The Civil Animal

Category: Human Ecology

  • Wild Immigrants

    The other day I had the pleasure of attending a symposium on wildlife – humans interactions. It was organized by the Centre for Nature and Society of the Radboud University, and gathered academic and practitioner voices for a very interesting discussion of the ethical and social dimensions of interacting with wild animals. The symposium was called Invasion…

  • Fishing and Natural Beauty

    Conservationists often assume that nature is obviously beautiful. Or, at the very least, obviously inspiring and therefore worthy of respect. These assumptions are not at all as widespread as one might think, or want them, to be. And getting to terms with this fact is, as far as I’m concerned, key to how we will…

  • Participating in Conservation

    The idea of participation is steadily gaining ground in conservation. But what does it mean to participate, and in what exactly can (or should) one participate? These are the questions I want to reflect on in this post. I use conservation here in its widest possible sense. For example, the Bronx River Alliance has been…

  • Paving the fields, eating the city

    Last week I attended the 21st conference of the Society for Human Ecology (SHE). The Society, started about 30 years ago, is dedicated to the advancement of human ecology, an area of research and teaching that focuses on human – environment interactions. In other words, it considers the human being from an ecological perspective, being…