Human Ecology

Drawing on History

Although the neologism “ecology” dates from the second half of the 19th century and the term human ecology first appeared around 1908, interest in human environment relationships goes back much farther. For example, the ancient Greeks were concerned with the impact of the environment on human health (On Airs, Waters, and Places was written by an anonymous author in the Hippocratic tradition). Plato speculated on the role of humans in reducing the forest cover of Greece. Such cartographers and geographers as Ptolemy and Strabo recognized spatial differentiation. Similar traditions existed in other ancient societies such as China.

Saint Francis's teachings suggested that humans could not consider themselves completely separate from and superior to nature. Chinese philosophy, poetry, and art, building on a base of shamanism, Buddhism, and Taoism, also stressed the relationship between human consciousness, society, and nature. These traditions include little in the way of systematic observation, however, or experimental testing of relationships. One important exception has been the development of agronomy, range science, and forestry based on long-term observations on soil fertility and pest management on the local scale. In societies with a written tradition, this has often resulted in a sophisticated literature; but even in societies with an oral tradition, the resulting “ethnoscience” has often been remarkably insightful. Another important exception has been the almost universal tradition of mapping surroundings using a variety of cartographic methods.

Beginning in the 15th century, European expeditions of discovery and conquest led to some of the [Page 881]first field-based systematic and comparative observations of human–environment relationships at a larger scale. Observers such as Cieza de León (who accompanied the conquerors of the Inca Empire) produced detailed geographic accounts of landscapes, land use, and resource management that are still used by human ecologists documenting environmental history. Colonial authorities produced detailed reports of local resource use (such as the relaciones geográficas in the Spanish empire), as well as maps at a variety of scales. European advances in census taking, in both Europe and its colonies, helped John Graunt and Edmond Halley develop some of the basic analytical methods of demography by the 18th century. At the end of the 18th century, Thomas Malthus pointed out the importance of the population resource ratio and warned of the persistent danger of societies overgrowing their resource base.

Birth of Theories

Alexander von Humboldt represents the culmination and transformation of the tradition of colonial observers of resource management. His diaries and books based on his travels through the Americas at the end of the colonial period details climate, plants, animals, population, resource management methods, and even archaeology, utilizing the most advanced instruments and collection methods of his time. Moreover, he correlated his results using maps and diagrams, generalizing about both the environmental and political conditions of resource management. He also pointed out in detail the many impacts of colonial policy on resource use. He argued for an expansion of economic freedom, recognizing the importance of state intervention, and argued for a more local level of colonial administration.

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