The Environmental Keyword You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
Why You Should Add ‘Ecotone’ To Your Environmental Communication Toolkit
What does ecotone mean?
“Ecotone is a transition area between ecologies, where life worlds meet and integrate.” — James Clifford, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz
Ecotones are the liminal spaces where a dramatic shift between one ecosystem and another occurs: The transition zone between river and marsh. Between marsh and grassland. Between grassland and forest. Between forest and beach. Between beach and ocean. These are all ecotones.
As the anthropologist James Clifford puts it:
“The transition zone between forest and grassland. It is an ecotone. A particular dynamic combination of life-ways, animal, and vegetal. Its composite environment is always being assembled and disassembled with friction and difficulty…ecologies in tension: struggle, invasion, survival, overlap, dependency. A modus vivendi.”
The word combines ‘eco’ and ‘tone’ (from the Greek tonos meaning tension). In other words, an ecotone emerges as a ‘thirdspace’ in the tension between two ecosystems colliding.
