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JournalISSN: 0300-7839

Human Ecology 

Springer Science+Business Media
About: Human Ecology is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Population & Subsistence agriculture. It has an ISSN identifier of 0300-7839. Over the lifetime, 2463 publications have been published receiving 74798 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Evidence accumulated over the last twenty-two years indicates that private, state, andcommunal property are all potentially viable resource management options.
Abstract: Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons model predicts the eventual overexploitation or degradation of all resources used in common. Given this unambiguous prediction, a surprising number of cases exist in which users have been able to restrict access to the resource and establish rules among themselves for its sustainable use. To assess the evidence, we first define common-property resources and present a taxonomy of property-rights regimes in which such resources may be held. Evidence accumulated over the last twenty-two years indicates that private, state, andcommunal property are all potentially viable resource management options. A more complete theory than Hardin's should incorporate institutional arrangements and cultural factors to provide for better analysis and prediction.

1,249 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A recent review of the recent social research literature suggests that insufficient attention is given both to reporting the methods employed and to employing systematic approaches, especially with regard to the critical issue of how local experts are identified.
Abstract: Documenting local ecological knowledge (LEK) has recently become a topic of considerable interest within the social research, development, and indigenous rights communities. For instance, LEK is thought to offer a substantial alternative to existing, largely “top‐down,” natural resource management regimes. LEK informed resource management systems would acknowledge peoples’ experiences and priorities, while also providing people with additional means of empowerment. Given these qualities, one might reasonably expect that rigorous design and methodological attributes will characterize LEK research, particularly respecting the procedures employed to identify and to select “local knowledge experts.” Our review of the recent social research literature suggests that insufficient attention is given both to reporting the methods employed and to employing systematic approaches, especially with regard to the critical issue of how local experts are identified. We detail a research design that systematically solicited peer recommendations of fisheries local knowledge experts in a study focused on two northeast Nova Scotian embayments. Finally, we argue that in order to achieve the stated purposes and potentials of LEK research, researchers need to become more attentive to reporting on the methods employed and to employing systematic approaches than is currently the case.

646 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV) in southern Sweden has identified win-win situations and gained broad support and legitimacy for ecosystem management among a diversity of actors in the region.
Abstract: The literature on ecosystem management and assessment is increasingly focusing on social capacity to enhance ecosystem resilience. Organizational flexibility, participatory approaches to learning, and knowledge generation for responding adequately to environmental change have been highlighted but not critically assessed. The small, flexible municipal organization, Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV) in southern Sweden, has identified win-win situations and gained broad support and legitimacy for ecosystem management among a diversity of actors in the region. Navigating the existing legal-political framework, EKV has built a loose social network of local stewards and key persons from organizations at municipal and higher societal levels. As a ‘bridging organization’, EKV has created arenas for trust-building, knowledge generation, collaborative learning, preference formation, and conflicts solving among actors in relation to specific environmental issues. Ad hoc projects are developed as issues arise by mobilizing individuals from the social network. Our results suggest that the EKV approach to adaptive comanagement has enhanced the social capacity to respond to unpredictable change and developed a trajectory towards resilience of a desirable social-ecological system.

499 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how community structure generates these circumstances and apply Amos Hawley's human ecological theory in treating criminal acts as routine activities which feed upon other routine activities.
Abstract: Prior explanations of the distributions of crime have tended to emphasize the criminal intentions of people without considering adequately the circumstances in which criminal acts occur. This paper examines how community structure generates these circumstances and applies Amos Hawley's human ecological theory in treating criminal acts as routine activities which feed upon other routine activities. For example, we consider how married women in the labor force, persons living alone, and lightweight durable goods provide offenders with circumstances favorable for carrying out certain illegal acts. We examine in particular how directcontact predatory violations require the convergence in space and time of offenders, suitable targets,and the absence of effective guardians.Various trends in the social structure can alter crime rates by affecting the likelihood of this convergence, without necessarily requiring changes in the criminal inclinations of individuals.

489 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is concluded that a high degree of resilience of Mediterranean ecosystems resulted in a dynamic coexistence of human and natural living systems, which in some cases provided stability, while fostering diversity and productivity.
Abstract: What makes the structure and dynamics of coupled natural and human systems difficult to interpret in the Mediterranean is the extreme diversity in space and time of both environments and human societies. The succession of civilizations that waxed and waned in the Mediterranean Basin over several millennia has had great impacts on biota and ecosystems everywhere in the basin. A complex ‘coevolution’ has been claimed to shape the interactions between ecosystem components and human societies. Two opposing schools of thought traditionally have considered the consequences of human pressures on Mediterranean ecosystems. The ‘Ruined Landscape’ or ‘Lost Eden theory’ argues that human action resulted in a cumulative degradation and desertification of Mediterranean landscapes. The second school argues that humans actually contributed to keeping Mediterranean landscapes diverse since the last glacial episode. With this debate in mind, I show the following: (1) One cannot understand the components and dynamics of current biodiversity in the Mediterranean without taking into account the history of human-induced changes; (2) The various systems of land use and resource management that provided a framework for the blossoming of Mediterranean civilizations also had profound consequences on the distribution and dynamics of species, communities, and landscapes; (3) The processes of domestication of plant and animal species, which first occurred in the eastern Mediterranean area some 10,000 years ago, contributed to the increase of certain components of biodiversity at several spatial scales. Positive and negative feedback cycles between cultural practices and natural systems at the local and regional levels have kept ecosystems robust and resilient; (4) Assuming that human action can, to a certain extent, be considered a large-scale surrogate for natural sources of ecosystem disturbance, such patterns give support to the diversity-disturbance hypothesis—specifically, intermediate levels of disturbance have promoted biological diversity; (5) Intraspecific adaptive variation increased as a result of human-induced habitat changes over millennia, resulting in bursts of differentiation during the later Holocene of local ecotypes and gene pools of domesticated and wild plant and animal species, with region-specific characters fitting them to local climate and environmental conditions. High intraspecific adaptive variation also arose from earlier natural processes of the Pleistocene, mainly from a combination of periodic refugia formation and climate dynamics. During the Holocene, the main sources of disturbance came increasingly from humans, specifically from the coupled cultural and natural modifications of community and landscape structure. It is concluded that a high degree of resilience of Mediterranean ecosystems resulted in a dynamic coexistence of human and natural living systems, which in some cases provided stability, while fostering diversity and productivity (Blondel and Aronson, 1999). The word “design” used in the title and elsewhere in this paper metaphorically indicates that the long-lasting influence of human impacts resulted in an unintentional shaping of individual components of landscapes.

483 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202343
202287
202196
2020135
2019119
2018150