Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Ecological
Heterogeneity
Ecological
Responsiveness
Ecological
embeddedness
Uniform
Changing
Insensitive
Long-
term
Isolated
1. A general
understanding of the
physical environment as
it affects the
availabilities of natural
resources to human
society.
3. An understanding of changes in
the physical environment as they
affect the availabilities of natural
resources to human society.
6. An understanding of the mid- to long-term impacts
of human resource extraction on ecological feature's
productivity, diversity…etc.
5. An understanding of the short-term impact of the human
resource extraction on an ecological feature in interaction with
on-going ecological and climate dynamics
7. An understanding of the
indirect effects of human resource
extraction on other ecological
features and processes that are
influenced through ecological
relations with directly-impacted
ecological feature.
2. Anunderstanding of the
distributions of natural resources
that are differentially available to
the members of human societies
4 An understanding of the short term
impact of human resource extraction
on an ecological feature which is
directly affected (trees and
deforestation).
Variable
Static
Sensitive
Short-
term
Embedded,
interactive
Ecological
Dynamics
Temporal Scale
of Response
Figure 12.1
Levels of engagement with the complexity of ecological relations (1-7)
across fi ve dimensions of conceptual difference: ecological heterogeneity, dynamics,
responsiveness (to human actions), temporal scale and the degree to which the eco-
logical feature is seen as embedded within a broader set of relations.
questions. In so doing, the discussion below cautions against a naïve embrace of
the complex web of social and ecological relations by the 'big-picture' analyst - such
experiments will generally lead to ideographic descriptions or violent reductions of
complexity through various forms of systems analysis. At the same time, the discus-
sion cautions against knee-jerk invocations of the incommensurate epistemologies
of social and ecological analysis - thus sparing the political ecologist from moving
into uncomfortable ontological/epistemological spaces that run across and through
people-environment relations. This position does not derive from monistic vision
but an embrace of the analyst's agency. While diffi cult, we, as analysts, can place
different logics and epistemologies in parallel looking at congruencies and diver-
gences without being captured by any one. It is such integrative work where argu-
ably many advances in people-environment study will come - including those from
within political ecology.
It is important to recognise at the outset that engagement with ecological relations
is not without costs. Political ecologists may not have the necessary training or time
to perform ecological research themselves or the contacts or inclination to collabo-
rate with biophysical scientists. These costs are important and have worked to shape
the questions posed by political ecologists performing social-ecological change
research. An important but unexamined cost of greater engagements is how they
complicate the exposition of research results. While political ecologists seek to
provide richer and more complex narratives than simple declensionist or cornuco-
pian story lines, adding both ecological and social complexity may place too many
demands on a tractable story line. If we treat ecological and social systems as open,
