Immediately afterward the tribes of this area signed treaties and were relocated to the west. The previous diagram suggest that there are 2 major variables that influence how a group of people will perceive and use their environment. The amount of time the people have been in this environment. As people live in an environment they come to make mistakes and learn that if they continue a certain use practice it will harm or eliminate the resource they use. Adaptation is when people respond to this lesson and change their behavior so it does not harm the resource.
Cultural adaptation is when they make ethics.
The number of people living in an area and using the environment will influence the group s ability to live there sustainably. Raw numbers, however, are less important that what the people learn from the environment and how they adjust their life styles to fit the environments. The more similar the past environment to the present environment the faster they should adapt and live in a sustainable fashion. People s adaptation to an environment will depend in part on what they want from it. These internal and external uses demands on local natural and cultural resources will greatly influence the rise of an environmental ethic.