ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the ‘problematique’ and define its general objectives. It looks at issues that concern several disciplines, in particular human geography and social anthropology but also ecology, economics and sociology, the total composition of the material is likely to make the reader feel that important insights from his particular discipline have been left out or given very cursory treatment. The term ecotechnology employed in the present study pays tribute to the fact that technology is an intermediary factor between ecology, on the one hand, and economy, on the other. Ideas of carrying capacity have a long lineage, stemming from practical notions of how many people and animals can live off a given piece of land and what land can produce. Major inputs into these production processes are natural resources, land as space for given periods of time, facilities and equipment, and human time.
