Ecological economics challenges traditional economic theory by recontextualizing all of economic practice (and theory) within ecosystems, rather than allowing them to remain suspended off planet in ridiculous abstraction away from such basic things as soil, water, air, population density, and the like.
Ecological economics is a discipline which combines economics, ecology, anthropology, history and other studies, in an effort to ground economic theory in the real world. Ultimately, it is hoped that the application of the methodology of ecological economics will shift economic practice, goverment policy, and culture itself to a sustainable mode, in which biodiversity can be maintained.