One explanation of Public Ecology

[mfaerber]

In the online graduate course that Dr. David P. Robertson teaches titled, "Public Ecology: Understanding and Managing Human Ecosystems in a Changing World", he describe public ecology as follows:

[quote]Worldwide, millions of public ecologists participate in thousands of public ecology projects each year. Public ecology includes civic environmentalism, community-based conservation, collaborative natural resource management, and related innovations in environmental governance. Public ecology exists at the confluence of three major currents shaping the contemporary environmental arena: 1) the need for local communities to coalesce and use local knowledge and local action to address local concerns; 2) the need for dialogue and collaboration across the many disciplinary, institutional, and other cultural boundaries that divide environmentally concerned scientists, policy-makers, and citizens; and 3) the need for a common vision of nature and human society that encourages people to create healthy human ecosystems and sustainable communities at local, regional, and global scales. This course examines the history, current status, and future prospects of public ecology.[/quote]

[msgreen]

Well done Dr. Robertson. I happened upon this "prose" recently by Henry Skolimowski and thought all would appreciate:

To act in the world as if it were a sanctuary is to make it reverential and sacred. What the universe becomes depends on you. Treat it like a machine and it becomes a machine. Treat it like a divine place and it becomes a divine place. A deep comprehension of ecology is reverence in action, is a deep identification with the beauty of life pulsating through the universe until we become part of it. Thus understandning becomes empathy. Empathy becomes universal reverence. This reverence is a form of spirituality.

Now that sounds like a good introduction to a class..