Sustainability through the lens of human behavioural ecology

In this lecture, Dr. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder overviews the focus, history and approaches used in the subdiscipline of human behavioral ecology. She first notes its roots in Darwinian evolution, as the goal is to apply models about change and difference from ecology to human behavior in order to understand adaptive decisions. Human behavioral ecology uses simulated and empirical tools to identify transmitted traits and tried to understand the function of those traits. She uses the example of conservation as restraint, as one early test of these theories. The conservation hypothesis suggests that human decision-making about prey selection focuses on maximizing prey growth through foraging, which stands in contrast to the efficiency hypothesis, that the goal is to expend minimal energy for maximum gain. She also offers examples of conservation as cooperation, when human decision-making for other humans benefits the environment as well. She ends by describing human behavior ecology as seeking to better understand human tendencies, how they vary, and potentially how they can be contained or harnessed.

[debbieporter]

You are the imagine of your mum
you wont remember me, my grandparents worked for her
in Lyddinton,