Read and watch the materials assigned for this week

Read and watch the materials assigned for this week, take notes, and answer the following questions.

1. In what ways have anthropologists examined human interactions with the environment over time?

2. How has research in political ecology challenged traditional conservation efforts? What are some of the problems with promoting parks or ecological reserves as solutions to environmental problems?

3. What is the Anthropocene? How has research in anthropology contributed to an improved understanding of how humans interact with the “natural” world?

4. What insights from anthropology do you think would be most useful to the public, environmental activists, and government offi­cials when considering policies related to current environmental challenges?

5. There are many examples in television, films, and other media of the “ecologically Noble Savage.” What are some examples that you have seen, in addition to the two provided in the chapter? How do they represent the Noble Savage?

6. What is your experience with National Parks? Do you think it’s important for people to visit places where nature has been preserved? Have you visited a protected environmental reserve (“park”) that included areas where local people live? If so, was that experience different?

7. Many families rely on ethnobotanical “home remedies” when someone gets sick. What natural remedy have you experienced that comes from plants (for instance, teas, use of herbs, soup, or poultices)? Do you know where this tradition came from in your family?

8. Why might an anthropologist’s understanding of conservation be fundamentally different than the plan of a large NGO, as seen in the different approaches to reforestation in Haiti of USAID and anthropologist Gerald Murray? What features of anthropology may make projects like Murray’s successful?