Environment

The ancient Greeks were the first ecologists on the planet, based on the quality of life in the city-states they created, where other nations lived nomadically. For example, in ancient Athens, every owner had the right to cut down up to two olive trees per year.

Solon had set a reward of 5 drachmas for killing a male wolf, but only one drachma for each young wolf because the goal was to reduce, but not to exterminate the species.

Modern ecology did not first emerge until the 19th century. It was during the 19th century that the word “ecology” was coined by the German naturalist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919). Haeckel formed the word from the Greek “oîkos” (house) and “logógos” (knowledge, reason) — and with good reason, since this is, in a broad sense, the study of our home. Known for disseminating Darwin’s work, in his General Morphology of Organisms, Haeckel describes ecology as the science that studies the relationships of organisms with the world around them.