Ecol 172 Socio-ecology Past Paper PDF

Ecol 172 (Social Science Elective 3) Socio-ecology 2:30 – 4:00 MTh Lecture Cheryl C. Batistel Lecturer | [email protected] Department of Biological Sciences, VSU, Visca, Baybay City, Leyte  Ecol 172 – Socio-eco...

Ecol 172 (Social Science Elective 3) Socio-ecology 2:30 – 4:00 MTh Lecture Cheryl C. Batistel Lecturer | [email protected] Department of Biological Sciences, VSU, Visca, Baybay City, Leyte  Ecol 172 – Socio-ecology | Module 3 Territory and Natural Resource Utilization Lesson 3.1 | The Concept of Territory Lesson 3.2 | Land Degradation and Management Learning Outcomes At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:  Define territory  Describe the concept of natural resource utilization across cultures  Compare the types of stationariness in semi-arid tropics and subtropics Image source: canva.com E c o l 1 7 2 – S o c i o - e c o l o g y | © 2 0 2 2 E K L S e r i ñ o. A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d.  TERRITORY a geographic area belonging to or under the jurisdiction of a governmental authority  TERRITORY an area often including a nesting or denning site and a variable foraging range that is occupied and defended by an animal or group of animals  TERRITORY Humans adapt to changing environments… Australopithecus Homo habilis Homo erectus Homo neanderthalensis Homo sapiens ▪ improvements in visual perception; ability to stand and move on two feet ▪ freeing of the hands from locomotive functions ▪ alterations in the ability to grasp; execute precision grips ▪ development of a means of communication and/or language Levels of adaptations resulting to use of tools the ability to fashion tools based on materials that are available in the environment as a result of the capability to solve first order problems Levels of adaptations resulting to use of tools Middle Stone Age cultural artifacts from northern and southern Africa (Source: Natural History Museum)  Levels of adaptations resulting to use of tools Our extinct ancestors used a “hammer stone” to knock off flakes from a “core stone.” The flakes had sharp edges and were used as cutting tools. source: www.kids.frontiersin.org Levels of adaptations resulting to use of tools the ability to make tools that could be used to make better tools resulted from increased capability to solve second order problems  Importance of Adaptations to Humans ▪ expansion of geographic area ▪ colonization of diverse ecosystems ▪ mapping out a home range ▪ demarcation of territories  Territory as Spatial Area Territory refers to a part of the earth that an individual member of species or a collective of the members of a species considers as belonging to him, her, or them  Concept of Home Range and Living Space Home range refers to the area wherein an individual normally lives the region that encompasses all the resources the animal requires to survive and reproduce amount of space an animal uses on a regular basis Jeff Horn, a former graduate student in the department of natural resources and environmental sciences, and colleagues collaborated on a two-year study of owned and un-owned cats outdoors  Concept of Home Range and Living Space Factors influencing size of home range: ▪ species niche, size, density in an area, the time of year, the sex of the animal, the type and quality of the habitat ▪ large animals need more space to survive than smaller animals ▪ they know where the food and water is, where the danger is, and where the good hiding spots are  Concept of Home Range and Living Space Generally, early humans and hominids have a greater home range than other primates and monkeys, both in absolute terms and relative to body size. Concept of Natural Resource Utilization Collecting – the most direct method of obtaining plant and animal products; includes either the regular or intermittent harvesting of uncultivated organisms Hunting – normally associated with the capture of terrestrial fauna Fishing – associated with the capture of aquatic fauna Note: Collecting has become a major cash-earning activity.  Hunter-Gatherers Hunter-Gatherers – people who live by hunting and gathering food such as wild animals, birds and fish, wild fruits, nuts, mushrooms, edible roots and tubers, and honey from the nests of wild bees ▪ these activities sometimes included the capture of free-range domesticated animals including publicly protected species ▪ in certain instances, these activities can provide as much as 50% of the diet of hunter-gatherers Hunter-Gatherers Among the world’s best known hunter-gatherers: ▪ Aborigines of Australia ▪ Inuit people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and northern Siberia Most of these groups, however, have been displaced from their ancestral lands, and now obtain a greater part of their livelihood from public aid and paid labor Hunter-Gatherers The San (Bushmen) of Botswana, Namibia, and Southern Angola formerly lived as hunter-gatherers, but have lost most of their lands; thrive as low-status laborers Hunter-Gatherers many of the Pygmy people in the tropical rain forests of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, and Gabon still actively hunt animals but gather few plants, and prefer to obtain vegetables by trading with or working for their farming neighbors  Hunter-Gatherers ▪ many less-known hunter-gatherers are under pressure from governments and their settled neighbors to surrender their lands in favor of commercial and industrial development, and to reject many aspects of their traditional culture ▪ increasing difficulty to live by hunting and gathering pushed native peoples to organized political movements to struggle against overwhelming pressures Batek hunter-gatherer-traders living in the Upper Lebir River watershed in Kelantan, Malaysia (Venkataraman et al., 2017)  Hunter-Gatherers ▪ deprived of their chosen way of life, their land, and their sense of identity ▪ former hunter-gatherers often end up as impoverished and stigmatized welfare recipients ▪ others have become beggars or prostitutes in order to survive ▪ others opted to rebel or declare open warfare against societies that have marginalized them  Hunter-Gatherers ▪ cultures lack social hierarchies, and have less differentiation in terms of power, wealth, and prestige between individuals ▪ evidence suggests that this equality does not emanate from the material poverty of these communities, but rather from a group ideology that stresses the value of communal sharing rather than the accumulation of property by individual members 5 Main Types of “Stationariness” in Semi-arid Tropics and Sub-tropics Total Nomadism Semi-nomadism animal owners do not have a permanent animal owners have a permanent place of residence place of residence, do not practice adjacent to which are areas where supplementary regular cultivation, and have families that cultivation is practiced, although they also travel with their move with the herds herds to distant grazing areas for long periods of time 5 Main Types of “Stationariness” in Semi-arid Tropics and Sub-tropics Stationary Animal Husbandry Transhumance Partial Nomadism occurs when the animals remain characterized by farmers who live continuously inside a holding structure or inside the farmers with a permanent place of residence in permanent settlements, and who have household, or live as a free-range send their herds, tended by herdsmen, for herds at their disposal that remain within the domesticated species within the long periods of time to distant grazing areas vicinity of the home- or farmstead village throughout the entire year  Patterns of Human Settlement Government Environmental pressures Sustainable Government Rural Agriculture Policy Development Governments’ mandate: balance between demographic trends and population movements versus agricultural production Assumption: The greater the degree of community control over resources, the greater is the incentive for economic and human resources development.  Major Causes of Environmental Degradation Inappropriate and uncontrolled utilization of resources Increased demand for food and rapid population growth  Potential Solutions ▪ Application of available, better and efficient food production techniques ▪ Resource conservation (e.g., soil and water) ▪ Systematic land use and production systems approach — Land use assessment or site-species matching (per land and climate zone) Systematic conservation planning and Land System Science (Iwamura et al., 2018)  Potential Solutions ▪ Participatory approach - involve farmers in planning and data collection processes Governments could: ▪ establish and strengthen land-use and land-resource planning and management ▪ initiate and maintain localized land- resource planning, management and conservation  Potential Solutions ▪ Continuous monitoring, update and dissemination of information on natural resource utilization and living conditions ▪ Integrated watershed and landscape planning ▪ Linking government and people (e.g., thru land-resource mapping and planning units) Thanks for your attention! Questions?