lecture 2 - HUMANS IN THEIR ECOLOGICAL SETTING

INTRODUCTION: HUMANS IN THEIR ECOLOGICAL SETTING


DEFINITION OF TERMS

Human ecology

is the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments.

ECOLOGY

Ecology as a discipline was technically born when Ernst Haeckel used the word "oekologie" in 1866 to describe the study of an organism’s relationship to its environment.
created a bridge between the physical sciences and the biological sciences in order to study systems of both biotic and abiotic factors.


Example of physical science:Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Oceanography
Example of biological science
biomedicine, biotechnology, zoology and ecology, and some aspects of agriculture and veterinary science.


Biotic Factors Biotic, meaning of or related to life, are living factors. Plants, animals, fungi, protist and bacteria are all biotic or living factors.
Abiotic Factors Abiotic, meaning not alive, are nonliving factors that affect living organisms. Environmental factors such habitat (pond, lake, ocean, desert, mountain) or weather such as temperature, cloud cover, rain, snow, hurricanes, etc. are abiotic factors.

Human ecology is composed of concepts from ecology like interconnectivity, community behavior, and spatial organization. From the beginning, human ecology was present in geography and sociology, but also in biological ecology and zoology. However, it was the social scientists who applied ecological ideas to humans in a rigorous way.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF HUMANS IN THE ECOLOGICAL SETTING ?

Human ecology is the study of how human social systems relate to and interact with the ecological systems on which they depend. (Human Ecology: Basic Concepts for Sustainable Development. Gerald G. Marten. Sterling, VA : Earthscan Publications, 2001.)

Bio-logical criteria for sustainable development operates from the premise that individuals and communities achieve an optimum level of self-sufficiency and improved quality of life by utilizing only the renewable natural resources which fall within their political and natural boundaries. Hence, a sustainable community is one which provides all of its own needs for air, water, land (or food and fiber), and energy resources within the confines of its own site.