Die Politische Ökologie befasst sich mit Mensch-Umwelt Interaktionen. Ziel ist es, durch die Untersuchung von Machtstrukturen zu erforschen, wie politische, wirtschaftliche und soziale Faktoren mit der Umwelt (Ökologie), Umweltproblemen, Veränderungen und Konflikten zusammenhängen. Eine zentrale Annahme der politischen Ökologie ist, dass Veränderungen des Managements, der Kontrolle sowie des Zugangs zu Umweltressourcen zu einer ungleichen Verteilung von Kosten und Nutzen unter Gender Gruppen, Klassen und Ethnizitäten führt. Die Politische Ökologie vertritt laut Robbins das normative Verständnis, das es höchstwahrscheinlich stets bessere, weniger zwingende, weniger ausbeuterische und nachhaltigere Wege gibt, Dinge zu tun (Robbins 2004, S.12).¹⁾ .

The term political ecology was first coined by anthropologist Erik Wolfe in the 1970’s. Classic works in Political Ecology include among others Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries (1985) by Piers Blaiki ²⁾ and Land Degradation and Society (1987) by Piers Blaikie & Harold Brookfield ³⁾ .

Political ecology does not have a coherent theory of the interplay between the environment and social, political and economic factors, but draws theoretical insights from among others political economy, Marxism, critical theory, and post-structural theories. Political ecology scholars come from a variety of fields such as geography, cultural ecology, environmental history, ecological economics, and forestry. The geographical focus of early political ecology studies on rural, non-western areas has in more recent political ecology studies expanded to urban areas in the Global North. Topics in politically ecology are varied and range from land degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict in marine areas, water management, ecosystem services, energy networks, privatisation of nature, to social movements.

C. Kull provides interesting insights on the topic of ecosystem services in his article “The political ecology of ecosystem services” (2015) ⁴⁾ . Through an investigation of the social deconstruction and application of the term ecosystem services, it is made clear that term ‘ecosystem services’ appears to be neutral and technical, but in fact implies significant choices that have various political outcomes. Since the term `ecosystem services` does not have a straightforward application it can be used in various ways to justify a multitude of actions leading to complex and political outcomes.

http://www.politicalecology.eu/
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