Environment may be defined as the sum total of the conditions within which organisms
live. It is the result of interaction between non-living (abiotic) – physical and
chemical – and living (biotic) components. Interest in the interaction of organisms,
including people, with one another and with their surroundings, was stimulated by the
publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) by Charles
Darwin. ‘Natural environment’ is often used to indicate a situation where there has been
little human interference, and ‘modified environment’ where there has been significant
alteration (see Figure 3.1). However, nowadays little of the world is a wholly natural
environment. Many organisms alter the environment, and the change they cause may
be slow or rapid, localised or global. In the past few thousand years, humans have
become such a major force in modifying the Earth’s ecosystems that an environmental
scientist recently suggested the current geological unit, the Holocene, should be
succeeded by the Anthropocene or ‘human-altered’ period. Much of the alteration is
unwitting degradation rather than improvement; however, humans have the potential to
recognise and to respond consciously and appropriately to opportunities and threats.
Whether we will successfully exploit that potential remains to be seen. It is environmental
managers who will play a key part in prompting and supporting a better response.
If environmental management is to develop strategies and exploit opportunities effectively
it must be much more than applied science; it is also an art which requires
understanding of human–environment interactions, considerable management skills,
diplomacy and powers of persuasion (Figure 3.2).