A Brief History of Human Ecology within the Ecological Society of America and Speculation on Future Direction

Collaborations and Moving Past COVID‐19: The Human Ecology and Applied Ecology Sections

“…ESA members joined the Applied Ecology, Human Ecology, and Environmental Justice sections, and SEEDS students on a BioBlitz that included participation from the Carnegie Museum and other local institutions. The success of this joint effort led to three more BioBlitzes, each centered in a lower‐income neighborhood within the host city of the ESA annual meeting, including Sacramento, California, Austin, Texas, and Baltimore, Maryland (Fig. 2).…”

“…By the end of the 1950s, Human Ecology was on the brink of being awarded section status, which would have made it one of ESA's first sections, although not as old as Applied Ecology. It is unclear why this formalization never went ahead at the time (for an historical account, see Dyball 2017). Although work of a human ecological nature continued within ESA, it was another 50 years until a Human Ecology section was inaugurated at ESA's 93rd annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2008.…”

Sustainability Science: A Paradigm in Crisis?

“…In a first stage, these attempts were addressed to the creation of a meta-science entitled human ecology [27,28]. This effort, however, failed to prosper and human ecology ended being considered a failed field of study [29], or marginal to SS (see [30,31]). Instead, independently, hybrid fields of knowledge emerged in at least ten areas of the social and applied sciences ( Figure 2).…”

Extending the Vision: Highlighting the Human Dimensions of the Ecological Society of America

“…Human dimensions have been defined and studied in a variety of ways within ESA over the last century, and natural and social scientists across ESA are actively expanding the field of ecology to center the human components of the systems we study (Dyball ). The study of human dimensions includes the application of theories and practices from diverse fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, policy, geography, environmental science, and the humanities (Spalding et al.…”

“…ESA is rich with scientists who view humans as integral and inseparable from natural systems. Indeed, over the last several decades, there has been increasing research within ESA focused on human dimensions and social–ecological systems (Dyball ). Such work is conducted using a variety of approaches (e.g., community‐based participatory research) and is motivated by different outcomes (e.g., advancing social equity and justice).…”