It is commonplace to say that we live in the ‘age of ecology’. This is an interdisciplinary, cultural concept which recognises the world-wide scramble for scarce natural resources and the global environmental damage of industrialisation. The new cultural ecology involves flows of materials and ideas between people, environment and place, where place is defined as:

- a biophysical ecosystem consisting of habitats and species;
- a human resource managed scientifically for food, protection, wealth, recreation and knowledge;
- a personal experience communicated in words, music and pictures.

'Nature', 'goods' and 'notions' are connected on cosmic and human time scales.

GO TO MINDMAP OF CULTURAL ECOLOGY