Perhaps the least appreciated dramatis personae in human history are plants. Humans, like all other animals, cannot produce their own food as plants do through photosynthesis, and must therefore acquire organic material for survival and growth by eating plants or by eating other animals that eat plants. Humans depend on plants not only as a food source, but also as building and clothing materials and as sources of medicines, psychoactive substances, spices, pigments, and more. With plants being such valuable resources, it is therefore not surprising that plants have been involved in practically all violent conflicts among different human societies. Ironically, plants have also been the source of materials to construct weapons or weapon parts. Wars have always constituted a large part of human history, and the overall theme of this book is that to understand the history of violent human conflict, we need to understand what specific materials plants make that people find so useful and worth fighting over, and what roles such plant products have played in specific conflicts. To do so, Plants and Human Conflict begins with a chapter explaining the basic biological facts of the interdependence between plants and humans, and the subsequent seven chapters describe the physical and chemical properties of specific plant products demonstrating how the human need for these products has led to wars as well as contributed to the prosecution of wars. These chapters recount some well-known (and some lesser known) historical events in which plants have played a central role. This book uniquely combines the modern scientific knowledge of plants with the human history of war, introducing readers to a new paradigm that will make them reconsider their understanding of human history, as well as to bring about a greater appreciation of plant biology.

Although human beings are technically part of the ecosystem, there still remains a conceptual conflict between technology and nature. These concerns highlight the idea of human superiority in which the priority is given to technology versus living in synchronization with nature. Technology versus Ecology: Human Superiority and the Ongoing Conflict with Nature explores the issues revolving around the conflict between technology versus human beings, the concern for the separation of human beings in the ecosystem, and the negative consequences that may follow as ecosystems are being damaged. This book is a significant reference source for researchers, instructors, and students interested in the constant evolution of technology and ecology.

The latest edition of this classic guide details how to understand and resolve a broad array of human-wildlife conflicts. This new edition of Human-Wildlife Conflict Management updates our understanding of the human dimensions, as well as biological and ecological concepts, underlying human-wildlife conflicts. While it provides wildlife professionals and students with the knowledge and adaptive management strategies to resolve such conflicts, it uniquely explores negative interactions with a wide range of wildlife taxa beyond those typically covered in traditional wildlife damage management, including invasive plants, invertebrates, and fish. Designed to help students and natural resource practitioners gain a deeper understanding of how to successfully avoid and resolve conflict between humans and wildlife, it is informed by author Russell F. Reidinger's decades of teaching students and professionals how to anticipate and manage human-wildlife conflicts, as well as his experience leading a national research program devoted to this work. The book covers important human-wildlife topics such as: • individual-, population-, and ecosystem-level effects • survey techniques • management methods • human dimensions • economic issues • legal and political aspects • damage management strategies Featuring explanations of important terminology and pertinent biological and ecological concepts, Reidinger also shares the latest research, provides a plethora of real-world examples, and includes suggestions for additional resources.

Urban wildlife management is a town planning subject. It is logical and important to relate the animal and human conflict seen all over the world, as a phenomenon which is applicable to all types of human settlements, despite the diversities and complexities of cultures, societal structures, laws, value systems, religions and so on. A universal principle or theory governs and applies to all cities which define these conditions and phenomena creating the conflict or coexistence. This book investigates the niches of one of the key urban animals from a syntactic, semantic and pragmatic perspective and explores how these niches are naturally synonymous to similar patterns, structures and compositions within human settlements. It explores and defines the demographic patterns, thresholds and phenomenon, which leads to formation of the different levels and extremes of interaction between the species. This forms a paradigm which classifies this conflict within the various disciplines and frameworks of urban ecology. The focus is primarily on urban dogs, it being a keystone species, but is later related with other urban animals as well. The premise for this approach is that history has shown how certain species have persuasively coexisted with humans for so many millennia, yet a conflict happens between animals and humans and within humans over animals. It is thus logical to believe that the forces which create this conflict cannot solely be natural to the species in question and have to come from outside – from the settlement patterns of both species and the “net resultant force and dynamics”. The book looks at these dichotomies in four distinct but interrelated ways. It delves deep inside four niches which form the dynamics of any settlement – spatial, cultural, ecological and economic and explores all scales at which the “succession” and evolution of animals take place in highly urbanized settlements.

As more and more people crowd onto less and less land, incidences of human-wildlife conflicts will only increase. A comprehensive overview of this emerging field, Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflicts: The Science of Wildlife Damage Management discusses the issues facing wildlife managers and anyone else dealing with interactions between wildlife and

Plants have cultural histories, as their applications change over time and with place. Some plant species have affected human cultures in profound ways, such as the stimulants tea and coffee from the Old World, or coca and quinine from South America. Even though medicinal plants have always attracted considerable attention, there is surprisingly little research on the interface of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. This volume, which brings together (ethno-)botanists, medical anthropologists and a clinician, makes an important contribution towards filling this gap. It emphasises that plant knowledge arises situationally as an intrinsic part of social relationships, that herbs need to be enticed if not seduced by the healers who work with them, that herbal remedies are cultural artefacts, and that bioprospecting and medicinal plant discovery can be viewed as the epitome of a long history of borrowing, stealing and exchanging plants.