Landscape Ecology as a Scientific and Educational Tool for Teaching the Total Human Ecosystem

Abstract

The prerequisite for teaching the Total Human Ecosystem is the creation of a conceptual ecological framework with clear definition of man’s position in the organic world, based on the following principles:

• 1. The hierarchic organization of nature and the living world as open systems or “holons” with increasing complexity through emerging qualities with biocybernetic feedback controls for their self-regulation.

• 2. Ecosystems as the basic functional units of nature, integrating live-space with living units and driven by inputs of energy/material/information.

• 3. Distinction between “bio-ecosystems”, maintained by solar energy, autotrophic organisms and bio-physical information, and “techno-ecosystems”, man-made and maintained by fossil energy, artifacts, and cultural information.

• 4. The dichotomic position of modern man between the biosphere and the technosphere — as largest, global bio- and techno-ecosystems — and the need for their integration in the ecosphere within the Total Human Ecosystem, as the highest level and the landscape as its concrete, spatial ecosphere entities.

Landscape ecology, dealing with the interrelationship between the landscape and human society, can be used as a scientific and educational tool for teaching the Total Human Ecosystem with an inter- and transdisciplinary approach. In this the interdependence between physical, biological, socio-economical, psychological, historical, aesthetical and other cultural factors can be demonstrated and studied as real visual and functional entities of landscape units in the field and with visual aids also in the classroom and the cognitive and affective foundations for positive involvement in environmental conservation can be laid.