INTRODUCTION
Political ecology
studies the complex interaction between economic, politics, technology, social
tradition and biological environment.
Political ecology is
the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors
with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from
apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and
phenomena. The academic discipline offers wide-ranging studies integrating
ecological social science with political economy in topics such as degradation
and marginalization, environmental identities and social movements.
It studies the modus
operandi of socio-political and economic effects on resources governance,
structures, use and control. As an interdisciplinary and a trans-disciplinary
area of study and practice it sharpens it focus on the various relationships
existing between humans and their natural, social-cultural, and built
environments whereby human political values, wealth, lifestyles, resources
control and use and waste mutually affect the geophysical, biotic and abiotic
environment along urban-rural landscape.
Political ecologists
are drawn from a variety of academic discipline, including geography,
anthropology, Development studies, political science, sociological forestry and
environmental studies, among others.
ORIGINS
The term “political
ecology” was first coined by Frank Thone in an article published in 1935. It
has been widely used since then in the context of human geography and human
ecology, but with no systematic definition. Anthropologist Eric R. Wolf gave it
a second life in 1972 in an article entitled “Ownership and political ecology”
in which he discusses how local rules of ownership and inheritance “mediate
between the pressures emanating from the larger society and the exigencies of
the local ecosystem” but did not develop the concept further. Other origins
include other early works of Eric R. Wolf, Hans, Magnus Enzensberger and others
in the 1970s and 1980s.
The origins of the
field in the 1970s and 1980s were a result of the development of development
geography and cultural ecology; particularly the work of and pier Blaikie on
the sociopolitical origins of soil erosion.
OVERVIEW
Political ecology’s broad scope and
interdisciplinary nature lends itself to multiple definitions and
understandings. However, common assumptions across the field give the t4erm
relevance. Raymond to Bryant and Sinead Brailey developed three fundamental
assumptions in practicing political ecology.
First,
changes in the environment do not affect society in a homogenous way;
political, social and economical differences account for uneven distribution of
costs and benefit.
Second,
“any change in environmental conditions must affect the political and economic
statusquo"
Third,
the unequal distribution of costs and benefits and the reinforcing or reducing
of preexisting inequalities has political implications in terms of the attend
power relationships that then result.
In
addition, political ecology attempts to provide critiques and alternatives. In
this interplay of the environment and political, economic and social factors,
Paul Robbins asserts that the discipline has a “normative understanding that
there are very likely better, less coercive, less exploitative and more
sustainable way of doing, things". From these assumptions, political ecology can
be used to;
·
Inform
policy makers and organization of the complexities surrounding environment and
development, thereby contributing to better environmental governance.
·
Understand
the decisions that communities make about the natural environment in the
context of their political environment, economic pressure, and societal
regulations.
·
Looks
at how unequal relations in and among societies affect the natural environment,
especially in context of government policy.
GOALS
Political ecology can be used to achieve the
following goals;
1. Inform the citizenry, policy makers and
organizations of numerous complexities and interactions surrounding environment
and development thereby contributing to better environmental governance;
2. Understand the decisions that nations,
communities and individuals make about the natural environment in the context
of their political environment, economic pressure, and societal regulations;
3. Examine how unequal relations in and among
societies affect the natural environment, especially in the context of government
policies;
4. Utilize the framework of political economy
to analyze environmental issues and propose sustainable alternative.
SCOPE
AND INFLUENCES
Political
ecologist movements as a field since its inception in the 1970s has complicated
its scope and goals. Through the disciplines history, certain influences have
grown more and less influential in determining the focus of study. Peter A.
Walker traces the importance of the ecological sciences in political ecology.
The points to the transition, for many critics, from a structuralist approach
through the 1970s and 1980s, in which ecology maintains a key position in the
discipline, to a ‘post structuralist approach with an emphasis on the field’s
use of the term of ecology.
The natural
environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally,
meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to the
earth or some parts of the earth. This
environment encompasses the interaction as all living species, climate, weather
and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activities. The
concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components.
·
Complete
ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized
human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganism, soil, rocks,
atmosphere, and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their
nature.
·
Universal
natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such
as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and
magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.
In contrasts to the
natural environment is the build environment. In such areas where man has
fundamental transformed landscape such as urban settings and agricultural land
conversion, the natural environment is greatly modified into a simplified human
environment.
People seldom find
absolutely natural environment on earth, and naturalness usually varies in a
continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. More
especially, we can consider the different aspect of component of an
environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniforms. Natural
environment is often used as a synonym for habitat, for instance, when we say
that the natural environment of giraffes is the savanna.
The environmental movement (sometimes
referred to as the ecology movement) also including conservation and green
politics, is a diverse scientific, social and political movement for addressing
environmental issues.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ECOLOGY AND
ENVIRONMENT
Environment is everything around us including us while the
ecology describes how all those work. Although environment linguistically
sounds like a singular noun, it contains all the possible plurals in the
universe; similarly, ecology is a singular noun that encounters all the
possible relationships in the universe. It should be carefully
studied as how these important terms differ from each other.
ECOLOGY
The great scientist, Earnst Haeckel (1834 – 1919, Germany),
coined the term Ecology (Ökologie) in 1869, which has been derived from
Greek, as “oikoc” means home “logos” means study. For the
presence of a home, an organism is essential; thus, ecology could be understood
as the study of organisms and their natural home. In a home, the living beings
mainly live upon the relationships with other living beings as well as with
nonliving things. Similarly, ecology is the study of the relationships and
other attributes of both biological organisms and abiotic entities in the
environment. As an example, the interaction of two or more abiotic components
such as a collision of two tectonic plates creates new environments, which
cause serious changes among both biotic and abiotic components. After that, all
the biotic, abiotic, and relationships among those will change. Therefore, it
is highly important that how both biotic and abiotic components have been
distributed with their compositions, amounts, and changing status.
Individuals,
species, populations, communities, and ecosystems or biospheres, furthermore,
are the components studied in ecology. Those ecological components are
determined based on the composition, amounts, changing status, and distribution
of resources such as nutrients, sunlight, heat, water, and other related
matter. Oceanic and inland waters, solar energy, wind, and other climatic
factors are directly involved with ecology. Ecosystems are created based on the
resources and the biological entities adapt to the condition. The broad study
of all those with basic attention to relationships is the ecology.
ENVIRONMENT
Since, environment is anything and everything, the reference
of the term shall be restricted to the biophysical environment in this article.
In simple terms, any environment that
has the properties to sustain life could be a biophysical environment. For
example, the richness in sunlight, atmosphere, and the presence of a
substrate viz. soil or water would enable to sustain life in the
particular environment. One of the most important features of the environment
is that it determines the climate and weather, which are extremely important
for the biological forms. Any serious change to the environment could alter the
natural cycles, results in climatic shifts, or would change the abundance of
all important food and energy for organisms. Since everything in the
environment is interrelated, those changes are consequential. However, animals
and plant have to adapt to the situation accordingly. Importantly, a change in
the environment could cause to change the habitats of most of the animal and
plant populations. The resourcefulness in any environment determines the
availability for life forms to create their habitats, and the components in the
environment limit the abundance and distribution.
CONCLUSION
Political ecology has focused on major
socio-political and environmental phenomena in and affecting the developing
world. Since the inception, researchers in political ecology have sought
primary to understand the political dynamics surrounding material resources
endowments and the struggles over the environment all over the world.
REFERENCES
Blaikie, P., and
Brookfield, H. (1987). Land Degradation and Society. Melluen.
Blaikie, Pier. (1985).
The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries. London; New
York: Longman.
Bryant, Raymond L.
and Sinead Baily, (1997). Third World Political Ecology, Routledge.
Dave, Micheal R.,
and Carol Carpenter, eds. (2008). Environmental Anthropology: A Historical
Reader. MA: Blackwell.
Martines, Alier,
Joan. (2002). The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts
and Valuation. Edward Elgar.
Pewet, Richard, Paul
Robbins, and Michael Watts. (eds) (2001). Violent Environments. Cornell
University Press.
Sutton, Mark Q. and
E. N. Anderson (2004). Introduction to Cultural Ecology, Human Ecology.