Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Challenges
Publisher
MDPI
School
Centre for Ecosystem Management / School of Science
RAS ID
29907
Abstract
Ecology is both blessed and burdened by romanticism, with a legacy that is multi-edged for health. The prefix ‘eco-’ can carry a cultural and political (subversive) baggage, associated with motivating environmental activism. Ecology is also practiced as a technical ‘science’, with quantitative and deterministic leanings and a biophysical emphasis. A challenge for planetary health is to avoid lapsing into, or rejecting, either position. A related opportunity is to adopt ecological thought that offers a rich entrance to understanding living systems: a relationality of connectedness, interdependence, and reciprocity to understand health in a complex and uncertain world. Planetary health offers a global scale framing; we regard its potential as equivalent to the degree to which it can embrace, at its core, ecological thought, and develop its own political narrative.
DOI
10.3390/challe10010020
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Horwitz, P., & Parkes, M. W. (2019). Intertwined strands for ecology in planetary health. Challenges, 10(1), Article 20. https://doi.org/10.3390/challe10010020