Edited by Shelby Gull Laird, Angela Wardell-Johnson and Angela T Ragusa

Published: 2014
ISBN: 978-1-921980-29-9
Pages: i+205

Overview

This special issue from Rural Society explores the complex nature that exists between humans and their physical environment. Articles address the nexus between the well-being of individuals, communities and environments. Disciplinary approaches include human geography, environmental sociology, ecopsychology, policy studies, planning, cultural studies and other perspectives which advance knowledge in human-nature-animal relations using high quality social science research methodology - qualitative, quantitative and mixed.

Exploring the complex relationship between humans and their natural environment is of increasing importance. To commence understanding this relationship, our special edition offers Rural Society readers a diversity of research approaches illuminating insights from a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives. Not only are new solutions offered, but new relationships between people and nature are identified and developed. The quality of connections between people and the landscapes in which they live have important consequences for the health of people, communities and for the natural environment. In this special edition, the human-environment connection is explored largely through connections to land and place.

The articles in this special edition explore these manifestations of human-environment interactions through various, yet related, concepts.

Table of Contents

Editorial: Exploring the human–environment connection: Rurality, ecology and social well-being
– Shelby Gull Laird, Angela Wardell-Johnson and Angela T Ragusa

What is it like to take care of the land? Toward an understanding of private land conservation
– Michael Drescher

Citizen-led, comprehensive land use planning in New York’s Adirondack Park
– Ann H Ruzow Holland

‘Knowing me, knowing you’: Exploring the effects of a rural leadership programme on community resilience
– Wendy Madsen and Cathy O’Mullan

‘Not a local win’: Rural Australian perceptions of the sustainable impacts of forest plantations
– Evonne Miller and Laurie Buys

Ecological connections: Reimagining the role of farmers’ markets
– Bethaney Turner and Cathy Hope

Motivations for retention and mobility: Pathways of skilled migrants in regional Victoria, Australia
– Naduni Wickramaarachchi and Andrew Butt

Critical review essay: Sustaining native biodiversity through conservation and nature-friendly farming
– Ndungi wa Mungai