1970s
Cultural ecology emerged as the idea for a new
academic subject from student/staff discussions during a zoology
field course on the Welsh National Nature Reserve of Skomer Island
in 1971. These discussions originated within a group of
students who were dissatisfied with the narrow view of world
development taken by single honours science subjects.
Surprisingly, the idea it was enthusiastically taken up by staff in
the pure and applied science faculties as the philosophical thread
for an honours course in Environmental Studies organised in the
University College of Wales, Cardiff, during the 1970s. This
course integrated the inputs from eleven departments, from
archaeology, through metallurgy, to zoology.
Late in the decade this course was evaluated by a
group of school teachers under the auspices of the University of
Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate (UCCLES), and emerged as the
subject 'natural economy' (the organisation of people for
production). Natural economy was launched by UCCLES to fulfil
their need for a cross-discipline arena to support world
development education. This project was initiated by the Duke
of Edinburgh, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, as a
much-needed contribution to world development education.
It was also disseminated throughout Europe as
part of the EC’s Schools Olympus Broadcasting Association
(SOBA) for distance learning. Through a partnership between
the University of Wales, the UK Government's Overseas Development
Administration and the World Wide Fund for Nature, it was
published as a central component of a cultural ecology model of
Nepal with the help of a sponsorship from British Petroleum.
1980s
During the 1980s, an interoperable version of
natural economy for computer-assisted learning was produced in the
Department of Zoology, Cardiff University, with a grant from DG11
of the EC. This work was transferred to the Natural Economy
Research Unit (NERU) set up in the National Museum of Wales towards
the end of the decade.
1990s
In the 1990s NERU obtained a series of grants to
integrate natural economy into a broader cultural framework.
For example, an EC LIFE Environment program with the aim of
producing and testing a conservation management system for
industries and their community neighbourhoods, used
cultural
ecology as the holistic framework. The R&D was
carried out in partnership with the UK Conservation Management
System Partnership (CMSP), the University of Ulster and British
industry. The aim was to provide a web resource for
education/training in conservation management in schools and
communities. The web resource developed as SCAN (Schools and
Communities Agenda 21 Network) initiated from, a post-Rio 1994
gathering of school teachers and academics in Wales. The meeting
was sponsored by the Countryside Council for Wales, Dyfed County
Council, and the local Texaco oil refinery. This partnership was
based in the St Clears Teacher's Resource Centre. From here, a
successful award- winning pilot was led by Pembrokeshire schools to
create and evaluate a system of neighbourhood environmental
appraisals, and network the local findings from school to
school.
SCAN's aim was to help teachers create bilingual systems of
appraisal within the National Curriculum to evaluate 'place'
(historical, geographical, biological, and notional). The practical
objective was to address environmental issues which emerged from
the appraisals in the context of their community's Local Authority
Agenda 21. You can reach SCAN in the National Museum of Wales at
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/scan
An objective of SCAN is therefore to promote practical
conservation management through environmental appraisal and the
long-term management of neighbourhood historical assets, green
spaces and community services to promulgate a sense of place,
improve quality of life and enhance biodiversity.Two collaborative wikis are associated with this
site.
Culturalecology.info is currently maintained
and developed by Resilience-UK
as a free web-based educational resource
Currently, although it has not been promoted
through search engines, this site is receiving over a million
unique visitors annually.
