In Africa, because of economic pressures and slower evolution of environmental awareness, local communities have been particularly exposed to the detrimental effects of mining contamination on public health, agriculture and the environment.

UNESCO: EARTH SCIENCES FOR SOCIETY

For a great many years evolution was conceived as being driven externally by environmental pressures and internally by mutations in DNA. Mutations in the DNA created genetic diversity and when there were changes in the environment, those animals with the mutated DNA were sudden in a more favorable position.

FORBES: The Fossils in Our Genes

Turner finds homeostasis (defined here as environmental equilibrium) and the agents that manifest it as processes that work along side Neo-Darwinian evolution to bring about successful function.

FORBES: Evolution and Embodied Physiology