Western culture has always placed a deep division between humans, the soul-bearers, destined for eternal life, and the rest of the planet. I have never gone along with this, apart from a brief aberration between the ages of 15 and 17. As far as I am concerned, we are a species of animal, subject to the same ecological limitations as any other. Our ideas are part of our behaviour, and our economic activity is the main way that we make our demands on the planet's finite resources. I have tried to develop a system of ecology that includes us, with our ideas, cultures and economies, alongside other animals, plants, fungi and microbes.There can of course be a 'human ecology', just as there is fox ecology or oakwood ecology, but I have never wanted to see it develop as a self-contained 'discipline' separate from the rest of ecology.

 

I put the word 'discipline' in quotes because I do not see ecology as a body of knowledge so much as an approach to knowledge. Most science progresses by isolating a phenomenon or a class of phenomena, varying one factor at a time while holding the rest steady. Inclusive ecology takes the whole of life on this planet as its subject matter and tries to understand things in context. Progress can be made by looking at an isolated ecosystem such as a pond or an island, but the main value of this is the insight it gives into the working of larger systems. To the extent that animal or plant ecology are 'pure sciences' they can be content with describing and explaining. Because inclusive ecology includes our beliefs and aspirations and our economic systems, it cannot help changing us when these things are found to conflict with our health and survival. Anyway, I am trying to write a book about all this, and I attach the draft introduction. Any comments gratefully received. I also attach an essay I wrote around the turn of the millennium in an attempt to sum up my view of ecology