Cultural ecology presents two sides of the coin
of global economic development. This has taken place historically
by the 'unlocking of nature', at first by self-sufficient groups in
bands, and tribes. Now it involves networks of interdependent
nations involved in industrial mass production and the movement of
resources and goods rapidly over vast distances measured in hours
or days. This process has taken place not by biological
evolution, but by inventions, which, from age to age, drive the
human economic system. First it involved the application of ideas
about the living world that produced the hunter and the forager,
and led to fire and water being harnessed as physical aids to
comfort and lighten labour.
Looking to history, economic development has
taken place by behaviours that arose early in the simplest human
cultures from basic and specific faculties. From the first
beginnings, human production was the outcome of inventions to
exploit natural resources implemented through the organisation of
groups of people for production. This has, in the long run,
inevitably stimulated demand for more and more goods and services.
By 1750 water had become the engineer's element that set off the
British industrial revolution. The water wheel was the first
multipurpose machine for the new manufacturies. Increased
exploitation of natural resources through production and increased
demand for products had an increasing environmental impact.
The harnessing of steam and electrical power followed in
succession.
So great is the current environmental impact of
materials and energy usage that it is evident that conservation of
natural resources, which has always been part of native cultures,
has to be built into generally acceptable international strategies
for economic development and long- term survival of industrial
cultures. The first minimal impact of cultural ecology was about
hunting and gathering. The future maximal impact of cultural
ecology is about the sustainability of industrialism.
Global industrialism supports a scientific
civilisation in which knowledge and its integrity supplies a set of
educational principles according to which we shape our
conduct. Citizens in most industrial countries are educated to
share a belief in progress, faith in the steady increase of
material affluence, which unfortunately is equated with progress,
and belief in the necessity and goodness of economic growth. Other
central features of the industrial educational system seemingly
include high values placed on work, the nuclear family, and career-
oriented formal education; a strong faith in the efficacy of
science and technology (as opposed to religion) to solve problems;
and a view of Nature as something to be subdued by
mankind. This led to the development of educational systems in
which subjects were built according to the knowledge required to
educate, examine and certify the specialists who were to carry
forward this exploitative culture.