Learning about Ecology

There are many types of ways that humans can gain ecological knowledge. 
There are two types of community learning: virtual and physical.  Virtual would be through the Internet, and physical would be community environmental groups.  Both of these learning types provide a gathering place for for diverse people to meet.  They provide a nurturing place for learning and developing knowledge.  They are usually informal and unstructured.  And they provide social contact which fosters a sense of trust. 
The news is another way that people can learn ecological knowledge.  Of course, what you learn depends on what information your country allows access to.  And in countries with informational freedom, what you learn depends of what kinds of new that you like. 
Urban gardening can teach people about their local ecology and about farming and producing some of their own food.  This can foster self-reliance amongst city-dwellers.
For the relatively rich - education, ecotours, and vacations can provide excellent knowledge about ecosystems other than the ones people live in.
People can also learn about ecology in parks and zoos that are open to the public.  They allow you to see, smell, touch, and taste the ecosystem.  Again, however, a certain amount of wealth is necessary to have time and money to visit these places.
Disasters are a very effective way for people to learn about ecology.  Who knew what caused a tsunami was before Christmas 2006?  Floods, droughts, hurricanes, and the like will force people to wonder what happened to their homes and property, and therefore gain a desire to learn what ecological phenomenon caused it.
For youthful Americans, a good way to begin learning about ecology would be to join the boy-or girl-scouts or the YMCA.
Sometimes learning about something else can help someone learn something ecological because, really if you think about it, knowledge is INTERTWINED.
Finally, I feel that there are several different spaces for informal learning about ecology:
 - a space for masters and apprentices to connect
 - self-expression (blogging, journaling)
 - debate and dialogue
 - archived knowledge (websites)
 - structural (courses & tutorials)

Environmentality and Resource Conservation

I'm an environmentalist with a viewpoint that is based on the need for conservation and sustainability.  One of my greatest hopes (too bad I won't live to see it) is that humanity can continue surviving for may more thousand of years.  I don't know why I care about the fate of humankind after I am dead, but I think that it has something to do with something innate deep in my genetic make-up; DNA's own "desire" for survival.  Why else would DNA exist except to reproduce itself and provide a way for organisms to adapt to their environment?  Human beings are such unique animals in that they have the ability to consciously evolve.  Our large, problem-solving brains give us this capacity.  We discovered evolution and have become adept at describing its laws. We know about sustainability and how it can preserve not only our lives but those of our descendants and all of humankind.  We have also become actually pretty capable at understanding how our economic systems work.  One of the roles of government, therefore should be to try to find a way to use our knowledge evolution and ecology to make sustainability economically beneficial.  The current corporate culture of greed has made the conditions for people at the bottom of the economic scale unlivable.
Environmentality, or as I think of it, ecogovernmetality, can be described as the way in which environmental regulations apply to sustainable ecological practices.  Sustainable policy discussions are so important when developing new technologies.  I think that it is logical to consider future generations when government decisions are made.  How will these laws benefit our children, our children's children and so on?  Or how will new eco-laws harm our descendants?

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is always evolving.  This is because of the human traits of curiosity, adaptability, and inventiveness.  TEK develops because someone figures out how to do something that they need to do and then tells his or her tribe about it.  This way is adopted as TEK, but if a better way to do that thing is figured out, usually the people will do it the new way.  Human beings are adaptable animals that constantly invent new ways to do things.  Our brains are capable of what seems like unlimited inventiveness.
Another reason that TEK is always evolving is that the environment is evolving and TEK can be described as problem-solving the environment.  If the environment changes, then knowledge about that environment and how to survive in it changes as well. 
A question then comes to mind: if traditional ecological knowledge is always evolving, then is it still traditional?  I think so.  I think that in this context, the word traditional describes knowledge that is passed down from generation to generation locally as a tradition, in contrast with knowledge learned from formal education.  This knowledge is bound to change as groups of people become exposed to other groups of people, as new ideas and tools are invented, and as the environment changes.
Sustainability is a hallmark of TEK.  For ecological knowledge to be useful and successful enough to be passed down from generation to generation, it must not use up the resources of the land.  Once a resource is gone, the knowledge about how to exploit that resource is unnecessary, and therefore is not passed on to the next generation.
Many agree that the concept of sustainability will play a key role in the survival of our species.  If we can learn to live by the concept of sustainability, then possibly we can stop or slow the mass extinction going on right now.  If we do that we will be safer because the more diversity our environment has, the more stable it is, and the less chance we will have of an environmental catastrophe.
Because the survival of the human race might depend on whether we can practice sustainability, which is a hallmark of TEK; TEK is important for our survival. TEK will always be evolving, and it is necessary to keep us on the right track.  TEK is necessary because it is an evolved knowledge of the local ecology.  It is knowledge that focuses on the needs of people rather than their wants.  It is knowledge that has evolved so as not to contain any non-necessities or outdated information.  TEK is part of human evolution and when we lose it we stop evolving.  And a species that cannot evolve cannot survive for long.