The author of many of the essays and bric-a-brac on this site is given as H. E. Kuchka. H. E. is the abbreviation for Human Ecosystems. Kuchka means, 'the group'. This moniker was inspired, in hubris, by the character and creative spirit of the late 19th Century musical study group in Russia that included Rimsky-Korsakov, known in the West as the Mighty Five . The original Kuchka working group was formed towards the end of the last century in the Anthropology Department and Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, USA. Its contributors now hail from diverse backgrounds and several countries (eg., Biosphere II ecologist, Bedouin Studies ethnographer/demographer, paleo and biological anthropologist, crisis/disaster and ecological ethnographers, among others). Our group’s ultimate goal is to establish a truly anthropological understanding of human ecosystems, drawing upon a broad range of human variation and historical perspectives, while at the same time adapting some of the compositional techniques and scholastic backgrounds of other ecological disciplines.
