must, by definition, include physical,
biological and social phenomena. "Other
people" and institutions influence social
behavior and must be coped with, as with
any other component of the environment.
Thus, in any ecological examination of the
environmental impact of aquaculture
development, the "sociocultural
environment" or "human environment"
must be given equal weight with the
"biophysical" components.
Human ecology is not a distinct science
with specialized practitioners. Like
aquaculture, it is rather a distinctive point
of integration of several disciplines. For
present purposes, human ecology may be
defined as the study of how and for what
purposes humans use resources and
incorporate them into society and, by so
doing, how humans, resources and society
become transformed (c.f. Bennett 1976).
Such studies should, therefore, be holistic,
use a systems methodology, in which
human behavioral (sociocultural) factors
and environmental (biophysical) factors
interact reciprocally and, wherever
possible, be quantified in terms of energy,
materials, information and cash or cash
equivalent flows, to facilitate both the
analysis of individual systems and
meaningful comparison among systems.
Human ecology is concerned
essentially with human adaptation; i.e.,
"the rational or purposive manipulation of
social and biophysical environments"
(Bennett 1976), and assessing the
performance of adaptation by measuring
the rate(s) and analyzing consequences of
sustained yield of the resource(s) in use.
Understanding the form(s) that adaptation
will take from such strategic behavior is
the key issue in policy-oriented human
ecology, which focuses on the joint
objectives of"environmenta1integrity" and
human survival at reasonable levels of
security, based on the sustained-yield use
of natural resources. Human ecology as a
policy science of sustained yield and
resource use processes must, therefore,
deal with power andcontrol over resources
and, in the process, over society.
The practical application of human
ecology to address development issues has
been retarded by lack of suitable
paradigms. Attempts have been made to
overcome that by focusing specifically on
resource systems (Fig. 1) (Ruddle and
Grandstaff 1978; Grandstaff et al. 1980;
Ruddle and Rondinelli1983; ICLARM and
GTZ 1991), emphasizing the flows of
energy, materials and information.
Based on the resource system
approach, in this paper1 outline aparadigm
for analyzing theimpact of the development
of small-scale pond aquaculture on the
social and economic domain of developing-
country environments. This is not without
difficulties, because aquaculture remains
essentially a localized and innovative
human adaptation. This is no less true of
aquaculture as afield of scientific endeavor
which, despite established institutes, is
only now gaining recognition as a
"multidiscipline". As a consequence,
holistic, human ecological studies in the
field are rare and socioeconomic
information is scant, fragmented and of
extremely limited time depth.
Thus, here I treat aquaculture as any
other agrotechnological innovation in the
generalized terms of external influences,
attributes of society relative to innovation,
innovation adoption process, and impacts
on society (Fig. 2). The paper is based
mainly on my field research in southern
ChinaandMalaGi, as well as on secondary
sources for Panama.External Influences
The principal objectives ofaquaculture
development in developing countries are
to enhance the production offish as human
food, and thereby to improve the livelihood
of farm families, by upgrading household
nutritional status andlor increasing cash