Nature - autonomous learning

84 the ‘nature’ of geographyUnited Nations held its first conference on population, environment anddevelopment in Stockholm (1972), while many Western nations pondereda future where their fossil-fuel supplies would have to be sourced fromdeveloping-world countries rather than their own shores. All this set thescene for the steady growth of a resource geography focused on assessingthe quantity, distribution and availability of various renewable and nonrenewablenatural resources (see, for example, Mitchell 1979). Meanwhile,Sauer’s students continued to examine how cultural groups transformedthe natural environment over time.This cultural-landscape research shadedinto cultural ecology, the holistic study of how different culture groupsuse and adapt to their local and regional environments (see Braun 2004:153–9). 4 Figure 2.1 summarises the changing ways that geographers hadstudied society–environment relationship up until the late 1980s. ImplicitFigure 2.1 Geography and the study of nature–society relations, 1880–1990