The two paragraphs presented below capture the essence of the ideas that have been discussed in the last two chapters. Read these paragraphs very carefully and then write an essay that shows your understanding of the central message(s) portrayed by these two paragraphs.

In the last section of Chapter 1, a criticism was made about the economic perspective for treating the environment  (the natural ecosystems) as externa/ to the human economy. On the other hand the arguments presented in the last section of the current chapter, Chapter 2, appear to suggest that the current paradigm in ecology treats humans as  being an ‘external disturbance’ on the natural ecosystem.
Clearly, a parallel exists here between ecology where humans are viewed as an external factor (disturbance) to the natural ecosystem and the modern economic paradigm where the natural environment is viewed as being external to the human economy. In both instances, the all-important dynamic links between the natural ecosystem and the human economy are ignored. Rather, human society and nature should be treated as single dynamic entity (O’Neal
and Khan 2000).