Survival in unfamiliar environments requires local ecological knowledge, not just provisions

Evidence

In 1860, while returning from the first European trip across the interior of Australia, from Melbourne north to the Gulf of Carpentaria, four explorers found that they had nearly used up three months’ worth of provisions and were increasingly forced to live off the land. … While traveling along Coopers Creek, not long after departing the rendezvous depot, both of their two remaining camels died. This left them stuck along Coopers Creek because without either the camels to carry water or some knowledge of how to find water in the outback, the trio could not traverse the last open stretch of desert between the creek and the outpost at Mount Hopeless. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 120

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Forager water-procurement know-how is nonobvious cultural knowledge that genes could not supply — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 255; Humans dominate diverse habitats despite physical weakness and sparse innate knowledge — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 37; Survival in extreme environments hinges on culturally accumulated knowledge, not individual capacity. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 107 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Immediate dependence on local habitat once made conservation self-interested #expands (0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2527
• Spatial-temporal disconnect makes environmental conservation an abstraction not a necessity #complicates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2529
• Ecological thinking converted open space from amenity into survival necessity #expands (0.80) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 533
• Forced local necessity proliferates indigenous, non-Western environmentalisms #expands (0.78) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 316
• Navigating urban life ultimately depends on self-knowledge, not location knowledge #complicates (0.78) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 640
• Ecological understanding requires time and holding attention open #expands (0.75) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 520
• Living in constructed urban environments severs people from ecological consequences #qualifies (0.74)