1. Social environments emerge from the interaction between biophysical ecology and human interventions. This is a two-way process. Just as nature shapes society, society shapes nature.

2. Example : For instance, the fertile soil of the Indo-Gangetic floodplain enables intensive

agriculture. Its high productivity allows dense population settlements and generates enough surpluses to support other, non-agricultural activities, giving rise to complex hierarchical societies and states.

3. Another Example : In contrast, the desert of Rajasthan can only support pastoralists who move from place to place in order to keep their livestock supplied with fodder.

4. These are instances of ecology shaping the forms of human life and culture. On the other hand, the social organisation of capitalism has shaped nature across the world.

5. The private automobile is one instance of a capitalism commodity that has transformed lives and landscapes. Air pollution and congestion in cities, regional conflicts and wars over oil, and global warming are just a few of the environmental effect of cars. Human interventions increasingly have the poor to alter environments, often permanently.

1. The interaction between environment and society is shaped by social organisation. Property relations determine how and by whom natural resources can be used. For instance, if forests are owned by the government, it wil have the power to decide whether it should lease them to timber companies or allow villagers to collect forest produce.

2. Private ownership of land and water sources will affect whether others can have access to these resources and on what terms and conditions.

3. Ownership and control over resources is also related to the division of labour in the production process.

4. Landless labourers and women will have a different relationship with natural resources than men.

5. In rural India, women are likely to experience resource scarcity more acutely because gathering fuel and fetching water are generally women's tasks but they do not control these resources. Social organisation influences how different social groups relate to their environment.

1. Over time, however, ecology has been modified by human actions. What appears to be a natural feature of the environment — aridity or flood-proneness, for example, is often produced by human intervention. Deforestation in the upper catchment of a river may make the river more flood-prone.

2. Climate change brought about by global warming is another instance of the widespread impact of human activity on nature. Over time, it is often difficult to separate and distinguish between the natural and human factors in ecological change.

3. Alongside biophysical properties and processes that may have been transformed by human action — for example, the flow of a river and the species composition of a forest, there are other ecological elements around us that are more obviously human-made.

4. An agricultural farm with its soil and water conservation works, its cultivated plants and domesticated animals, its inputs of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, is clearly a human transformation of nature.

5. The built environment of a city, made from concrete, cement, brick, stone, glass and tar, uses natural resources but is very much a human artefact.

(ii) Mountains and rivers, fauna that they support, are a part of ecology.

(iii) The ecology of a place is also affected by the interaction between its geography and hydrology. For example, the plant and animal life unique to a desert is adapted to its scare rainfall, rocky or sandy soils, and extreme temperatures.

(iv) Similar ecological factors limit and shape how human beings can live in any particular place.

1. It is correct to say that environmental management is very complex and difficult task for society. It is not enough known about biophysical processes to predict and control them. In addition, human relations with the environment have become increasingly complex.

2. With the spread of industrialisation, resource extraction has expanded and accelerated, affecting ecosystems in unprecendented ways. Complex industrial technologies and modes of organisation require sophisticated managenment systems which are often fragile and vulnerable to error.

3. We live in risk societies using technologies and products that we do not fully grasp. The occurrence of nuclear disasters like Chernobyl industrial accidents like Bhopal, and Mad Cow disesase in Europe shows the dangers inherent in industrial environments.