People and Ecology

Freedom and choice refers to the ability of individuals to control what happens to them and to be able to achieve what they value doing or being. To be able to have freedom of choice and action people have to be in a state of well-being. Wellbeing is not just the absence of disease or illness. It is a complex combination of a person's physical, mental, emotional and social health factors. Wellbeing is strongly linked to happiness and life satisfaction. In short, wellbeing could be described as how you feel about yourself and your life. Everyone has freedom of choice and action as their goal in life. Freedom and choice cannot exist without the presence of all the elements governing wellbeing,

Social survays have defined,five distinct statistical factors which are the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They describe aspects of our lives that we can do something about and that are important to people in every situation studied.

http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/126884/five-essential-elements-wellbeing.aspx

These elements do not include every nuance of what's important in life, but they do represent five broad categories that are essential to most people.

• The first element is about how you occupy your time or simply liking what you do every day: your Career Well-being.
• The second element is about having strong relationships and love in your life: your Social Well-being.
• The third element is about effectively managing your economic life: your Financial Well-being.
• The fourth element is about having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis: your Physical Well-being.
• The fifth element is about the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live: your Community Well-being.

The complex interdependencies that shape the demand for and production of arts and cultural offerings is defined as the ecology of culture. . Culture is often discussed as an economy, but it is better to see it as an ecology, because this viewpoint offers a richer and more complete understanding of the subject. Seeing culture as an ecology is congruent with cultural value approaches that take into account a wide range of non-monetary values. An ecological approach concentrates on relationships and patterns within the overall system, showing how careers develop, ideas transfer, money flows, and product and content move, to and fro, around and between the funded, homemade and commercial subsectors. Culture is an organism not a mechanism; it is much messier and more dynamic than linear models allow. The use of ecological metaphors, such as regeneration, symbiosis, fragility, positive and negative feedback loops, and mutual dependence creates a rich way of discussing culture. Different perspectives then emerge, helping to develop new taxonomies, new visualisations, and fresh ways of thinking about how culture operates.

People everywhere rely on ecosystems and the services they provide. So do businesses. Demand for these services is increasing. However, many of the world’s ecosystems are in serious decline, and the continuing supply of critical ecosystem services is now in jeopardy. The loss or degradation of ecosystem services will have impacts on human well-being.