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Caring for the land and serving people
United States Department of Agriculture
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Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society
Author(s): David P. Robertson; R. Bruce Hull
Date: 2003
Source: Environmental Science and Policy 6:399-410
Publication Series: Scientific Journal (JRNL)
Station: North Central Research Station
PDF: View PDF (1.77 MB)Description
Public ecology exists at the interface of science and policy. Public ecology is an approach to environmental inquiry and decision making that does not expect scientific knowledge to be perfect or complete. Rather, public ecology requires that science be produced in collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders in order to construct a body of knowledge that will reflect the pluralist and pragmatic context of its use (decision context), while continuing to maintain the rigor and accountability that earns scientific knowledge its privileged status in contemporary society. As such, public ecology entails both process and content. The process is that of a post-modern scientific method: a process that values the participation of extended peer communities composed of a diversity of research specialists, professional policy-makers, concerned citizens and a variety of other stakeholders. The content of public ecology is a biocultural knowledge of dynamic human ecosystems that directly relates to and results from the participatory, democratic processes that distinguish public ecology as a citizen science. The primary goal of public ecology is to build common ground among competing beliefs and values for the environment. The purpose of this paper is to help unify and establish public ecology as a distinctive approach to environmental science and policy in global society.Publication Notes
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Citation
Robertson, David P.; Hull, R. Bruce. 2003. Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society. Environmental Science and Policy 6:399-410Keywords
Biocultural, Human ecosystems, Citizen science, Public participation, DemocracyRelated Search
- Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society
- Integrating ecological and social knowledge: learning from CHANS research
- Linkages to Public Land Framework: toward embedding humans in ecosystem analyses by using “inside-out social assessment.”
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https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/14170