Since every living organism (viruses to large whales) creates sound and lives within some kind of acoustic environment, the subtle sonic fabric of that habitat is essential to any organism's sense of place. Despite claims to the contrary, there are many sites across the planet sans anthrophony for long periods of time; nearly a dozen within a 60 minute drive of the rural-urban area where we live. Hundreds throughout North America and lots in Europe and Asia. They're sometimes just hard to get to.

My new book, "The Great Animal Orchestra: How Animals Taught Us to Dance and Sing," (Little Brown) will be published about a year from now and addresses in some depth, aesthetics; human & Other; ecological, human and Other health; noise; music; soundscape ecology (as differentiated from "acoustic ecology"), politics and economics. The sonic world in about 400 pages.

"An ecosystem is generally an area within the natural environment in which physical (abiotic) factors of the environment, such as rocks and soil, function together along with interdependent (biotic) organisms, such as plants and animals, within the same habitat." wikipedia

It's not a perfect fit but i think if you add machines, which have the ability to emit sound independently of human interaction, to the abiotic aspects of the system then you can think about the soundscape in these terms. Through leading numerous soundwalks in the NYC area as a member of NYSAE over the last 6 years I have gleaned that there are several layers to the urban soundscape. A natural one, I.e. birds, water, non amplified human speech and human power work related sound, small mammals, insects etc, , a man made one, of which i would further break that down into intermittent and drone and would include all machineryand humans interacting with machinery and audio devices, and on a meta level the overall hum of the city which is a combination of all sound but especially internal combustion engines and electric generators.

In answer to the 2nd, i don't think i would count myself in the conservation wing of AE. I'm more interested in exploring it for it's potential to understand our daily existences better and in order to have it influence my personal sound work which it has in numerous ways. Maybe this stems from my background as a musician and sound artist or maybe it grew out of contemplating the soundscape of NYC and realizing that it was so much larger than myself that ways to effect it were not readily apparent. After exploring and understanding the minutia of the soundscape i can see ways to effect change now but they would be small steps in the right direction rather than effecting it in a more far-reaching way.

some of the more integrative recordists address these questions directly (I'm thinking of David Dunn for example) or in conversation/interviews when they discuss editing choices.

I suppose, when considering published CDs, we also have to acknowledge that many more people are interested in spending money, and listening repeatedly, to natural soundscapes, than urban ones. Though it's heartening to see how many sound artists are finding ways to share their more human-oriented work in small-run CDs and online paid and free downloads and streams.