ABSTRACT
The study of the diverse environments of South-East Asia has been especially important in anthropology. Early post-war studies paid particular attention to the ways in which communities perceive, classify, use and adapt to their environment and the 'rationality' of resource use. This chapter concerns principally with rural habitats and ecosystems and how human communities change themselves in order to change the ways in which they use the natural environment. A very important concept in anthropological analyses of the environment is that of 'ecology' or 'human ecology'. More recently anthropologists interested in environmental issues have emphasized the importance of understanding longer term environmental change. In South-East Asia the environmental and economic consequences of, for example, the 'industrialization' of fishing, the destruction of the rainforests by commercial loggers, the development of beach resorts, golf courses and high-rise hotel complexes and the expansion of mechanized agriculture have been profound.
