectives through the lens of landscape architecture, a discipline that requires its practitioners to consciously connect humans and their environments. After laying out eight principles for understanding human ecology, the book’s chapters build from the smallest scale of connection—our homes—and expand to community scales, regions, nations, and, ultimately, examine global relationships between people and nature. In this age of climate change, a new approach to planning and design is required to envision a livable future. Human Ecology provides architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and planners—and students in those fields— with timeless principles for new, creative thinking about how their work can shape a vibrant, resilient future for ourselves and our planet.

This book examines the domain of human agency–environment interaction from a multidimensional point of view. It explores the human–environment interface by analysing its ethical, political and epistemic aspects – the value aspects that humans attribute to their environment, the relations of power in which the actions and their consequences are implicated and the meaning of human actions in relation to the environment. The volume delineates the character of this domain and works out a theoretical framework for the field of human ecology. This book will be a must-read for students, scholars and researchers of environmental studies, human ecology, development studies, environmental history, literature, politics and sociology. It will also be useful to practitioners, government bodies, environmentalists, policy makers and NGOs.

'The scope and clarity of this book make it accessible and informative to a wide readership. Its messages should be an essential component of the education for all students from secondary school to university... [It] provides a clear and comprehensible account of concepts that can be applied in our individual and collective lives to pursue the promising and secure future to which we all aspire' From the Foreword by Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council and former Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) The most important questions of the future will turn on the relationship between human societies and the natural ecosystems on which we all, in the end, depend. The interactions and interdependencies of the social and natural worlds are the focus of growing attention from a wide range of environmental, social and life sciences. Understanding them is critical to achieving the balance involved in sustainable development. Human Ecology: Basic Concepts for Sustainable Development presents an extremely clear and accessible account of this complex range of issues and of the concepts and tools required to understand and tackle them. Extensively supported by graphics and detailed examples, this book makes an excellent introduction for students at all levels, and for general readers wanting to know why and how to respond to the dilemmas we face.

We are facing hugely complex challenges – from climate change to world poverty, our problems are part of an inter-related web of social and natural systems. Human ecology promises an approach to these complex challenges, a way to understand these problems holistically and to start to manage them more effectively. This book offers a coherent conceptual framework for Human Ecology – a clear approach for understanding the many systems we are part of and for how we frame and understand the problems we face. Blending natural, social and cognitive sciences with dynamical systems theory, the authors offer systems approaches that are accessible to all, from the undergraduate student to policy-makers and practitioners across government, business and community. Road-tested and refined over a decade of teaching and workshops, the authors have built a clear, inspiring and important framework for anyone approaching the management of complex problems and the transition to sustainability.

Imagine a world where humanity was not destined to cause harm to the natural world, where win-win scenarios—people and nature thriving together—are possible. No doubt contemporary western society is steeped in the legacy of white supremacy and colonialism, and as a result, many people have come to believe that humanity is fundamentally flawed, that the story of our species is destined to be nasty, brutish, and short. But what if this narrative could be dismantled? In Finding Our Niche, Philip A. Loring does just that. He explores the tragedies of Western society and offers examples and analyses that can guide us in reconciling our damaging settler-colonial histories and tremendous environmental missteps in favor of a more sustainable and just vision for the future. Drawing from numerous cases around the world, from cattle ranchers on the Burren in Ireland, to clam gardeners in British Columbia and protectors of an accidental wetland in northwest Mexico, Loring brings the reader through a difficult journey of reconciliation, a journey that leads to a more optimistic understanding of human nature and the prospects for our future, where people and nature thrive together. Interwoven are Loring’s personal struggles to reconcile his identity as a white settler living and working on stolen Indigenous lands. In a moment when our world is hanging in the balance, Finding Our Niche is a hopeful exploration of humanity’s place in the natural world, one that focuses on how we can heal and reconcile our unique human ecologies to achieve more sustainable and just societies.

Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay, by Amos Hawley, presents for the first time a unified theory of human ecology by a scholar whose name is virtually synonymous with the discipline. Focused on the interaction between society and environment, human ecology is an attempt to deal holistically with the phenomenon of human organization. Beginning in the first quarter of the century, sociologists such as Park, Burgess, and McKenzie developed the study of human ecology to account for the dynamics of change in American cities. Over time, theorists have reached beyond the boundaries of sociology, drawing on the findings of economics, political science, anthropology, and bioecology, to understand the relationship of human beings to their environment. Hawley has successfully integrated the scattered theses of this wide-ranging discipline into a schematic whole. The early human ecologists seized on the analogy of plant communities as a way of understanding urban communities. Hawley here maintains that the most important contribution to human ecology of the lexicons of plant and animal ecologies is the perspective of collective life as an adaptive process consisting in an interaction of environment, population, and organization. From the adaptive profess, he argues, emerges the ecosystem, a concept that serves as a common denominator for bioecology and human ecology. Hawley has codified the theory of human ecology by a set of deductive hypotheses that establish its claims to coherence and comprehensiveness. His model charts a synthesis of ecological concepts ranging from adaptation and equilibrium through growth in temporal and spatial dimensions to convergence and openness. The essay underscores the critical importance of transportation and communication technology to the shaping of the human ecological system. Human Ecology brings concision and elegance to this holistic perspective and will serve as a point of reference and orientation for anyone interested in the powers and scope of the ecological approach.

Arguing for environmentally sustainable lifestyles, this envisages a new kind of consciousness based on the notion of the individual as an agent mediating between society and the environment.