ICEHO Bulletin 19

Pleasesend
contributions for next
Bulletin tolibby.robin@anu.edu.au
Bulletin Editor

Libby Robin*** DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT ICEHO BULLETIN

1 September 2019

Convergences:

The Global North and the Global Southin the Era of the Great Acceleration
WCEH19 Conference:

22-26 July 2019https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/iceho/iceho19/

in Florianópolis, Brazil

REGISTRATION

NOW

https://www.3wceh2019.floripa.br/

From the President

OPEN!

Dear members of ICEHO member organisations,institutes, departments and networks,
Environmental historians mourn the deaths of
two eminent pioneers, John Opie and Don Hughes.
On this sad occasion, I invite you to reflect on how
environmental historians today work in a worldthat differs from that of the first generation.
Australia under a heat wave. US environmental
legislation under threat. Kandahar city and several
districts of southern Afghanistan under water:
Flash floods killed more than 20 people as I write.
The European Environment Agency recently
published a report on flooding in Europe,
Floodplain management: reducing flood risks andrestoring healthy ecosystems. Researchers predictthat by 2050, flood losses will increase fivefold due
to climate change but also to increasing value ofthe land around the floodplains, and urbanization.
Historical baseline data allow such analyses,
although this fact seldom gets mentioned.
IPCC, IPBES, IUCN and many more organizations
report, call for action and show data that shouldmake society active. Two years ago, the “Bregenz
Declaration” by the World Future Council was
published,see
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/bregenzdeclaration-call-collective-consciousness/…buthave you even heard of it?

2
Whatever the readings I set, my students ask for“more solution-oriented papers, please”. But somealso come up after class and thank me, telling methat they find the lessons from environmental
history worthwhile and helpful to orient
themselves in an increasingly confusing world.
Some ask me what I think of the future … answers
are not easy. Is it time to lose hope? Christof
Mauch does not think so. He recently published
Slow Hope: Rethinking Ecologies of Crisis and Fear,
inviting us all to see the many flowers blooming in
local and regional initiatives to future-oriented
living.
http://www.environmentandsociety.org/perspecti
ves/2019/1/slow-hope-rethinking-ecologies-crisisand-fear
While this is certainly a great resource to offer
students, I also direct them to the website of theInternational Council for Science, an organizationthat was created in July 2018 as the result of amerger between the International Council for
Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science
Council (ISSC) as the only international nongovernmental organization bringing together thenatural and social sciences.
I suggest to my students what I want to suggest to
all our members: The value we create, the reason
we should be hopeful is the scholarship we
produce, the research and the teaching, thedissemination activities and the participation in
public processes where our expertise can make adifference. We serve the greater good by delivering
one of the most influential, but also one of themost contested public goods: systematically
produced, reliable knowledge.
The International Council of Science (ICS) is thelargest global science organization of its type.
ICEHO shares their vision: to advance scholarshipas a global public good. As ICS states in its mission,scientific knowledge, data and expertise must be
universally accessible and their benefits universallyshared. The practice of science must be inclusive
and equitable, also in opportunities for scientificeducation and capacity development.
ICS sees itself as a global voice for science. It
speaks for the value of all science and evidenceinformed decision-making; stimulates and supports
international scientific research and scholarship on

major issues of global concern; articulates scientificknowledge on such issues in the public domain;
promotes the continued and equal advancement ofscientific rigour, creativity and relevance in all partsof the world and lastly, defends the free andresponsible practice of science.
Should ICEHO join ICS’s 141 Member
Organizations, 39 Member Unions and Associations
and 30 Affiliated Members? Should ICEHO organize
virtual conferences? Should ICEHO sponsor andpromote Environmental History sessions at large
scientific gatherings such as the European
Geophysical Union meeting, held in Vienna every
year in April or at other large conferences? How
can ICEHO contribute to the Sustainable
Development Goals, the Agenda 2030? ICEHO is anumbrella society dedicated to increase the visibilityof environmental history, to foster international
communication and networking and serve allmembers. ICEHO will hold a general assembly at
the WCEH in Brazil in July, and before that, there
will be a board meeting at ASEH in Columbus, Ohioin April. We ask for your input! Please write tosecretary Bo Poulsen at bpoulsen@cgs.aau.dk or
to me and let us know what YOU would want
ICEHO to do. Please send your suggestions at yourearliest convenience, but no later than March 31st
We will try our best to accommodate yoursuggestions and discuss them at the board meetingin Columbus, Ohio (at the ASEH meeting, 10-14
April) or invite you to present them to the General
Assembly in due course. Until we meet again, I
offer my best wishes for the spring/autumn season
Yours
Verena Winiwarter
President, ICEHO
For
more
on
John
Opie:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329512
033_In_Memoriam_John_Opie_1934-2018
For more on Don Hughes
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259838
867_J_Donald_Hughes

From
the
Organisers of
WCEH193

Co-chairs: Lisa
Stefania Gallini

Mighetto

andMembers
Kate Brown, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Micheline Cariño, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California
Sur
Peter Coates, University of Bristol
Stefan Dorondel, Institutul de Antropologie “Francisc I. Rainer”
Marianna Dudley, University of Bristol
Stefania Gallini, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (co-chair)
Simo Laakonen, University of Helsinki
Lisa Mighetto, University of Washington-Tacoma (co-chair)
Ruth Morgan, Monash University/ Rachel Carson Center LMU
Micah Muscolino, Merton College, Oxford
Mucha Musemwa, Univ. of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Giacomo Parrinello, SciencesPo, Paris
Ligia Pinto, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal
David Schorr, Tel Aviv University
Fei Sheng, Sun Yat-Sen University
John Soluri, Carnegie Mellon University
Paolo Squatriti, University of Michigan
Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum Munich

Registrations are now open
WCEH19 - including Field Trips!

forAmong the many interesting events in the Program,
don’t miss the field trips. On July 25th, participants
are encouraged to join a walking tour to
Florianópolis downtown and have a delicious
lunch at the over a hundred-year-old New PublicMarket (Field trip 1).

the Rio do Rastro Mountains Range, one of themost scenic views in Brazil – which is saying a lot.
Atlantic forest, waterfalls, and enough switchbacks
to turn your head. (Pun intended). The trip includes
a visit to winery, lunch and wine degustation. The
guides are Samira Moretto and Eunice Nodari, whohave worked and studied the region for many
years. The trip takes the entire day (7 am to 8 pm),
so it is not advised if you are taking off on that day.
For visitors who want to see the island’s beautiful
Northern beaches, Field trip 3 offers a shorter
circuit to Jurerê, Praia do Forte and Praia da
Daniela. Manoel Pereira R. T. dos Santos and Lucas
Mores will show you Sambaqui, a parish that
preserves the old Azorean architecture, and the
local cultivation of oysters and shellfish, a projectthat has connected academia and the local
community. The tour finishes at 4 pm, and lunch isalso included.
For those even more pressed for time, in Field trip
4, congress-goers may visit an Atlantic rainforest
conservation unit and be back to the city at 2 pm.
The trip combines urban environmental history
and conservation history, as the Serra do
Tabuleiro State Park, created in 1975, had a dual
function of protect fauna and flora and also thewater supply for Florianópolis Metropolitan Area.
João Klug and Esther Rossi have been bringing
students to the area for many years and havemuch to impart about the potential of the area forenvironmental education and eco-tourism.
All trips are on first-come first-served basis, andthe slots are limited. But each of the field trips
reveals a bit of the complexity of Brazil’s
environmental history.
And good food.
Book
here:
https://www.3wceh2019.floripa.br/conteudo/view?ID_CONTEUDO=392

The old ficus tree (Ficus organensis), a seedlingfrom 1871 that was replanted in 1891 to its current
location, right in the middle of the main square.
The old tree is spread in all directions andsustained by steel posts. For environmental
historians, it is a treat.
On July 27, Saturday, the local arrangements
committee have organized three different field
trips, to answer the different needs of theCongress attendees. Field Trip 2 takes visitors to4

EHCA Prize for Interdisciplinary
Research in Environmental Historyrd

On the occasion of the 3 WCEH, Florianopolis, Brazil

Prizes to be Awarded at the World
Congress
The world congress will offer several opportunities
for recognition of scholarly work. First, theEnvironmental History Cluster Austria will offer a
prize for interdisciplinary research. For more
information, see:https://www.3wceh2019.floripa.br/conteudo/view?ID_CONTEUDO=406
In addition, La Sociedad Latinoamericana y
Caribeña de Historia Ambiental (SOLCHA) will
present an award for the most global SOLCHArelated paper, and the American Society for
Environmental History will issue a best poster
award. All participants of the conference are
eligible for these prizes, which will be awarded at
the congress. If your organization would like tosponsor an award (it does not necessarily require
funds – just someone to evaluate and present acertificate at the ceremony), please contact the
programcommitteecochairsatsgallini@unal.edu.co and lisamighetto@gmail.com
as soon as possible

Aim and Scope of the Prize:
The Environmental History Cluster Austria
acknowledges
conceptual
andempirical
approaches to environmental history, which areinterdisciplinary and contribute significantly toadvancing the field as an interdisciplinary
endeavour. While environmental history tends touse the data of a large range of disciplines as theirsources, and hence often is multi-disciplinary,some approaches are made possible because of avery intense integration of concepts, approaches,
methods and data from various disciplines. Suchwork needs an extra effort and is often bound toteams, a form or organisation of research that thehistorical profession has taken up less than otherdisciplines.
Who can apply?
If your presentation (poster, paper, roundtable
contribution) has been accepted for the WCEH
2019 and you attend the congress, you can apply.
When do I need to apply?
Applications close June 30th, 2019, midnight (CET).
How can you apply?
Send the following documents:
•
•

•

•
•

The abstract that you submitted
An extended version of that abstract, nomore than 3 manuscript pages, includingreferences. (Figures or tables can be added
as Appendices)
Make it clear how your researchcontributes
toInterdisciplinary
Environmental History.
The session you are speaking/presenting
A short CV (2 Pages)

You are required to send them IN ONE ZIPPED
documentinONEe-mailtoverena.winiwarter@boku.ac.atPrize committee
Members of the EHCA present at the conference will
decide upon the prize. As far as possible, your poster ororal presentation will be seen/heard by members of
EHCA. Decisions, however, are based on the extended
abstract.

5
What is in it for you?
A certificate will be issued for the first, second and third
place. The winner will receive Euro 200 as travel subsidy
or for books. Extended Abstracts of the first three will
be published on the EHCA website, www.ehca.at.
Questions?
Write to verena.winiwarter@boku.ac.at with “EHCA
Prize” in the subject line. Failing to do so will lead todelays, as Verena Winiwarter uses e-mail filtering rules.

----------------------

Notes and News
from Societies
ICEHO Table at the ASEH Meeting,
10-14 April, Columbus Ohio
If you are coming to the ASEH meeting, lookout for the ICEHO table.
It will be the only table with socks for sale…

Irregular Ecologies:

The Environmental Impact of Unconventional Warfare

A Workshop

Florianópolis, Brazil, 20–21 July 2019

Conveners: Christof Mauch, Rachel Carson Center,
LMU Munich and Javier Puente, Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile
Warfare seldom affects humans alone. While
inflicting devastating effects on societies, armed
conflicts also shape economic, cultural, sociopolitical, and ecological transformations. As
violence territorializes, armed conflicts begin toaffect the ecologies and livelihoods that oncesustained them. Environmental transformation
thus emerges as an inextricable correlate of humanconflict.
The Rachel Carson Center for Environment andSociety (RCC) and the Armed Conflict andEnvironment Research Network (ACERN) host a
two-day workshop focused on the interaction
between guerilla warfare and social andenvironmental transformations in the Global South,
with a special focus on the last three decades.

President, Verena Winiwarter, has been knitting her famous
socks, to help early career scholars get to the World Congressin 2019. Come along and say hello – buy a nice pair of socks—
and have a look at the books we have on offer as well – silent
auction format. All being sold for a good ICEHO cause!

Check out ASEH resources on Twitter:

Event which will be held on the eve of the Third World
Congress of Environmental History (22–26 July 2019).

What about WCEH
Where will it be?

2024?

If your institution can host the next world congress,
please be ready to discuss at Florianópolis. Send
expressions of interest to bpoulsen@cgs.aau.dk by 30
June 2019

----

6

News from the Trinity Centre forEnvironmental Humanities, Ireland
Trinity Centre for Environmental History (TCEH) has
been awarded Irish Research Council funding forthe project “FoodSmartCity”. The principal
investigator, Poul Holm, will establish amultidisciplinary team from ethnology, history,
marine ecology, and digital humanities to accessthe historical knowledge and ecological resourcesof an island nation in an innovative partnershipwith a pioneering wholesale/restaurant group. We
aim to promote a shift in seafood menus to lower
trophic levels (seaweed, bivalves) by re-introducing
forgotten recipes into the Irish diet. The projectwill work with schools in partnership with EcoUNESCO.
A new post-doctoral position is open at TCEH as
part of the Dr. Francis Ludlow’s Irish ResearchCouncil-funded project, Climates of Conflict inAncient Babylonia (CLICAB). The project examines
if and how climatic changes, including drought,
flooding and other extreme weather, are linked topatterns of violence and conflict in the Ancient
Near
East.
The
positioncall:
http://www.tcd.ie/tcehThe
project:
http://www.tcd.ie/tceh/projects/CLICABNorFish (the Environmental History of the North
Atlantic Fisheries project), funded by the European
Research Council is developing fast with major
results to be published in March on the fish
revolution around 1500 AD and changes in
consumption in major journals, Quaternary
Research and Historical Methods. For more on
NorFish,pleasevisit
http://www.tcd.ie/tceh/projects
TCEH is hosting CO-SUSTAIN, a two-year research
project funded by the EU H2020 MSCActions. The
research, awarded to Dr Ruth Brennan, started in
October 2018. European fisheries and coastal
communities are facing significant challenges thatcall for innovative, sustainable and inclusive
responses. CO-SUSTAIN will work closely with the
Irish Islands Marine Resources Organisation (IIMRO)
to co-design and test innovative governanceapproaches that promote good governance, foster
marinestewardshipandcontributetosustainability goals while meeting the need offisheries-dependent coastal communities toflourish. This interdisciplinary research will befocused on the four island groups of Donegal,

Mayo, Galway and Cork on the Irish west coast.
Followtheproject
at
http://belongingtothesea.com/
TCEH researcher Dr Ruth Brennan recently
appeared on a Near FM podcast to talk about her
work on COSUSTAIN and the Centre:
http://nearfm.ie/podcast/?p=30239

TCEH’s lecture series continues, for updates onfree Environmental Humanities events in TCD go to
http://tcd.ie/tceh/iehn
Visit our blogs page for insights and comments by
TCEH researchers, https://www.tcd.ie/tceh/blogs/----

Global Sustainable Development Goals
in a Mediatized World
SDGs in a world full of media...
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/sustainable-development2019/

On 4-5 April 2019, the Austrian Academy of Sciences will
convene the international symposium “Global
Sustainable Development Goals in a Mediatized World.”
Achieving the goals laid out in the Agenda 2030 in amediatized world poses new challenges andopportunities for all stakeholders, including thescientificcommunity.
Mediatization shapes public discourses and thus
influences the way in which the Agenda 2030 isreflected, criticized, and implemented. Communication
plays an important and sometimes decisive role in theawareness and individual acceptance and the politicaland economic legitimation of the SDGs due todigitalization, convergence, and globalization in a rapidlychanging societal environment. The symposium will
highlight these aspects, discuss the consequences acrossdisciplines, and elaborate the implications of research
related to the implementation of the Agenda 2030.
With this symposium, the Austrian Academy of
Sciences intends to highlight the contributions that
Austrian scientists can make to the SDGs, deepen theinterdisciplinary dialogue among scientists and beyond,and better acquaint researchers with the SDGs. We

7welcome colleagues with areas of expertise not typicallyconsidered when discussing the SDGs.
----

New! From Colin M. Coates andGraeme Wynn
The
Natureof
Canadahttps://www.ubcpress.ca/the-nature-of-canada

Tracing a path from the Ice
Age to the Anthropocene,some of the foremost stars in
the field of environmental
history reflect on how
Canadians as a nation, haveidolized and found inspirationin nature even as fishers, furtraders, farmers, foresters,
miners, and city planners havecommodified it and tried totame it.
The
Natureof
Canada available May 2019---

Paradise Lost
Environmental Documentary
https://youtu.be/t7OXEJNPc5k
Available free online
Film-makers: Pablo Mejía and Claudia Leal*(*ICEHO Vice-President)

The Fifth Biennial Conference of East Asian
Environmental History (EAEH 2019)
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
October 24-27, 2019.

http://www.aeaeh.org/eaeh2019.htm

For further information and updates, please visit
EAEH2019 website.
Contact: Hsiao-yun Liu (Miss) Academia Sinica(Email: hsyunliu@gate.sinica.edu.tw)

SAHS: Southern African Historical Societyth
27 Biennial Conference
24-26 June 2019
Hosted by the Department of History,
Rhodes University, Grahamstown

Trails, Traditions, Trajectories:

Rethinking Perspectives on Southern African Histories

http://www.sahs.org.za

For more information, please email
Enocent Msindo: e.msindo@ru.ac.za or
Nomalanga Mkhize, naledi.nomalanga@gmail.com

8
Jeffrey K. Stine and W. John Kress, Living in the
Anthropocene: Earth in the Age of Humans (Sajal Roy)For the latest in

CLIMATE HISTORY NEWShttp://www.climatehistory.net/

Make
sure
your
organization is part of the
ICEHO Family
From as little as $US100/year

Information and forms online:
http://www.iceho.org/join/
Contact: Andrea Anderson:
Andrea.Anderson@foresthistory.org
Download:

http://www.whpress.co.uk/Natures%20in%20Between.pdf

Environment and History
Vol.25 No.1 February 2019

Fertility from Urban Wastes? The Case for Compostingin Great Britain, 1920s-1960s. Arnaud Page
Historical Development and Practices of Lawns in
China. Fengping Yang, Maria Ignatieva, Anders Larsson,
Na Xiu, Shuoxin Zhang
Vandalising Aratiatia and Beautifying Benmore: A Tale of
Two Landscapes. Joanne Kathrine Whittle'Whaling and the Extermination of the Great Whale':
Norwegian and British Debate about Whale Stocks in
Antarctica, 1913-1939. Didrik Dyrdal
Melancholy Consequences: Britain's Long Relationshipwith Agricultural Chemicals Since the Mid-EighteenthCentury. Matthew Holmes
BOOK REVIEWS
Jane Carruthers, National Park Science. A Century of
Research in South Africa (Bernhard Gissibl)
Mikael D. Wolfe, Watering the Revolution: An
Envirotechnical and Technological History of Agrarian
Reform in Mexico (Ela Miljkovic)
Ian W. Campbell, Knowledge and the Ends of Empire:
Kazak Intermediaries and Russian Rule on the Steppe,
1731-1917 (David Moon)

Contacts for ICEHOExecutive Board

President:
VerenaWiniwarter
Verena.Winiwarter@boku.ac.atVice-President: Claudia Leal
claleal@uniandes.edu.co
Secretary: Bo Poulsen
bpoulsen@cgs.aau.dk
Treasurer:
StevenAndersonsteven.anderson@foresthistory.org
Past President/Bulletin Editor: Libby Robinlibby.robin@anu.edu.au

Board Members

Alan MacEachern amaceach@uwo.ca
Daisy Onyige chioma2nv76@gmail.com
James Beattie jbeattie@waikato.ac.nz
Mucha Musemwa mucha.musemwa@wits.ac.za
Shen Hou houshen@ruc.edu.cn
Sidd Krishnan siddhartha.krishnan@atree.org

http://www.iceho.org/