Environmental anthropology is an interdisciplinary branch of anthropology that examines the dynamic relationship between humans and their natural environment. It seeks to understand how cultural beliefs, social institutions, political structures, and economic systems shape human interactions with ecosystems. Contemporary environmental anthropology has moved beyond simple human-environment adaptation models to include issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, sustainability, and indigenous knowledge. The current approaches reflect the complexity of environmental problems in a globalized world. The cultural ecology approach, developed by Julian Steward, continues to influence environmental anthropology. It examines how human societies adapt culturally to their ecological settings. This approach focuses on the interaction between technology, subsistence patterns, and environmental conditions. Although early cultural ecology emphasized environmental determinism to some extent, contemporary scholars recognize the reciprocal relationship between culture and nature, where humans actively modify and transform ecosystems. Political ecology has become one of the most significant approaches in environmental anthropology. It investigates how political, economic, and social forces influence environmental change and resource distribution. Political ecologists argue that environmental degradation cannot be understood without considering issues such as colonialism, globalization, state policies, market forces, and power inequalities. This approach highlights how marginalized communities often bear the greatest burden of environmental destruction while benefiting the least from resource exploitation. It examines conflicts over forests, water, land acquisition, mining, and conservation projects. The ecological anthropology approach studies ecosystems as integrated systems