Human Ecology

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Human Ecology

Human ecology is the study of the reciprocal interactions of humans with the environment. Key aspects of human ecology are demographics, resource use, environmental influences on health and society, and environmental impacts of human activities. All are intimately linked, because increasing human populations require more resources, the exploitation and use of which cause increasing environmental damage. However, certain patterns of resource use are more destructive than others. An important goal of human ecology is to discover the causes of pathological interactions between humans and the environment that sustains them and all other species. Once this destructive syndrome is clearly understood, it will be possible to design better pathways toward the development of sustainable human societies.

Human demographics studies changes in human populations, and the factors that cause those changes to occur. The central focus of this important topic is the remarkable increase that has occurred in the size of the human population during the past several millennia, but especially during the past several centuries. The population of humans exceeded well over six billion by the early 2000s; this is probably more individuals than any other species of large animal has ever been able to maintain. The growth of the human population has been made possible by technological and cultural innovations that have allowed a more efficient exploitation of environmental resources, along with advances in medicine and sanitation that have reduced death rates from epidemic diseases.

Humans and their societies have an absolute dependence on environmental resources to provide energy, food, and materials. Some resources, such as metals and fossil fuels are present in a finite supply that diminishes as they are used. Other resources, such as forests, hunted animals, agricultural soil capability, and clean air and water, are potentially renewable, and could support sustainable economies and societies over the longer term. Resource degradation is one of the most important aspects of the environmental crisis, and it is a formidable obstacle to the achievement of a sustainable human economy.

Human ecologists study environmental overex-ploitation, so that potentially renewable resources can be utilized sensibly. One reason is the desire of individuals, corporations, and societies to gain short-term profits and wealth, even if this occurs at the expense of longer-term, sometimes irreversible damage to resources and the environment. The problem is complicated by the nature of ownership of certain resources, in particular common-property resources from which self-interested individuals or companies can reap short-term profit through overexploitation, while the costs of the resulting damage to the resource and environmental quality are borne by society at large.

Human ecologists are also concerned with other environmental effects of human activities, such as pollution, extinction of species, losses of natural ecosystems, and other important problems. These damages are critical because they indirectly affect the availability of resources to humans, while degrading the quality of life in various other ways. Just as important is the damage caused to other species and ecological values, which have intrinsic (or existence) value regardless of any perceived value that they may have to humans.

Human ecologists are attempting to understand the various linkages between humans and the ecosystems that sustain them. This is being done in order to understand the causes of damage caused by human activities to the environment and resources, and to find ways to mitigate or prevent this degradation before the scale and intensity of the environmental crisis becomes truly catastrophic.

See also Biodiversity; Population, human.