Social and cultural ecology

Social and cultural ecology studies how societies organise their relationship with nature through technology, livelihood and belief. It rejects simple environmental determinism and shows that the same forest, river or soil means different things to different groups. For example, shifting cultivation in Northeast India is not primitive destruction but a rotational system adapted to fragile hill soils, fallow cycles and community tenure. This chapter explains diverse ecological forms, technological change, agriculture and biodiversity, and how sociologists read environmental change as social change.