CHINESE ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY NEWSLETTER
Issue 2:1, May 1995
This newsletter may be freely photocopied.
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

From the Editor
This, the third issue of the newsletter, includes the second
instalment of Christian Daniels’s survey of the relationshipbetween ethnohistory and environmental history inSouth-west China; a report on a scientific conference on theevolution of the East Asian environment held in Hong Kongin January; introductions to two database projects (oneoriginally started within China by a pioneering Chinese
scholar, the other, using GIS, involving collaboration among
an impressive array of Australian universities); and a shortaccount of an M.A. thesis on the significance of the royalhunt in the Shang dynasty. While it may confidently be
predicted that not every reader will find every contribution
equally relevant to his or her research interests, the mixed
contents of this issue reflect the editor’s belief in thenecessity for thoroughgoing interdisciplinary awareness inthe field of environmental history. As Fang Jinqi reminds
us in his database report (below), although much significant
progress will continue to be made by scholars working
within the framework of a single discipline (or two or more
related disciplines), the full potential of the subject cannot berealized without discussion and cooperation between naturalscientists, and scholars of the humanities and social sciences.
This newsletter encourages relevant contributions from all
three communities, as well as reports of collaborative
projects.
Appended to this issue is the directory of subscribers.
Only persons who have explicitly subscribed to thenewsletter are included.
In the case of hard-copy
subscribers, those who have requested a subscription but
omitted to pay for it are not included on this occasion.
(Hard-copy subscriptions within the PRC remain free for thetime being). Supplementary lists will be published insubsequent issues of the newsletter.
The publication of the directory is intended to facilitate
networking among subscribers, especially those with accessto e-mail. Communications which may be of interest to all
subscribers, or which are intended for a multi-disciplinary
readership, can be sent to the newsletter editor for general
distribution; at the same time, it will be possible for any
subscriber to open conversations directly (i.e. without going
through the editor) with the smaller number of people withrelated research interests (within or across disciplinary
boundaries). In other words, we should (in theory) havethe framework for electronic discussion among specialists
without the inconveniences of the conventional “list” (whichcan, in some scholars’ experience, be more of a distraction
than a blessing!) In order to facilitate such decentralized

networking, rough lists of subscribers arranged by main
research areas have been appended to the directory.
────────────────────────────────────────

Chinese Environmental History
Newsletter 2:1, May 1995
Contents
Page
Noticeboard(conferences; professional associations;publications)

2

Environmental Degradation, Forest
Protection and Ethno-History in Yunnan(II): Traditional Practices of Non-Han
Swidden Cultivators for the Protectionof Forests by Christian Daniels

3

Report on the Fourth International
Conference on the Evolution of the East
Asian Environment, 1995 by Kerrie L.
MacPherson

6

Database on the Environment and its
Socioeconomic Impact in Historical China:
an Introduction by Fang Jinqi

11“ASIAN”, “SIIASA”, and “SIIRCEASA”
by Lawrence W. Crissman

16

Thesis Abstract Section“The Royal Hunt of the Shang
Dynasty: Archaeological andAnthropological Perspectives”
by Magnus Fiskesjo

17

Submission and Subscription Information18

Directory of Subscribers

19────────────────────────────────────────Although communications sent to the editor for general
distribution can be informal, the editor reserves the right toedit, and to decline to distribute any which are irrelevant toenvironmental history (broadly defined) or which, in her
judgement, violate normal standards of professional
courtesy or integrity.
Page 1

Thanks are due to Liu Ts’ui-jung and her students(Academia Sinica) for preparing the Chinese-language
version of this issue, to Liu Shi-yung (University ofPittsburgh) for physical production of the Chinese-language
version, and to Robert Marks (Whittier College) and Wu
Kegang (University of Liverpool) for consultation services.
It remains only to wish all subscribers a rewarding andproductive summer/winter (as the case may be), and toencourage the submission of contributions for the November
issue!

Noticeboard
Conferences
Symposium on Ecotourism in East Asia, Taipei, May
1995
This symposium, sponsored by the Institute of Natural
Resources, National Dong Hwa University, will be held on
May 19th–20th, 1995. For further information, pleasecontact:
Prof. Wang Hurng-Jyuhn
Institute of Natural Resources
National Dong Hwa University
HualienTaiwan R.O.C.
Tel: 038-662500, ext. 175
Fax: 038-662533“From the Jomon to Star Carr: Hunter-Gatherers ofEast and West Temperate Eurasia.” Cambridge andDurham (England), September 1995.
This international conference will be held at the
Universities of Cambridge and Durham during September
1995. It will explore the following eight themes relating to
the archaeology of Holocene hunter-gatherers in East andWest Eurasia: “Historical Development of Jomon and
Mesolithic Studies; Transition from Pleistocene to Holocene;
Territoriality and Landscape Use; Technology and Material
Culture; Society, Symbolism and Religion; Ecology andSubsistence; Intra-site Analysis; and Towards Agriculture.”
The conference organizers within England are Simon Kanerand Liliana Janik of the Department of Archaeology at
Cambridge, and Peter Rowley-Conwy of the Department ofArchaeology at Durham (46 Saddler St., Durham DH1 3NU,
U.K. Tel. 0191-374-3632; 0191-374-3619).

Professional associations
American Society for Environmental History
The American Society for Environmental History(ASEH) was founded in 1977 to promote theinterdisciplinary study of past environmental change. Its
members come from many intellectual backgrounds: history,
Page 2

geography, ecology, anthropology, natural resource
management, landscape architecture, and literature. To
disseminate serious scholarly research, the Society publishes
a quarterly journal, Environmental History Review, as well
as a newsletter that keeps members posted about events andissues related to the field. It sponsors a biennial conference
at which members gather to share their work. It alsosponsors an e-mail discussion list, ASEH-L, to foster theelectronic discussion of environmental history.
The
Society works actively to promote the study ofenvironmental history in all disciplines, and encourages
anyone who has an interest in the field to join and become
involved in its work.
For their annual membership fee, ASEH members
receive: a subscription to the quarterly journal,
Environmental History Review; a subscription to the ASEH
Newsletter; special rates at the Society’s biennial
conferences; notification of meetings and other events
related to environmental history; and reference and referral
services to scholars with related interests.
Membership is on a calendar year basis (i.e.
January–December). Cheques should be made payable to
ASEH, and must be in U.S. dollars, drawn on a U.S. bank.
Students should provide a copy of their current student I.D.
to receive the student rate. Subscriptions should be sent to:American Society for Environmental History
Attn.: Arlene McKenna, Managing Editor
Center for Technology Studies
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark NJ 07102
U.S.A.
Annual subscription rates, in U.S.$:
Individual:• U.S. Only
24.00
• Airmail outside U.S.
32.00
• Student and Retired (U.S.) 12.00• Contributor
100.00• Patron
300.00Institutional:• United States
30.00• Airmail outside U.S.
38.00
To subscribe to the e-mail discussion group, send themessage “sub aseh-l <your name>“ (excluding quotation
marks) to listproc@unicorn.acs.ttu.edu#026#.

Publications
Teaching resource. Teachers of courses on environmental
history, and on Chinese history with an environmental
component, might wish to consider using Mark Elvin’s
article “Three Thousand Years of Unsustainable Growth:
China’s Environment from Archaic Times to the Present”
for a stimulating overview of the issues. The article will befound in East Asian History No. 6, Dec. 1993, pp. 7–46;

copies of this issue may be ordered from The Secretary,
Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific andAsian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra,
A.C.T. 0200, Australia, for U.S.$ 22.50 (including postage).
The author, who owns the copyright, is happy to allow
unlimited photocopying by members of academic
institutions for teaching and research purposes. There is noneed to submit individual requests for copyright permission.
Yunnan article off-prints available. Christian Daniels
still has several off-prints of his article “Unnan Shō Seisō
Hanna Taizoku no seitō gijutsu to shinrin hogo: genchi chōsa ni miru sono rekishi” [Sugar Technology and Forest
Conservation Methods of the Dai People in Sip Song Panna(Xishuang Banna), Yunnan] (see Daniels’s article in thisissue of CEHN). The article, which is written entirely inJapanese, includes thirty-four splendid original colour
photographs. Those wishing to obtain an off-print should
write to Dr Daniels at Institute for the Study of Languages
and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University ofForeign Studies, 4-51-21 Nishigahara, Kita-ku, Tokyo,
Japan 114.
Pastoralists’ problems.
J.W. Longworth and G.J.
Williamson of the University of Queensland have recently
published China’s Pastoral Region: Sheep and Wool,
Minority Nationalities, Rangeland Degradation andSustainable Development. The publishers’ announcement
reads, in part, as follows. “This book, based on extensive
fieldwork spanning four and a half years, is about preserving
and improving the livelihood of pastoral communities innorthern and north western China. [It] deals with many
aspects ... not previously discussed in the literature [onChina]. Ecological damage to natural grasslands is one of
the most serious but least well documented environmental
issues facing humankind. This book provides first-handobservations on the nature and extent of the problem innorthern and north west China. The authors demonstratethat sustainable development requires the instigation ofpolicy-determined institutional structures and incentives aswell as the provision of technical assistance.” The bookmay be ordered from CAB INTERNATIONAL,
Wallingford,
OX10
8DE,
England(e-mail
M.LEGG@CABI.ORG), or DA Books, 648 WhitehorseRoad, Mitcham, Victoria 3132, Australia (fax 03-873-5679).
The price is £45.00 (U.S.$ 85.50).
Newsletter on Indonesia. The Indonesian Environmental
History Newsletter is edited by Freek Colombijn and David
Henley, and published twice a year by the EDEN (Ecology,
Demography and Economy in Nusantra) research
programme. It is obtainable from KITLV, P.O. Box 9515,
2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands (tel. 71-272295; fax
71-272638).

Other items of interest
Chinese Environment and Development (A Review ofPhysical and Human Aspects). Quarterly journal, edited by
Shiu-hung Luk and Joseph Whitney, University of Toronto;
published by M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 Business Park Drive,
Armonk NY 10504, U.S.A. (tel. 800-541-6563).
Richard L. Edmonds, Patterns of China’s Lost Harmony: A
Survey of the Country’s Environmental Degradation andProtection. London: Routledge, 1994.
David Dudgeon and Richard Corlett, Hills and Streams: An
Ecology of Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press,
1994, U.S.$ 18.00, paperback. “Documents Hong Kong’s
freshwater and terrestrial habitats in the face of intense
human impact.”
Conrad Totman, The Lumber Industry in Early Modern
Japan. University of Hawaii Press, U.S.$ 35.00.
Malcolm Tull and A. R. Krishnan, “Resource Use andEnvironmental Management in Japan, 1890–1990.”
Included in the September 1994 issue of the Australian
Economic History Review.

Environmental Degradation, Forest
Protection and Ethno-History in
Yunnan(II) Traditional Practices of Non-Han
Swidden Cultivators for the Protectionof Forests
Christian Daniels
Institute for the Study of the Languages andCultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo Universityof Foreign Studies
Common opinion in China holds that swidden(“slash-and-burn”) cultivation is a primitive, backward andbarbaric form of agriculture which destroys woodlands andcauses soil erosion. The Chinese anthropologist Yin
Shaoting has eloquently refuted this prejudice in his 1991
book on Yunnan swidden agriculture, Yige chongman
zhengyi de wenhua shengtai tixi: Yunnan daogeng huozhong
yanjiu [A Highly Controversial Culturo-ecological System:
He hasSlash-and-Burn Cultivation in Yunnan].1
demonstrated that swidden agriculture is not, by definition,inefficient in terms of labour productivity or destructive of
the environment. He has also argued that historically it has
functioned as an agronomic system well adapted to an
Page 3

environment rich in forest resources, as long as population
density levels remained low. These points have been madebefore by agronomists and anthropologists working on otherregions, but Yin is the first scholar to have published a fully
detailed exposition for China.
Yige chongman zhengyi de wenhua shengtai tixi is an
exceptionally important book, which, together with its
sequel published in 1994,2 should be read by agronomists,
anthropologists, ecologists and historians. Not only does it
distinguish between the different types of swidden
cultivation practised, elucidate the various patterns of crop
rotation, and consider the effect of the tools used on theenvironment; it also makes some very pertinent commentson the future of swidden agriculture among the non-Han.
The arguments and opinions presented carry great weightbecause they are based on data collected by the author in
extended periods of field work conducted during the 1980s,
and not available elsewhere. Here, I will draw on Yin’s
1991 book to explain some of the traditional practices ofswidden cultivators for protecting forests.
Yin shows that before collectivization during the 1950s,
hill peoples regulated the way they utilized land resources.
Villagers clearly defined the extent of the land belonging totheir settlements, and classified it according to type of use.
Common classifications included sacred forests; burial hills;
scenery forests; water conservation forests; path protection
forests; hunting grounds; and agricultural land. Swidden
cultivators did not “recklessly slash and burn”, as is often
claimed. On the contrary, they made planned use of theenvironment. The first four categories of forest functioned
as nature reserves, so let us look at each in turn.
1. Sacred forests.
Members of hill-farming
communities designated woodlands where the gods dwelled
as sacred forests, and strictly forbade people from entering,
except for making the annual sacrifices to the mountain andearth gods. Since the villagers firmly believed that
trespassing on these sanctuaries for the purposes of tree
felling, cultivation, hunting and gathering would bring themgreat misfortune, these forests generally remained pristine.
Remnants of them may still be seen today in the patches ofprimary forest among villages in Lancang County and
Xishuang Banna Dai Minority Autonomous Zhou, both ofwhich lie close to the Burmese (Myan Mar) and Laotian
borders in southernmost Yunnan.3 The idea of sacred
forests was not the sole preserve of swidden cultivators, as
the Dai, the principal wet rice cultivators on the lowland
basins in Xishuang Banna, also practised a similar form ofconservation in their veneration of sacred hills. The
ethno-botanist Pei Shengji has described their beliefs andpractices, and shown how sacred hills have saved the local
fauna and flora from human-induced destruction.4
2. Burial hills. The protection of burial hills, usually
located far from the dwellings, was an important concern forvillagers. The burning of burial hills by outsiders could
Page 4

lead to feuding, as such action was tantamount to violating agrave.
3. Scenery forests. This term refers to the trees andbamboo left growing around villages for beautification.
These woods also had a cooling effect, and served as
shelters against dust, wind and floods.
4. Water conservation forests. Vegetation cover forseveral hundred metres along both sides of gullies, and thataround streams, brooks and springs utilized by humanbeings, received protection and was left untouched. Also,
when clearing land, swidden cultivators did not cut the trees
on ridges and in the hollows on slopes. They had two
purposes in mind here. In the first place, the trees
prevented fire from going up the slope and crossing over tothe other side of the hill in the repeated burnings required toprepare the land for cultivation. After an initial firing,
cultivators collected the half-burnt material into heaps andignited it again to ensure that the ashes spread over thesurface of the clearance as evenly as possible. Dependingon circumstances, cultivators could repeat these secondary
firings three or four times. The purpose of these controlledburnings was to create an ash fertilizer, and the trees
retained on the ridges acted as a barrier against the spread of
fire.
Secondly, however, the preservation of the trees onridges and in hollows assisted water retention. Swidden
cultivators understood that natural forest vegetation
enhanced the penetration of precipitation into the groundand provided them with a constant supply of water forhousehold use.5
Villagers and consanguineal clans laid down various
rules and regulations which specifically prohibited thedestruction of these four types of forest, and often organizedgroups to enforce them. For instance, among the Jinuo
minority people in Xishuang Banna, youths over fourteen
years of age were charged with the task of patrolling these
forest reserves, and their head, who was appointed annuallyby the village elders, had authority to fine offenders,children and adults alike. The collectivization of land andother government policies implemented during the 1950s
and 1960s destroyed the social system and religious beliefs
upon which the conservationist attitude of many non-Hanpeoples was founded.
This has brought about thedisappearance of traditional policing activities by villagers,
but remnants of these forests can still be seen in some borderarea villages today.
Yin emphasizes four techniques practised by swidden
cultivators which had positive effects for the maintenance ofthe environment. First, land was divided out amongst
villagers according to the customs of the different peoples:
allocation by village or clan elders appears to have beencommon.
Planned allocation of land ensured thatcultivators alternated cropping and fallow in a rotation

system to allow for regeneration. Second, cultivators
selected crops that were suited to the soil conditions ofdifferent locations. Third, most swidden cultivators wereparticularly careful to avoid killing the stumps of felled trees.
They avoided disturbing the roots during cultivation, andeven covered the stumps with leaves during dry periods toprevent them from becoming desiccated. Finally, somepeoples had, and still preserve, a custom of reforesting toprevent the degradation of forest land. They planted
fast-growing trees, or trees with a high commercial value, on
fallow land for the purposes of fertilizing the soil andobtaining economic benefits. Alnus nepalensis D. Don (theshuidonggua, “water winter melon” tree), lacquer trees andpine trees were, and still are, the main trees cultivated.
Alnus nepalensis grows into a large tree within five
years in places with sufficient rainfall, and is highly prized
for its efficiency in returning fertility to the soil. The
bacteria (an azotobacter called bacillus radicicola Beijerinok)
on its roots have an exceptionally strong nitrogen fixing
effect. This tree also bears a large quantity of leaves which,after falling, provide the soil with nutrients more rapidly
than those of other trees. In the past, and at present, the Wa,
Jingpo, Lisu and Dulong peoples have planted this tree, but
their cultivation methods differ. For instance, the Jingpo in
Kachang, Yingjiang County, mixed the seeds of alnus
nepalensis and upland rice, and broadcast them together,while the Dulong planted seedlings of this tree together withother crops on land in the second year of cultivation after
forest clearance. The growth period varied from four toeight years; the wood could be used for fuel, and the thicktrunks as timber for houses and furniture.
The Lemo ren (a sub-group of the Bai people), who
dwell in the Luobenzhuo district of Lushui County, andsome members of the Nu minority people cultivate lacquer
trees in cropping and fallow rotations. In February andMarch, the Lemo broadcast lacquer tree seeds on the slopesof high mountains, and in March of the following year theytransplant the seedlings to fields at a lower elevation.
Alnus nepalensis seedlings may also be transplanted at thesame time in order to enhance soil fertility with theirnitrogen fixing effect. Forty to fifty lacquer tree seedlings
are planted per mu on relatively fertile land, while fifty to
sixty are planted per mu on less fertile ground. In April or
May of that year, maize and kidney beans (phaseolus
vulgaris L.) are intercropped between the seedlings.
Intercropping ceases three to four years later, when the trees
have grown tall and come to shade the ground. Latex
tapping commences after the lacquer trees have attained anage of eight years, and they yield about fourteen kilograms
per mu. After about ten years of tapping, the trees arechopped down and burnt to fertilize the soil. At that point,
planting begins all over again. Cultivators sell the latex,
thus gaining an income from the land during the fallow
period, and are still able to burn the tree for fertilizer at theend of the cycle. Although Yin does not specificallymention it, we can assume that mixing lacquer trees or othertrees of economic value in with maize and other food crops
is a good way of preventing the notorious erosion problems
which Han Chinese farmers created when they began thepermanent cultivation of New World food crops on hillslopes after the seventeenth century.6
The combination of tree farming with a slash-and-burnrotation system of cropping and fallow increases the degreeof land-use intensification principally because it extends theperiod over which the land can be utilized: the planting of
fast-growing, soil-fertilizing trees rejuvenates soil strength,
and thus helps to shorten the fallow period. Stressing these,
and all other advantages outlined above, Yin Shaoting
recommends this type of commercial tree farming as themost effective method of increasing the incomes of swidden
agriculturalists who have no other options open to them.
Let us not forget that lowland wet rice cultivators also
practised reforestation. The Dai people of Xishuang Banna
still cultivate fuelwood forests today. Each Dai family
plants cassia siamea Lam. on the gentle slopes in thevicinity of its village, and uses this tree as a source offirewood. Seeds are sown on burned slopes in May to Juneat the beginning of the rainy season, and the first pollarding
takes place four to five years later, when the trees reach aheight of about fifteen metres with a trunk diameter of ten to
fifteen centimetres. The tree is cut at a point about one
metre up the trunk, and the upper foliage is used for fuel.
Within five years, three to five new branches have sprouted
to a height of eight to ten metres (trunk diameter of five toeight centimetres), and these are chopped down, leaving thestump as before. Thereafter, the new growth is pollarded
every three years.
According to estimates given by Pei Shengji, acultivated cassia siamea forest can be harvested in this way
for about a hundred years, and yields sixty cubic metres offuelwood per hectare at every triennial cutting. Pei
calculates that each Dai uses 1.0-1.5 cubic metres offuelwood per year, and that 0.1 hectares of this tree aresufficient to meet the fuel needs of one person.7 From my
own experience, I doubt whether Dai villagers are still able
to provide for all their fuelwood requirements from theirown cassia siamea forests today, though it cannot be denied
that they still rely on them a great deal. Nevertheless, Pei isundoubtedly correct in saying that by providing a constantsource of fuel, the cultivation of this tree over the past 400
years has reduced pressure on natural forests for energy.
In their traditional agricultural systems, swidden
cultivators and the Dai strove to protect their environment,
for they knew that in the long run they would be the ones tosuffer the consequences of resource depletion. In spite of
Yin’s convincing data, one cannot help wondering why thehill peoples today lack their past enthusiasm forenvironmental protection. This will be the topic of the next
installment.
[Final installment: “Nature Reserves and Non-Han Swidden
Cultivators.” Forthcoming in the November 1995 issue ofPage 5

CEHN.]REFERENCES
1. Yin Shaoting, Yige chongman zhengyi de wenhua
shengtai tixi: Yunnan daogeng huozhong yanjiu [A Highly
Controversial Culturo-Ecological System: Slash-and-Burn
Cultivation in Yunnan].
Kunming: Yunnan Renmin
Chubanshe, 1991.
2. Yin Shaoting, Senlin yunyu de nonggeng wenhua:
Yunnan daogeng huozhong zhi [A Farming Culture Formed
by Forest: Slash-and Burn Cultivation in Yunnan].
Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe, 1994.
3. The Xishuang Banna Dai Minority Autonomous Zhou
was set up in 1953 by the People’s Republic of China. The
area under its jurisdiction roughly corresponds to that of its
forerunner, the kingdom of Sipsong Panna, which was apolity dominated by Tai Lw people (a Tai language
speaking people known as Dai in Chinese). The Tai Lw
potentate of this polity ruled over the various ethnic peoples
who practiced swidden agriculture in the highlands, as wellas his own Tai Lw people who cultivated wet rice on thelowland basins. From the late thirteenth century, China
established indirect control over Sipsong Panna by
incorporating it into the tusi system. The Yuan dynasty
conferred the highly prestigious title of xuanwei shi(Pacification Commissioner) on the potentate of Sipsong
Panna, and the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as theRepublican government, all recognized his position.
However, the PRC abolished the tusi system in the 1950s.
Under the tusi system, China allowed the Sipsong
Panna potentate to govern the internal affairs of his polity inreturn for submitting to a tributary relationship with China.
Despite submission to Chinese control, Sipsong Panna kept
its identity as a Theravada Buddhist state that maintained
strong political ties and cultural affinities with similar
polities established by Thai-speaking peoples in northern
continental South-east Asia.
Chinese migration to
Xishuang Banna really began only after the 1950s; this has
enabled the various peoples there to uphold their traditional
way of life until quite recently. It has also greatly
contributed to the preservation of tropical rainforest alongwith all the flora and fauna for which Xishuang Banna isrenowned today. This has made it a popular site forfield-work by Chinese anthropologists, ethno-botanists,biologists, etc. The name Xishuang Banna, a Chinesetransliteration of Sipsong Panna, is a vestige of this now
deceased polity. At present, the Tai Lw (the Dai Minority
People) still retain their position as the largest single ethnic
people in Xishuang Banna.
4. Pei Shengji, “Some Effects of the Dai People’s Cultural
Beliefs and Practices upon the Plant Environment of
Xishuang Banna, Yunnan Province, Southwest China”, inPage 6The Ethno-Botanical Laboratory, Kunming Institute of
China, Collected Research Papers on the Ethno-Botany of
Xishuang Banna (Kunming: n.d., but the dates of the papers
range from 1982-88), pp. 107–11; and Christian Daniels,“Unnan Shō Seisō Hanna Taizoku no seitō gijutsu to shinrin
hogo: genchi chōsa ni miru sono rekishi” [Sugar
Technology and Forest Conservation Methods of the Dai
People in Sip Song Panna (Xishuang Banna), Yunnan], in
Shūjitsu Joshi Daigaku shigaku ronshū 5 (1990), pp.
260–64.
5. It is also worth noting that pathways in and aroundvillages were lined with trees, which provided shade andreduced dust. These were the path protection forests that
Yin mentions.
6. Ho Ping-ti, in Studies on the Population of China,
1368–1953 (Harvard University Press, 1959) early pointed
out that the cultivation of New World crops such as maizeand peanuts on hill slopes caused serious erosion in South
China. In Japan, Chiba Tokuji has pursued the relationshipbetween swidden agriculture, soil erosion and maize
cultivation in South China in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. See e.g. his “Kanan sangaku chitai no yakihatakōsaku: Chūgoku bunken ni yoru rekishiteki gaikan tomondaiten no shiteki” [Swidden Cultivation on Mountain
Land in South China: A Historical Overview According toChinese Sources, and Issues for Further Research], in Chirikagaku 3 (1967), pp. 1–9; and Chiiki to minzoku bunka[Region and Folk Culture] (Tokyo: Daimeitō, 1977), pp.
167–189.
7. Pei, op. cit., p. 112.

Report on the Fourth International
Conference on the Evolution of theEast Asian Environment, 1995
Kerrie L. MacPherson
University of Hong Kong
Fifty-eight papers, arranged in seven categories, illuminating“The Evolution of the East Asian Environment” were
presented at this international conference hosted by the
University of Hong Kong during January 3rd–7th, 1995,
under the auspices of the University’s Centre of AsianStudies and Earth Science Unit. This conference was the
fourth in a series that began in 1983 as an interdisciplinary
examination of the East Asian palaeoenvironment, focussing
on the later Tertiary and early Quaternary. One result of
the initial conference was the publication of the East Asian
Tertiary/Quaternary Newsletter published by the Centre ofAsian Studies twice a year under the editorship of Nina G.
Jablonski, California Academy of Sciences, who was also amember of the conference organizing committee. Other
members include the Chairman, Wyss Yim, University ofHong Kong; Edward Derbyshire, International Union for
Quaternary Research; Liu Tung-sheng, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, P.R.C.; David Workman, University of HongKong; and Cheng Chaoze from the Centre of Asian Studies(conference secretary). The Conference was sponsored by
The Croucher Foundation and Mr. Li Ka-shing.
The span of time addressed by papers presented at the
1995 conference stretched far beyond the late Tertiary andearly Quaternary. The proceedings of this conference will
be published by the Centre, as have been all three previous
sets of proceedings.
There follows be a very brief summary of theconference papers, with an appended list of titles andauthors.*
Geology and Palaeoclimatology
The first session included thirteen papers, the majority
focussing on the geological formation of the East Asian
environment, and the remainder on palaeoclimatic changes
in East Asia. Lu Yaoru, from the perspectives ofhydrogeology and engineering, presented a general paper on
the geological environments of China, with emphasis on theanthropogenic factors that influenced their evolution. Ren
Binghui discussed the extent of the last glaciation in the
Tianshan Mountains, presenting evidence that the extent ofthese ancient glaciers exceeded that of modern glaciers in
the area. A paper on Pleistocene Hengchun limestone insouthern Taiwan was presented by Gong Shou-yeh and T.F.
Yui showing that the area underwent two major sea-levelchange cycles due to the Quaternary glacio-eustasy, and was
uplifted by the ongoing Penglai Orogeny.
Two papers concentrated on Japan. The first, by Ota
Yoko and S. Odagiri, was an attempt to establish the late
Quaternary chronology of marine terraces and the pattern
and rate of tectonic deformation of a section of the coastal
area in southwestern Tosa Bay. The second, by Miki
Takashi, speculated on the genesis of the coloration of
sedimentary rocks by examining stratigraphic occurrences inKyūshū. Finally, there were three papers on Hong Kong in
the geological part of the session. Bryan Ruxton and G.
Taylor highlighted the unique tectonic formation of southern
China, where the change from an active convergent margin
to a passive margin shows active and passive components tohave varied laterally, vertically, and through time. Lai
Kuen Wai described the onshore Quaternary sediments andtheir chronology, and a team of researchers (J.A. Fyfe, R.J.
Neller, R.B. Owen, I.C. Selby, and R. Shaw) showed therole of seismostratigraphy in mapping the offshore
Quaternary sediments.
Charting palaeoclimatic changes using Middle
Miocene flora of Inner Mongolia, Tao Junrong showed thedecreasing temperature range from north to south in China

during this period. Zheng Zhuo and Z. Lei gave the resultsof their research on vegetation and climatic changes from aborehole sample dating back 350,000 years B.P. from the
Tianyang volcanic basin of Leizhou Peninsula, Guangdong.
Wang Jian, H. Lu, and C. Shen were able to describe
palaeoclimatic changes in China from 12,000 B.P., using thefactor interpretation method. Zhu Zhaoyu showed theimportant role played by the Tibetan Plateau inenvironmental change, using a system of correlation ofendogenic and exogenic forces based on palaeoclimate andneotectonics. Finally, Matsue Michiyo suggested, on thebasis of the evidence furnished by the palaeovegetation, thatthe palaeoclimate was probably very cold in Lake Nojiri incentral Japan during the late Pleistocene.
Dating and Marine/Terrestrial Correlation
Malcolm Head, W. Zhou, Z. An, and C. Tuniz
discussed the results of their use of chemical separation andpurification techniques to isolate original and introduced
organic fractions of palaeosol samples collected fromvarious loess plateau sites in China that had previously
proved to be difficult to chronologize by radiocarbon dating.
Wang Pinxian gave an overview of the drastic
reorganization of environmental patterns in China and East
Asia generally in the Cainozoic era. Wyss Yim, having
pointed out the dearth of studies of continental shelf
sediments for Quaternary marine/terrestrial correlation (ascompared with progress made by using continental loesssequences or oxygen-isotope records of deep sea cores)
filled the gap with a study of the role of continental shelf
sediments off the coast of China in Hong Kong. A final
paper by Li Sheng Hua demonstrated that optical dating canprovide additional sedimentary information on Quaternary
deposits, besides their age.
Environmental Change
Kumai Hisao reconstructed the palaeoenvironment of
the Yatsugatake volcanoes in central Japan throughpalaeogeographic maps, and Kashima Kaoru demonstrated
that diatom stratigraphy of coastal lagoons in Japan gave ahigh resolution record of Holocene environmental change.
Vladimír Šibrava discussed the results of the International
Geological Correlation Programme project no. 296 byreviewing environmental change in Southeast Asia and thePacific during the Quaternary from a comparative
perspective. Jan Carey argued the usefulness of East Asian
potsherds as evidence for historical and prehistoricalenvironmental change.
Papers on China included a contribution by Mao
Shaozhi revealing new data on the South China Sea fromrecovered dinoflagellate cysts from the late Pleistocene.
Zhao Songling and J. Liu demonstrated that exposed loessalong the northern seacoast of China and buried loess below
the sea bed were formed at the lowest sea level during thelast glaciation. You Lianyuan revealed three main factorsthat controlled environmental change in the Yellow River,
Page 7

using a seventy-year record of run-off and sediment
discharge, and attempted to predict the river’s futureenvironmental change. Huang Guangqing and Wyss Yim
examined storm sediments in the Pearl Estuary, and M.J.
Tooley, Y. Zong and J.B. Innes identified past storm surge
signatures from sediment columns in the Middle and Late
Holocene. Two papers, the first on Taiwan by Wang
Chung-ho et al., and a second on Hong Kong by Mervyn
Peart and A.W. Jayawardena, examined drought using rather
recent (19th-20th centuries) precipitation records.
Loess
Eight papers represented research on what is
considered the most singular Quaternary soil deposit ofChina (or the world), the loessial plateau of the middle
reaches of the Yellow River.
Chronostratigraphic
boundaries of geological events were described by Liu
Tung-sheng, M. Ding and R. Feng, while Shen Chengde, W.
Yi and T. Liu showed how high resolution 10Be records
found in loess provide a new method of dating. J. TenPas
et al. argued that deconvoluted climate records of an area
north of Xi’an prove that the palaeoclimate changed more
rapidly than was previously thought. Zhao Songling and J.
Liu presented an account of the late Pleistocene
palaeoenvironment of the Bohai and Yellow Seas based on
an analysis of marine seismic records. Han Jiamao
contributed findings from his comparative magnetic study
on samples representing three loess sites in China, while Liu
Jiaqi and his team showed how they had established a timescale for Quaternary depositional sequences using magnetic
events at Weinan. Wen Qizhong, G. Diao and R. Jia
presented information on palaeoclimatic change of
Luochuan Loess obtained through geochemical research.
A study, by Michael Singer et al., of climatic change on theloess plateau relating to differences in pedogenesis
concluded that interpretations based on climate and time as
the main soil-forming factors may be problematical.
Palaeoflora and Palynology
The flexibility of plant genetics and the vastness ofgeological time were highlighted in an overview ofpalaeoendemic plants of East Asia by David Ferguson, Y.
Liu and R. Zetter. Quantitative techniques were applied to
Miocene diatomaceous deposits in Shandong by Wang
Xianzeng and P. Deng, while Sun Xiangjun and his teamconcluded from the pollen record that steppe vegetation has
been dominant for the last 100,000 years at the southern
margin of the loess plateau. V.N. Koshal presented data on
the palaeoenvironment of the Kutch basin of western India
derived from his analysis of palynomorphs obtained during
oil and natural gas exploration. Zhang Lansheng examined
the farming-pastoral zone in southeastern Mongolia and its
environmental evolution during the past 10,000 years.
The two last papers in the session focussed on HongKong. The first, by P. Catt, Wyss Yim and K.F. Yu,
attempted to bridge the gap in knowledge of biogeographic
Page 8

data from marine boreholes in the Hong Kong region. The
second, by Richard T. Corlett, underscored the highdiversity of the original flora of coastal South China throughexamination of the consequences of human impact on theflora of Hong Kong.
Quaternary Coastal Evolution
Research on south China’s coastal evolution was
represented by four contributions. A paper by Huang
Yukun, H. Zou and K. Zhang provided a chronology forseven periods of multiple sea-level changes in the
Quaternary, as well as an examination of the role ofneotectonics in shaping coastal morphology.
Huang
Zhengguo, Q. Cai and Q. Xu reviewed five indicators fordetermining lowest sea level during the last glacial period in
the South China Sea, while Feng Wenke and Y. Shi
demonstrated that on the shelf edge in the northern South
China Sea lie remains of coastal aeolian deposits formed
when the sea level was at its lowest in the last glacial period.
Zhang Weiqiang, Z. Huang, and Q.Y. Tan concluded fromtheir review of available evidence that, contrary to somehypotheses, there was only one submerged Zhujiang (Pearl
River) Delta.
A contribution on India by R.K. Sukhtankar described
the formation of the Maharashtra coast, and the importanceof both Tertiary and Quaternary plate tectonics on thisprocess. Saskia Jelgersma’s study of the impact of
sea-level rise on the coastal lowlands of East and Southeast
Asia warned that human activities in the river valleys, deltas,
shoreline, and offshore area (such as dam and reservoir
construction, diversion of longshore sediment transport byengineering works, and over-exploitation of groundwater)pose an even more serious threat than sea-level rise due tothe expected greenhouse effect. The last paper in thesession, by Y. Zong and M.J. Tooley, pointed to thepotential of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in
improving risk assessment in the East Asian coastal
lowlands.
Evolution of Man
This controversial topic was well debated, with papers
covering China, Java, and Nepal.
Nina Jablonski
contributed to the debate on the origins of modern humanbeings by indicating that pertinent data — such as those onpalaeoenvironments and the movement of hominoids
between continents in the Pleistocene — have been ignored.
Wu Xinzhi argued the indigenous ancestry of modern East
Asians, and concluded from a review of faunal andarchaeological data that multiregional evolution rather thanreplacement was evidenced in China. Xu Qinqi presented
a reinterpretation of the appearance of Peking man, Huang
Peihua spoke on the environments of Peking Man andHexian Man, and Pan Yuerong described the new analysesof evolutionary changes in Laccopithecus, the Asiansmall-sized ape.
Charles Oxnard discussed theimplications of evolutionary modelling of mitrochondial

DNA studies on the debate over the origins of modern
human beings, and cautioned that alternative hypotheses,
and the complexities of evolutionary phenomena, must be
fully explored.
Donald Tyler presented findings on significant fossil
finds from Java, and what may be an additional hominid
genus in Southeast Asia. The last contribution, by G.
Corvinus, examined archaeological evidence of theprehistoric populations of the Himalayan foothills in Nepal,
showing the migration of prehistoric people from India tothe Himalayan foothills as early as the late middle
Pleistocene.

Deformation of Marine Terraces on the Ashizuri Peninsula,Southern Shikoku, Japan”
Miki Takashi (Kyūshū University), “Variegated Sequencesin Kyūshū, Japan, and their Palaeoenvironmental andArchaeological Significance”
Bryan P. Ruxton (University of Canberra) and G. Taylor,“Active to Passive Margin in and near Hong Kong, andLandscapes in the Gap”
Lai Kuen Wai (Hong Kong Government), “Some Aspects of
Onshore Superficial Deposits of Hong Kong”*
For further information and enquiries concerning
publication of the proceedings of this conference as well as
the others in the series, please contact:
The Centre of Asian Studies
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Fax: 25595884
E-mail: Caslib@hkucc.hku.hk.

J. Alan Fyfe (Hong Kong Government) et al., “The Role of
Seismostratigraphy in Understanding the Offshore
Quaternary Sediments of Hong Kong”
Tao Junrong (Chinese Academy of Sciences),“Palaeofloristic and Palaeoclimatic Changes during the
Middle Miocene in Inner Mongolia, China”
Zheng Zhuo (Zhongshan University) and Z. Lei, “350,000
Year Record of Vegetation and Climatic Changes from a
Volcanic Basin in the Leizhou Peninsula, China”

NOTE*

The titles and emphases of the papers as presented were notalways identical with those stated in the official abstracts.
As I was unable to verify all changes, the following list isbased on the abstracts. I apologize for any errors ofomission or commission.

List of Papers Presented at the Conference

Wang Jian (Nanjing Normal University) et al., “Applicationof Factor Interpretation Method to the Palaeoclimatic
Analysis of Pollen Data in China”
Zhu Zhaoyu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou),“A Coupled Climato-tectonic System: Tibetan Plateau andthe East Asian Continent”

The institutional affiliations given below are taken from thelist of conference participants. Unfortunately, this list
typically includes only those authors whose names are stated
first. No information was therefore available on most of
the collaborating authors.

Matsue Michiyo (Takatsuki Kammuri Junior High School,Ōsaka), “Climatic Change and Palaeovegetation History
during the Last Glacial in Lake Nojiri, Central Japan”

Geology and Palaeoclimatology

Malcolm J. Head (Australian National University) et al.,“Recent Advances in the Radiocarbon Dating of Organic
Components of Palaeosols Using Accelerator Mass
Spectrometry”

Lu Yaoru (Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering
Geology, Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources,
China), “Research on Geological Environments in China”
Ren Binghui (Lanzhou Institute of Glaciology andGeocryology), “A Study on the Extent of the Last Glaciationin the Tianshan Mountains, China”
Gong Shou-yeh (National Museum of Natural Science,
Taiwan) and T.-F. Yui, “Glacio-eustatic and Neotectonic
Controls of Deposition and Diagenesis of Pleistocene
Limestones, Hengchun, Southern Taiwan”

Dating and Marine/Terrestrial Correlation

Wang Pinxian (Tongji University, Shanghai), “Late
Cainozoic Evolution of Environments in China: Sea/Land
Correlations”
Wyss W.-S. Yim (University of Hong Kong), “Continental
Shelf Sediments off the Coast of China andMarine/Terrestrial Correlation”
Li Sheng Hua (University of Hong Kong), “Optical Datingof Quaternary Sediments”

Ota Yoko (Senshu University) and S. Odagiri, “Age andPage 9

Environmental Change
Kumai Hisao (Ōsaka City University), “Quaternary
Volcanic Activity and Environmental Changes Associatedwith the Yatsugatake Volcanoes in Central Japan”
Kashima Kaoru (Kyūshū University), “Diatoms in Coastal
Lagoons of Japan: A High Resolution Record of Holocene
Environmental Change”
Vladimír Šibrava (Czech Republic), “The Quaternary andEnvironmental Change in Southeast Asia and the Pacific”
Jan Carey (University of Adelaide), “Reading Changes in
Wetland Environments from East Asian Potsherds”
Mao Shaozhi (China University of Geosciences),“Quaternary Organic-Walled Dinoflagellate Cysts from theSouth China Sea and their Palaeoenvironmental
Significance”

Zhao Songling (Academia Sinica, Qingdao) and J. Liu,
“Palaeoenvironment of the Bohai and Yellow Seas during
the Late Pleistocene”
Han Jiamao (Chinese Academy of Sciences) “RockMagnetic Properties of Loess and Environmental Change”
Liu Jiaqi (Chinese Academy of Sciences) et al., “A High
Resolution Time Scale for the Last 150,000 Years at the
Weinan Loess Section, China”
Wen Qizhong (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou)
et al., “Geochemical Evidence for Palaeoclimatic Change in
the Chinese Loess”
Michael J. Singer (University of California, Davis) et al.,“Pedogenesis as a Record of Climatic Change in the Chinese
Loess/Palaeosol Sequence”
Palaeoflora and Palynology

Zhao Songling (Institute of Oceanology, Academia Sinica,
Qingdao) and J. Liu, “Origin of the Buried and Exposed
Loess in Shelf Seas of Northern China”
You Lianyuan (Chinese Academy of Sciences), “Impact ofEnvironmental Change on Run-off and Sediment Yield in
the Yellow River, China”
Huang Guangqing and Wyss W.-S. Yim (University ofHong Kong), “Storm Sedimentation in the Pearl River
Estuary, China”
M. J. Tooley (University of Durham) et al., “Diatom andPollen Evidence and Holocene Storm Surge Signatures”
Wang Chung-ho (Academia Sinica, Taipei) et al., “Taiwan’s
Drought Periods Based on the Precipitation Records of the
Past Century”
Mervyn R. Peart (University of Hong Kong) and A.W.
Jayawardena, “Drought in Hong Kong”
Loess
Liu Tung-sheng (Chinese Academy of Sciences) et al.,“Characteristics and Chronostratigraphic Boundaries of
Quaternary Geologic Events in the Chinese Loess”
Shen Chengde (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou)
et al., “High Resolution 10Be Records in Chinese Loess andDating Applications”
J. TenPas et al., “Deconvolution of the Palaeoclimatic
Record of a New Loess/Palaeosoil Section on the Chinese
Loess Plateau”
Page 10David K. Ferguson (University of Vienna) et al., “ThePalaeoendemic Plants of East Asia: Evidence from theFossil Record for Changing Distribution Patterns”
Wang Xianzeng (Peking University) and P. Deng,“Quantitative Palynological Study of the Shanwang
Formation, Shandong Province, China”
Sun Xiangjun (Chinese Academy of Sciences) et al., “A
100,000-year Pollen Record of the Southern Loess Plateau,
China”
V.N. Koshal (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd., Baroda),“Palynofossils, Palaeoenvironments and Correlations of
Subsurface Sediments of the Kutch Basin, Western India”
Zhang Lansheng (Beijing Normal University), “Changes in
the Farming-Pastoral Zone of Eastern Asia during the Last
10,000 Years”
P. Catt (James Cook University of North Queensland) et al.,“Quaternary Palaeobiogeography of Hong Kong: Evidence
from a Marine Borehole”
Richard T. Corlett, “Human Impact on the Flora of Hong
Kong Island”
Quaternary coastal evolution
Huang Yukun (Zhongshan University) et al., “Quaternary
Coastal Evolution in the Northern Part of the South China
Sea”
Huang Zhengguo (Guangzhou Academy of Science) et al.,“On the Lowest Sea Level during the Last Glacial Period in
the South China Sea”
Feng Wenke (Mineral Resources, Guangzhou) and Y. Shi,
“Last Glacial Coastal Remains on the Shelf Edge of theNorthern South China Sea”
Zhang Weiqiang (Guangzhou Academy of Science) et al.,“The Submerged Zhujiang Delta”
R.K. Sukhtankar (Shivaji University, Maharashtra),“Quaternary Evolutionary History of the Maharashtra Coast,
India”
Saskia Jelgersma (Geological Survey of the Netherlands),“The Impact of Future Sea-level Rise on the Coastal
Lowlands of East and South East Asia”
Y. Zong and M.J. Tooley (University of Durham),“Potentials of Geographic Information System for Sea
Flooding Risk Assessment in the East Asian Coastal
Lowlands”
Evolution of Man
Nina G. Jablonski (California Academy of Sciences),“Geographical and Life History Perspectives on Modern
Human Origins”
Wu Xinzhi (Chinese Academy of Sciences), “On the Sourceof Modern East Asians”
Xu Qinqi (Chinese Academy of Sciences), “Homo erectus
lantianensis in Chenjiawo, China: First Appearance of
Peking Man”
Huang Peihua (University of Science and Technology ofChina, Hefei), “Living Environments of Peking Man andHexian Man in China”
Pan Yuerong (Chinese Academy of Sciences),“Evolutionary Changes in Laccopithecus from Lufeng,
Yuanmou and Yuannan, China”
Charles Oxnard (University of Western Australia), “African
Eve? Asian Adam! The Implications of Evolutionary
Modelling for Interpretations of Mitochondrial DNA
Studies”
Donald E. Tyler (University of Idaho), “New Significant
Fossil Finds from Sangiran, Java, Indonesia”
G. Corvinus, “Prehistoric Populations in the Hui Valley inthe Himalayan Foothills in Nepal”

Database on the Environment and its
Socioeconomic Impact in Historical
China: an Introduction
Fang Jinqi
University of Wisconsin
Partly because of the frequent and bitter impact of dramatic
environmental change and disasters, and partly because of
their attitude towards nature, the Chinese have beenrecording environmental anomalies since the beginning of
their history. Plentiful records both of such anomalies andof the main patterns of human activity in China are available
for the last 2,200 years. These records are undoubtedly ofgreat assistance for improving our understanding of pastenvironmental
changeandhuman-environmental
interactions.
Because the historical information is scattered in awide range of sources, a number of Chinese scholars from
historical to modern times have worked to assemble relevant
records out of the vast storehouse of texts and documents.
Some of them, like Prof. Xu Jinzhi, of the Institute ofGeography at Nanjing, spent their whole lives on this work.
They carried out comprehensive searches for particular typesof record, and compiled the records in chronological order,organizing them by region as appropriate. The topics forwhich good searches have so far been conducted include
floods, droughts, locust “plagues”, frostbitings of crops,
hailstorms, unusually cold or warm weather, tidal
abnormalities, earthquakes, mass population migrations, and(for certain periods only) peasant rebellions.
The many booklets which contain the search results
were usually published informally, and are only available insome major universities, institutes, and libraries of China(see e.g. Guojia qixiang ju, et al., 1975; Jiangsu dili suo,1975). The difficulty of collating and using these scattereddata collections creates the need for the present database.
Given the present context of intense public, scholarly,
and scientific concern about environmental issues, it isespecially pertinent to address the problem ofcommunication and cooperation between academic
communities which normally work in isolation from eachother. In the case of the study of China’s historicalenvironment, there is an unfortunate fragmentation between
natural and social scientists. The natural scientists (such as
climatologists and physical geographers) have made a great
contribution to the study of physical environmental change,
including natural disasters (see e.g. Zhu, 1973; ZZDBW,
1982; Zheng and Feng, 1986; Gong and Hameed, 1991;
Wang et al., 1991). However, they have generally not paid
much attention to the impact of the changes on humansociety, or the impact of human activity on the environment.
Meanwhile, the social scientists (such as historians andhistorical geographers) have paid attention to the study ofPage 11the human impact on the environment, and the economic,
political, and cultural implications of environmental factors(see e.g. Perry, 1980; Perdue, 1987; Schoppa, 1989). But
they tend to represent environment as a “passive” factor,
stressing the ways in which it was changed because ofchanges in human society, such as government policy,
population pressure, and so on. They have not been greatlyinterested in non-anthropogenic change.
It will not be necessary to argue the importance inChinese history of physical environmental change, whether
anthropogenic or otherwise, for readers of the Chinese
Environmental History Newsletter. However, some lessfamiliar examples of such change may be given. My own
research has shown that of ten large and famous lakes
recorded about 2,500 years ago, only one survives today,
while three of the four largest modern freshwater lakes did
not exist until 2,000 years ago (Fang, 1993). Not only (asis well known) has the lower Yellow River channel migrated
frequently and wildly in the eastern China lowlands, but it
can now be confirmed that fluctuations in the frequency of
Yellow River floods have been dominated by climatic
moisture change (ZZDBW, 1982). The water level in the
middle reaches of the Yangtze River has risen more than
10–15 metres in the past 1,500 years (Fang, 1991). Whenthe early Chinese recorded their history on bamboo slips, thelarge bamboo species used to make the slips (maozhu) grew
extensively in the middle Yellow River region, but today,
because of colder climate, it can be found only in the
Yangtze River area or further south (Fang, 1994). The
Great Wall of the Ming empire parallels isohyets, andgenerally conforms with the boundary between farmland
and grassland.
But the farmland-grassland boundary
shifted southwards or northwards within a range of 200-300
kilometres in historical times as climate changed (Fang andGuo, 1992).
Few scholars are attempting to link the work of thenatural and social scientists. In other words, there has been
inadequate examination of the impact of “real” (physical)
environmental changes on past human society in China. It
is hard to blame either the natural scientists or the social
scientists for this deficiency: the challenges involved ininterdisciplinary research in this area are formidable indeed.
However, a database combining key data from the research
results of scholars from both communities may help tofacilitate future interdisciplinary communication andresearch.
The Creation of the Database, and Preliminary Studies
I have been working on the database, without funding,since 1985. The basic objectives of the database project
are: 1) to facilitate, especially for those who do not know
Chinese, the use of environmental history data alreadycollected by Chinese scholars, supplemented by additional
data collected by myself; 2) to make possible mathematical(especially statistical and spatial) analysis and comparative
studies; and 3) to link the work of natural and social
Page 12

scientists. Paradox has been selected as the databasemanaging software, on account of its convenience for data
import from or export to files in other formats. The
database is compiled in English, although it will not bedifficult to translate it into Chinese in the future.
The data first entered into the database were all ones
already compiled by other scholars, as described above. As
explained in Fang (1992), these data were stored in the
database region by region, in chronological order, withnumerical codes. The country was divided into sixty-eightregions for data entry purposes. This stage of the project
resulted in the creation of 43,753 entries. While there has
not yet been time to study the implications of this first set ofdata, a preliminary analysis of the reports of floods from the
middle and lower Yangtze Valley shows that the further
upstream from the river mouth a region is, the later frequent
floods began to be reported. The study provides evidence
for the hypothesis that the dramatic rise of water level in the
middle Yangtze during historical times was a lagged
response to the postglacial sea level rise (Fang, 1991).
After entering the above largely climatic andhydrological data into the database, I began to assemble
additional data and records of other types. Besides using
existing data collection booklets, I examined sources such as
the dynastic histories, shilu [Veritable Records] and othergovernment compilations, and a limited number of local
gazetteers. The data collected so far include records ofmass migrations (for both nomads and peasants), changes inlake water-area, reclamation of lake land, construction of
artificial lakes, rebellions, famines, state worship of naturaldeities, government environmental policies, mass population
death, water control projects, deforestation, unusual grain
prices, and sunspots.
Preliminary studies have been made of some of thesearch results.
For example, a statistically close
relationship has been detected between nomadic southwardmigrations and colder, drier climate, while wars between
nomads and agriculturalists along the northern Chinese
border occurred much more frequently in colder periods(Fang and Guo, 1992). Other analysis shows that althoughpeople indeed tended to reclaim more and more farmland
from lakes as population grew, the fluctuations in lakewater-areas still conformed with climatic fluctuations.
Moreover, people tended to reclaim farmland from lakes inperiods with drier climate and few flood reports, butabandoned land to repair artificial lakes in wet periods (Fang,
1989, 1993). The study based on the deforestation data
confirms that the Loess Plateau was well covered byvegetation in early historical times when it was the politicaland economic centre of the Chinese world (Fang, 1994).
Information on the dates at which some towns and villages
were abandoned in arid north-western China shows thatmost of them were abandoned in periods with dry climate(Fang and Shi, 1990). Finally, examination of the data on
state religious activities suggests that traditional Chinese
ideas on cosmology were deeply influenced by natural

disasters and anomalies, while the worship of Heaven was
religious in nature.
The historical records often suggest explanations forthe phenomena described. For example, records of 1,461
rebellions have been entered in the database; 551
explanations are offered in the primary sources on the causesof 339 of these. Out of these explanations, 337 relate tonatural disasters and/or environmental changes, which wereinvolved in 211 rebellions. As for mass migrations ofpeasants, explanations of the causes of 897 migration eventsare found in the database. 463 of the migrations weredirectly attributed to natural disasters, while another 133
were attributed to nomadic invasions, which, as suggested
above, were also partly related to colder and drier climate.
In short, although analysis of the database records is still in
its early stages, it is reasonable to expect that the database
will greatly improve understanding of human-environmental
interrelations in Chinese history.
The Future Development of the Database
After more than a decade’s work (some of it assistedby the voluntary labour of good friends in China), thedatabase now contains about eight MB of information,
involving records of twenty-nine types of natural
phenomenon or human activity. Because of the richness ofChinese historical sources, the database is still far fromcomplete. Much data collection remains to be done.
There is also a need to work on compatibility with otherdatabases in this field, such as that of Professor Zhang
Peiyuan’s group at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
(Professor Zhang’s database includes neither data on humanactivities nor many non-climatic data, but it contains far
more climatic and hydrological data than my database).
Finally, further preparatory work (including the compilationof a user’s manual) is needed before the database can bemade publicly available.
Unfortunately, the time has come when further
progress on this project is jeopardized by lack of funding. I
therefore wish to ask colleagues who are interested in workof this kind for support, cooperation, and suggestions as to
how the project might be funded. I am open to thepossibility of submitting joint grant proposals withprospective collaborators. My address is: Center for
Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin, 1225 West
Dayton Street, Madison WI 53706.
E-mail:jqfang@facstaff.wisc.edu.

12,100 yr B.P.” Quaternary Science Review 10:527–36.
Fang Jin-qi. 1992. “Establishment of a Data Bank from
Records of Climatic Disasters and Anomalies in Ancient
Chinese Documents.”
International Journal of
Climatology 12:499–519.
Fang Jin-qi. 1993. “Lake Evolution during the Past
3,000 Years in China, and its Implications forEnvironmental
Change.”Quaternary
Research
39:175–85.
Fang Jin-qi. 1994. “Deforestation in Pre-Industrial China:
Taking the Loess Plateau Region as an Example.”
Chemosphere 29:983–999.
Fang Jin-qi and Guo Liu. 1992. “Relationship between
Climatic Change and the Nomadic Southward Migrations in
Eastern Asia in Historical Times.” Climatic Change
22:151–69.
Fang Jin-qi and Shi Shao-hua. 1990. “Impact of Climatic
Change on the Abandonment of some Historical Agro-cities
in Arid North-western China.”
Journal of Nanjing
University (Geography Edition), 63–72.
Gong, G. F. and Hameed, S. 1991. “The Variation ofMoisture Conditions in China during the Last 2,000 Years.”International Journal of Climatology 11:271–283.
Guojia qixiang ju (State Meteorological Administration ofChina), Huabei, Dongbei shisheng qixiang ju(Meteorological Bureaux of North and North-east China),
and Peking University. 1975. Huabei, Dongbei jin wubai
nianlai shui, han ji qita qihou zaihai shiliao [Historical
Materials on Floods, Droughts, and other Climatic Disasters
in North and North-east China during the Last Five Hundred
Years].
Jiangsu dili suo (Jiangsu Institute of Geography). 1975.
Shanxi sheng lishi qihou zaihai ziliao chubu zhengli[Preliminary Collection of Historical Records on Climatic
Disasters in Shanxi Province].
Perdue, Peter C. 1987. Exhausting the Earth: State andPeasant in Hunan, 1500–1850. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Press.

REFERENCES
Fang Jin-qi. 1989. “Woguo lishi shiqi hupo weiken yu
tuitian huanhu de guanxi” [Relationship between Lake
Evolution and Land Reclamation from Lakes during
Historical Times in China]. Dili huanjing yanjiu 1:71–78.
Fang Jin-qi. 1991. “Influence of Sea Level Rise on the
Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River since

Perry, Elizabeth J. 1980. Rebels and Revolutionaries inNorth China, 1845–1945. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Schoppa, R. Keith. 1989. Xiang Lake — Nine Centuriesof Chinese Life. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wang, R. et al. 1991. “An Approach to Reconstruction
Page 13

of Temperature on a Seasonal Basis using Historical
Documents from China.”International Journal of
Climatology 11:381–92.
ZZDBW (Zhongguo ziran dili bianji weiyuanhui). 1982.
Zhongguo ziran dili: lishi dili [Physical Geography of China:
Historical Geography]. Beijing: Science Press.
Zheng Sizhong and Feng Liwen. 1986. “Historical
Evidence for Climatic Instability above Normal in Cool
Periods in China.” Scientia Sinica (Series B) 29:441–48.
Zhu Kezhen (Chu Ko-chen). 1973. “A Preliminary
Study on the Climate Fluctuations during the Last 5,000
Years in China.” Scientia Sinica (Series B) 16:226–56.
APPENDIX
Outline of Database Contents
Technical note.
Paradox 3.5 from Borland International has beenchosen as the database management system. This is arelational Database Management System (DBMS) for
MS-DOS based microcomputers. A relational DBMS is
one that follows the relational model of data management,by which data are presented as a set of tables. The tablesconsist of columns (or fields) for each type of information,and rows containing individual data entries. All tables may
be connected by using primary keys.
Except for climatic hazards and anomalies, records foreach type of phenomenon have been stored in one data table.
Because all the categories of information are relatively
independent of each other, no primary keys have been used
to connect the tables. For the information on climatic
phenomena, twenty-five tables are used, one for eachprovince. Each province is divided into three to fivesub-regions, and eight types of climatic phenomenon are
included.
In order to save space, in the summary that follows
field names that occur repeatedly (e.g. Accompan, HExplain)are, whenever possible, explained only on their first
appearance. Similarly, the fields Year, Month, Place,
Province, and Reference appear in most of the tables, andare therefore omitted in this list after the first five tables.
Summary of contents
Table 1: Origins of main crops
Table name: AGRORIGN
No. of records: 34
Contents (Table fields): CropNameL (names of crops in
Latin); CropNameC (names of crops in pinyin);Archaeology (archaeological data on origins of crops); Date;
Place (place(s) where archaeological samples collected);
Document (documentary data on crop origins); Title(document titles); OrignPlace (original distribution places);
Reference (source(s) of the information).

Page 14

Table 2.i–xxv: Climatic calamities and anomalies(CLIMAHAZ)
No. of records: 43,753
Contents: 25 tables, each storing the data for one province.
Categories of information stored: floods; droughts; locust
plagues; unusually cold weather; hailstorms; famines;
harvests; and unusually warm weather. Data on season of
occurrence and severity of damage are included.
Table 3: Unusually cold winters (WINCOLD)
No. of records: 451
Contents: Year; Month; DisaType (type of disaster caused,
whether death of trees, death of animals, or human deaths);
Accompan (accompanying unusual phenomena); Place;
Province; Reference.
Table 4: Dust falls (DUSTFALL)
No. of records: 252Contents: Year; Month; Pattern (type of dust fall or disaster
caused); Accompan; Place; Province; Reference.
Table 5: Epidemic diseases (EPDISEASE)
No. of records: 362
Contents: Year; Month; Bearer (type of sufferer, whether
human beings, oxen, or other animals); DeathNo. (numberof deaths caused); Accompan; Place; Province; Reference.

N.B. From here on, the fields Year, Month, Place,
Province, and Reference are omitted in this list.
Table 6: Famines (FAMINE)
No. of records: 555
Contents: Degree (the degree of suffering, as indicated by
one or more of the following: out-migration; selling offamily members; deaths due to hunger; cannibalism; state
efforts to raise relief supplies or funds from the rich);
HExplain (explanation(s) of the cause(s) in historical
documents).
Table 7: Frostbite (FROSTBIT)
No. of records: 253
Contents: Pattern (one of the following: snow fall in
unexpected season; frost biting; freezing in unexpectedseason; unusual cold); DisaType.
Table 8: Grain prices (GRAINPRIC)
No. of records: 869 (561 for pre-Qing period)
Contents: Price; GrainTypeC (name of grain type in pinyin);
GrainTypeE (name of grain type in English); HExplain.
Table 9: Migrations of Chinese farmers (HANMIG)
No. of records: 924
Contents: Nation (nationality of the migrants, whether Hanor southern minority); SourcPlace (the migrants’ place oforigin); DesPlace (the place where they resettled); Direction

(direction of the migration); HExplain; Amount(k): numberof migrants; Notes.
Table 10: Huai River floods (HFLOOD)
No. of records: 321
Table 11: Lake evolution (HLAKE)
No. of records: 622
Contents: Name (lake name); Time range [Time1, Time2](time range covered by the record); Type (type of record,
whether unclear; inexact indication of water area or lakechange; exact indication of water area, length, or
circumference, etc.); Trend (trend of lake change reflectedby the record, whether formation; desiccation; shrinking;expansion; or unclear); WaterArea; Content (content oforiginal record).
Table 12: Mass population death (MASSDEATH)
No. of records: (incomplete)
Contents: HExplain; DeathNo. (number of deaths);
Accompan.

Table 18: Silk production hazards (SILKHAZ)
No. of records: 102
Contents: Pattern.
Table 19: Unusually cold weather in summer (SUMCOLD)
No. of records: 597
Contents: Snow; Frost; Notes.
Table 20: Tidal abnormalities (TIDEHAZ)
No. of records: 891
Content: DisaType; Accompan.
Table 21: Main water projects of historical times(WATERPROJECT)
No. of records: (incomplete)
Contents: Objective; Leaders; Notes.
Table 22: Wind storms (WIND)
No. of records: 440
Contents: DisaType; Direction (wind direction); Accompan.

Table 13: Nomadic migrations (NODMIG)
No. of records: 276
Contents: Nationality; SourcPlace; DesPlace; Direction;
Style (the style of the southward moving, whether withpermission of the government in northern China, by force,etc.); HExplain; PC (peaceful migration following
permission); Amount(k); Notes.

Table 23: Bans on wine-making (WINEBAN)
No. of records: 23
Contents: Cause.

Table 14: Government relief provision (RELIEF)
No. of records: (incomplete)
Contents: Pattern; Amount; Causes.

Table 25: Yellow River floods (YLFLOOD)
No. of records: 597
Contents: Pattern (apparent cause of flood, whether river
bursting its embankments, channel migration, or military orother human interference); Distance (distance from theflooded area to Zhengzhou; negative represents upstream):
Notes.

Table 15: Government policy on environment and famine
prevention (POLICY)
No. of records: (incomplete)
Contents: Objective (policy objective(s)); Content; Note
(notes on the reason(s) for adopting the policy).
Table 16: Prayer for the breaking of natural calamities(PRAYER)No. of records: 265
Contents: Pattern; Causes; Level (level(s) of the government
at which prayer activity undertaken, whether county,
sub-prefectural, prefectural, central, or non-governmental).

Table 24: Winter thunderstorms (WTHUNDER)
No. of records: Data not yet entered
Contents: Accompan.

Table 26: Sunspots (SUNSPOT)
No. of records: 251
Contents: Record (record contents).

Table 17: Peasant rebellions (PREBEL)
No. of records: 1,440
Contents: Leaders (the main leaders); Location (place whererebellion broke out); Nation (nationalities of main
participants); ND12 (natural disasters occurring withintwelve months prior to the rebellion outbreak); HExplain;
RGExplain (explanations concerning refugees who launchedrebellions); Notes (notes on number of participants, theirreligions, slogans etc.).
Page 15

“ASIAN”, “SIIASA”, and“SIIRCEASA”:
Introduction to The Australian Centre of the
Asian Spatial Information and Analysis
Network, The Spatial Information
Infrastructure for Asian Studies in Australia,
and The Spatial Information Infrastructure
for Russian and Central Euro-Asian Studies
in Australia
Lawrence W. Crissman
Griffith University
A consortium of Australian universities organised and led by
Griffith University was funded from 1992 to 1994 under theAustralian Research Council (ARC) Mechanism C(Cooperative Research Infrastructure) Program to establish a
Spatial Information Infrastructure for Asian Studies inAustralia (The SIIASA Project). Additional funding was
obtained under the new ARC Research Infrastructure(Equipment and Facilities) Program in 1995 by the
consortium, which now includes twenty-one universities.1
1994 funding was also obtained for an associated but
separate Mechanism C application submitted by Griffith
University in conjunction with the Centre for Russian andEuro-Asian Studies at The University of Melbourne andseven other Australian institutions to establish a Spatial
Information Infrastructure for Russian and Central
Euro-Asian Studies in Australia (The SIIRCEASA Project).2
It also obtained additional 1995 funding under the new
infrastructure program.
In order to provide an institutional framework forgenerating and coordinating the SIIASA databases, theAustralian Centre of the Asian Spatial Information andAnalysis Network (ASIAN) has been established at Griffith
University. Units of the other universities in the SIIASA
consortium have also been designated as elements of
ASIAN. The aim of the SIIASA Project is to establish
Geographical Information System (GIS) databases covering
all of Asia, defined broadly to encompass parts of the Near
East and the islands of the Pacific Basin, in addition to
South, South-east, and East Asian Countries.
The
SIIRCEASA Project will set up similar spatial databases
covering the now independent republics of the former Soviet
Union.
The purpose of the SIIASA and SIIRCEASA Projects
is the support of academic research utilising GIS spatial
databases for the analysis of geographically distributed
attribute data, whether they are demographic, sociometric,
econometric, or of any other kind. GIS technology allows
map features to be associated with disaggregated attributedata which can then be analysed in terms of theirgeographical contexts and spatial relations. Although not
Page 16

yet widely appreciated outside of geography and related
disciplines, the GIS approach has the potential torevolutionise academic research methodology in most of thesocial sciences.
The China Geographical Information System Project,established in the Faculty of Asian and International Studies
at Griffith University in 1989, was the pilot project for the
SIIASA Project. Its 1:1,000,000 computerised map of thePeople’s Republic of China based on the 1990 Land-use
Map of China is nearing completion.3 In addition tohydrology, transport routes, and cities and towns, it includes
an elaborate set of land use polygons. County-level
administrative boundaries for the entire country, which will
be used initially for the spatial analysis of 1982 and 1990
census materials, are being extended back to October, 1949.
Historical data of interest exist at the county level for
China going back well over 1,000 years, while historicalchanges in other Asian countries and the former Soviet
Union can be documented with statistically useful
information for at least fifty years, and in many cases forseveral centuries. Therefore, a time dimension to the
SIIASA and SIIRCEASA databases is essential, and a
database design that includes temporal as well as spatialreferencing has been developed, and is being implemented.
Apart from China, the base map for the SIIASA and
SIIRCEASA spatial databases will be the 1:1m Digital Chartof the World, to which local administrative boundaries will
be added in order to analyse census and other attribute data.
Larger scale spatial data will be incorporated whereavailable and needed to service regional research interests.
Individual research projects may contribute highly detailed
local map information that would not be of great interest toother users, but which would benefit from being put into
SIIASA’s wider spatial contexts.
After they become fully operational during 1995, the
SIIASA and SIIRCEASA databases will become accessible
via AARNet (and the Internet) from suitably equipped
computers throughout Australia and, eventually, the world.
SIIASA and SIIRCEASA spatial information and analysis
will eventually be marketed by the Australian Centre of
ASIAN in order to support continued academic operations.
In due time, the combined expertise of dozens if not
hundreds of academics at all of Australia’s major
universities where significant research in Asian Studies andthe former Soviet Union takes place will be accessible
through the Australian Centre of ASIAN.
As the inclusion of spatial contexts and relations isessential for many development projects, and promises torevolutionise socio-political and econometric research, itwould be surprising if clients outside of Australian
universities did not, in the course of the next few years,
become increasingly dependent on analyses derived fromthe SIIASA and SIIRCEASA databases operated by the
Asian Spatial Information and Analysis Network.
Additional Information on the China GIS Project, the
SIIASA and SIIRCEASA Projects, the Australian Centre of

ASIAN at Griffith University, and the eventual consultancy
and contract research activities of ASIAN may be obtained
from:
Dr. Lawrence W. Crissman, Director
Australian Centre of ASIAN
Faculty of Asian and International Studies
Griffith University
NathanQueensland 4111
Australia
Tel: 61-7-875-5137
Fax: 61-7-875-5111
E-mail: Crissman@ASIAN.gu.edu.au
NOTES
1. In addition to Griffith University, the institutions in the
expanded SIIASA consortium are: The Australian National
University, Science Faculty; Curtin University ofTechnology; Flinders University; James Cook University;
La Trobe University; Macquarie University; Monash
University; Murdoch University; Northern Territory
University; Queensland University of Technology; The
University of Melbourne; University of Adelaide; Universityof New England; University of New South Wales;
University of Newcastle; University of Queensland;
University of Sydney; University of Technology, Sydney;
University of Western Australia; and Victoria University ofTechnology. There is a possibility that New Zealanduniversities may become involved with SIIASA in future.
2. The institutions in the SIIRCEASA consortium are:
Griffith University (project leader); The University of
Melbourne (major partner); Australian Defence Force
Academy; The Australian National University, Faculty ofArts; La Trobe University; Macquarie University; Monash
University; University of New South Wales; and University
of Sydney.
3. The Land-use Map of China is a bound atlas consistingof sixty-four 1:1,000,000 map sheets. Prepared by aneditorial committee sponsored by the Institute of Geography,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was published in 1990 by
the Science Press, Beijing.

Thesis abstract

The Royal Hunt of the Shang Dynasty:
Archaeological and Anthropological
Perspectives
M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1994
Magnus Fiskesjo
University of Chicago
Contemporary oracle bone divination inscriptions indicatethat the kings of the late Shang dynasty (a late second
millennium B.C. bronze age polity in northern China)
attached great importance to hunting expeditions, whichconstituted one of the most frequent topics of Shang
divination.
The kings divined to ascertain theauspiciousness, or suitability, of their choices regarding
hunting companions, and the destinations and timing of such
expeditions. The problem of the role of hunts in the Shangworld is identified as an important but so far inadequately
explored issue in Chinese archaeology.
The first part of this study is a detailed examination of
the two most important sources available for the study of the
Shang royal hunts and their context: first, the archaeologicalremains excavated at the late Shang centre at Anyang, and,second, the Shang oracle bone inscriptions. In particular,
the zooarchaeological remains from Anyang are discussed indetail, and situated within the larger archaeological context.
Similarly, the oracle bone inscriptions are used to describe
the various participants in the hunts, the methods used, andthe reported quantities of captured prey. The methods
revealed in these sources include driving the prey with theaid of foot soldiers, and by the use of fire. The lattermethod suggests a relation between the hunts and theclearing of new fields, also reflected in the increasingly
prevalent use in the inscriptions of the word tian [field, to“take to the field”] as the main verb used for “hunting.”
The potential of the archaeological record for the
purposes of this study is constrained by methodologicalproblems, particularly as regards the record of animal
remains; possible improvements in zooarchaeologicalmethodology for future research are therefore considered.
The epigraphic texts, being the fragmented records of royal
divination, are also limited, and these problems are also
discussed. Despite the limitations, both types of source canreveal significant patterns, especially when used inconjunction. For example, both the archaeological and theepigraphic records suggest a strong Shang dichotomy ofwild vs. domesticated animals: the captured prey were notused either as burial offerings or in ancestral sacrifices, forwhich the exclusive choice was domesticated animals (dog,cattle, and sheep). It also appears that non-Shang enemies
Page 17

were dealt with as an intermediate category, described as“captured” (in warfare) with a term similar to that used for
hunted wild animals, but evidently used in sacrifices at
Anyang in the same way as domesticated animals.
Next, various earlier attempts at explaining the role ofthe hunts in Shang society are discussed. These include thetraditional Chinese view that the hunts were conducted
mainly as a decadent luxury sport, and more recent views
that emphasize the usefulness of the hunts as military
exercise, as a supplementary subsistence activity, or as asource of sacrificial victims. Each of these interpretations
has some merit, but all are also unsatisfactory, for a numberof reasons. Most importantly, they overlook and cannot
account for the possibility that the hunting expeditions also
had an important role in the establishment and maintenanceof the sphere of influence of the Shang kings. The“itinerant” character of the Shang kings, indicated by thefrequent hunting trips, suggests the importance of the
re-affirmation of a personal presence, as well as of thebuilding and cementing of alliances and ties by the use ofinvitations extended to important Shang officials or to
non-Shang allies. Furthermore, given that the Shang
diviner-kings presided over an agricultural society where
harvest failure and enemy attack probably constituted themost dangerous uncertainties, it is pointed out that the huntprovided an arena for a less dangerous, but symbolicallyhighly valuable form of risk-taking, whereby the kings could
reaffirm their prestige before their subjects, and also
reconfirm a status as arbiters of Shang society’s relation
with the surrounding wilderness. This may help explain
both why the royal hunt in itself should have been so
important, and why it was one of the few topics of
divination that was not abandoned, or purged of the elementof uncertainty, in the course of the marked trends towards
regularization and standardization that have been noted inlate Shang divination.
Finally, the study briefly discusses how investigationof the royal Shang hunt, properly situated within the larger
context of Shang use of natural resources, can provide a
useful perspective from which to address some of the latertransformations that occurred in the transitions from theShang theocracy and the feudalistic kingdoms of the Zhou
period to the early Chinese empires (Qin and Han), i.e. thedecline in divination using animal skeletal material as media,
the important changes in the roles of animals in artistic
representation, and the emergence of imperial hunting parks
which replaced the “itinerant” hunting of the Shang kings.

Submission and Subscription Information
1. Submission information. Contributions should besent to Helen Dunstan at Dept. of History, Indiana State
University, Terre Haute IN 47809, U.S.A. (e-mailHIDunsta@Ruby.indstate.edu). “Noticeboard” items andmini-articles are equally welcomed, and may be submitted in
English, Chinese, French, or Japanese.
PinyinPage 18

romanization is preferred.
Mini-articles should notnormally exceed 2,000 words (or 2,700 Chinese characters);
the absolute maximum length is 3,000 words (4,000 Chinesecharacters). Translations of scientific technical terms should
be provided if possible. If possible, please send anelectronic version of any English-language contribution
exceeding 750 words, or containing many numbers. The
preferred formats are ASCII or WordPerfect 5.0 or 5.1 on a3.5” diskette, or an ASCII text file via e-mail. Hard copy
should be provided as well.
2. Subscription information. E-mail subscriptions arefree (at least for the time being). To subscribe, please send
name, address, e-mail address, fax and telephone numbers(optional), and a brief but precise statement of your researchinterests to HIDunsta@Ruby.indstate.edu.
The hard copy version is available in both English andChinese (full or simplified characters). It costs US$10.00
per year (US$12.00 for international air mail); however,subscriptions in the People’s Republic of China will be free
for the time being. Subscribers living in the U.S. or mostother countries should send their subscription, in U.S.
currency, together with the subscription information
requested above to Helen Dunstan at Dept. of History,
Indiana State University, Terre Haute IN 47809, U.S.A.
Cheques, drafts and money orders should be made payable
to Chinese Environmental History Newsletter.
Subscribers resident in Australia, Britain, France,
Japan or Taiwan may send their subscription in local
currency (along with the subscription information) to theirnational distribution coordinator. The coordinators andannual subscription rates are as follows:
AUSTRALIA:
Dr Carney Fisher
Centre for Asian Studies
University of Adelaide
P.O. Box 498
AdelaideSouth Australia 5061
Tel. (08) 303-5930
Subscription: A$10.00 p.a.
BRITAIN:Mr Kegang Wu
Department of Geography
University of Liverpool
Roxby Building
P.O. Box 147
Liverpool L69 3BX
Tel. 01151-794-2835
Subscription: £5.00 p.a.
Make cheque payable to K. Wu

FRANCE:
Frédéric Obringer
Route de Laval
77120 MauperthuisTel. (1) 64-03-07-20
Subscription: 50.00 FF p.a.
JAPAN:
Prof. Seo TatsuhikoInstitute of History and Anthropology
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba
Ibaraki(Postcode: 305)
Tel. 0298-53-4050

disaster relief, and the ecological consequences of the 1855
shift for Shandong.
Françoise Aubin
Le Parc de Séronne
49160 Jumelles
FranceTani E. Barlow
Dept. of Women’s Studies
University of Washington
U.S.A.
E-mail: barlow@u.washington.edu
Tel: 206-616-1566
Fax: 206-685-4080
Gender history in China; editor of Positions: East Asia
Cultures Critique.

Subscription: ¥1,000 p.a.
TAIWAN:Prof. Wang Hurng-Jyuhn
Institute of Natural Resources
National Dong Hwa University
HualienTaiwan R.O.C.
Tel. 038-662500, ext. 175
Subscription: NT$ 260 p.a.

Directory of Subscribers────────────────────────────────────────
Corrections, up-dates, and additions may be sent to the editor
for inclusion in subsequent issues of the newsletter. The
attention of subscribers is drawn to the short section at theend in which subscribers’ names are roughly arranged
according to main research areas.
Joseph Adler
Department of Religion
Kenyon College
Gambier OH 43022
U.S.A.
E-mail: adlerj@kenyon.edu
Song Neo-Confucian studies
Iwo Amelung
Zechliner Str. 613359 Berlin
Germany
E-mail: iwoaeabb@w229zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE
Control of the Yellow River after the 1855 change of course.
Interaction between the Yellow River’s 1855-1911 hydrauliccycle and the response of the Chinese bureaucracy.
Water-conservancy techniques, bureaucratic build-up,

Adrian A. Bennett
Department of History
603 Ross Hall
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011
U.S.A.
E-mail: aabenn@iastate.edu
Tel: 515-294-1373
Fax: 515-294-6390
The environmental impact of the rural reforms in post-1978
China.
Lester J. Bilsky
Department of History
May 1995
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Little Rock AR 72204
U.S.A.
E-mail: ljbilsky@ualr.edu
Tel.: 501-225-5876
Fax: Same as telephone, if advance warning given.
Environmental history of early China, from Zhou to Former
Han (especially latter part of Eastern Zhou, from sixth
century B.C. onwards). Impact of environmental pressureson political developments; attitudes towards the environment;
re-examination of Warring States history from environmental
perspective.
Irene Bloom
Barnard College
U.S.A.
E-mail: ibloom@barnard.columbia.edu
Chinese philosophy; changes in Chinese views of nature;contemporary environmental issues; ways of incorporating
environmental issues and concerns into the undergraduate
curriculum in Asian Studies.
Baruch Boxer
Dept. of Human Ecology
Page 19

Cook College/Rutgers University
New Brunswick NJ 08903-0231
U.S.A.
E-mail: BOXER_C@AESOP.RUTGERS.EDU
Cultural and technological aspects of water knowledge(shuili) in twentieth-century China.
Shaun Breslin
Department of Politics
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle NE1 7RU
EnglandE-mail: Shaun.Breslin@newcastle.ac.uk
Tel: 0191-222-8021
Fax: 0191-222-8017
The political economy of reform in post-Mao China, withparticular reference to policy making processes;
decentralization in the 1980s; policy making relating to theconflict between environmental concerns and economic
priorities.
Giles D. Brown
University of Liverpool
EnglandE-mail: chimp@liverpool.ac.uk
Attitudes towards the environment in towns in China;
environmental management and policies in China, nationallyand in the rural areas.
Daniel P. Buck
University of California, Berkeley
U.S.A.
E-mail: ahdan@uclink.berkeley.edu
Patrick Caffrey(East Asian History,
Georgetown University)
2622 41st Street, NW, Apt. 4
Washington DC 20007-1270
U.S.A.
E-mail: caffreyp@gusun.acc.georgetown.edu
Tel: 202-342-8172
Modern China’s environmental history, with special interestin Taiwan and Fujian.
Cameron Campbell
University of Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
E-mail: campbell@SSDC.SAS.UPENN.EDU
Demography; public health and mortality in China.
Carolyn L. Cartier
Department of Geography
University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403
U.S.A.
Page 20

E-mail: cartier@oregon.uoregon.edu
Tel: 503-346-4557
Fax: 503-346-2067
Historical and contemporary issues of Chinese environmentand regional development in geographical perspective.
Minoti Chakravarty-Kaul
Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
University of California at Berkeley
E-mail: minotick@nature.Berkeley.EDU
Institutional factors and resource use in history; colonial
legal system and property rights as they affected theenvironment in the Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayas.
Chao Yuan-ling
Till summer 1995 only:
History Dept.
University of California, Los Angeles
E-mail: izzydj2@mvs.oac.ucla.edu
From summer 1995:
History Department
P.O. Box 23
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro
Tennessee 37132
U.S.A.
History of medicine in late imperial China; diseases; thesocial, cultural, and economic impacts of epidemics.
Physicians in late imperial Suzhou.
Timothy Cheek
Dept. of History
The Colorado College
14 E. Cache La Poudre
Colorado Springs CO 80903
U.S.A.
E-mail: tcheek@cc.colorado.edu
Tel: 719-389-6525
Fax: 719-389-6524
The role of Chinese intellectuals in the public arena in the
19th and 20th centuries, esp. 1940s-1960s; the propaganda
system in Confucian and Maoist China; issues of “civilsociety”; the social history of political vocabulary (as part of
the “Keywords of the Chinese Revolution” project).
Chen Qian
33 Newber St.
SunnybankQueensland 4109
Australia
E-mail: qian@ASIAN.gu.edu.au
Tel: 61-3-875-5345
Chinese environmental degradation; comparative study ofenvironment in Asian-Pacific region; comparative study ofadvances in environment technology in Asian and Pacificcountries; international trade in environmental industries.

Cheng Chongde
Center for Research in Qing History
People’s University of China
39 Haidian Rd.
Beijing 100872
China
Tel: 86-1-256-3399 ext. 2864
Fax: 86-1-256-6380
The history of development and environmental change inMongolia.
Sue-Fawn Chung
Dept. of History
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas NV 89154-5020
U.S.A.
E-mail: chung@nevada.edu
Tel: 702-895-3351
or 702-895-3349
Fax: 702-895-0850
Ric Cicone
Consortium for International Earth Science Information
Network (CIESIN)
2250 Pierce Rd.
University Center
Michigan 48710
U.S.A.
E-mail: cicone@ciesin.org
Tel: 517-797-2695 (-2700 switchboard)
Fax: 517-797-2622
Integration of socio-economic and environmental data about
China in a GIS addressable form; the impact of population
growth and development on agricultural land use, and theimpact of that change on sustainable development andhuman carrying capacity. Recorded changes in land use
due to anthropogenic forces.
Libby Connors
Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Southern Queensland
Darling Heights QLD 4350
Australia
E-mail: connors@zeus.usq.edu.au
Tel: 076-312249
Fax: 076-311601
History of the Australian conservation movement; thedevelopment of environmental movements around the world,
esp. in the Asia-Pacific region.
Richard Corlett
Department of Botany
University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong

E-mail: CORLETT@HKUCC.HKU.HK
Tel: 852-859-1942
Fax: 852-858-3477
Terrestrial ecology and biogeography of tropical andsub-tropical Asia; ecology of human impact on species-richtropical biotas; the ecology and environmental history ofHong Kong and South China; deforestation, fire, exploitationof wildlife, and extinction in South China.
Morton Cotlar
Professor of Management
University of Hawaii
E-mail: morton@hawaii.edu
Tel.: 808-956-8732 (voice-mail)or 808-523-2882
Business and organizational management between China
and other nations.
Lawrence W. Crissman
Australian Centre of the Asian Spatial Information andAnalysis Network
Faculty of Asian and International Studies
Griffith University
NathanQueensland 4111
Australia
E-mail: Crissman@ASIAN.gu.edu.au
Tel: 61-7-875-5137
Fax: 61-7-875-5111
Geographical Information System (GIS) applications forsocial science research on China; changes in China’s
administrative units (xian and above), 1820-1995; ecological
adaptations of minority peoples in China.
Frederick H. Damon
Department of Anthropology
Cabell Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville VA 22903
E-mail: fhd@faraday.clas.virginia.edu
Tel: 804-924-6826 (w); 804-295-6774 (h)Fax: 804-924-1350
Melanesian anthropology; planning to shift to studies in
Yunnan.
Will be concerned with intergroup relations,transforming exchange theory developed in Melanesia for
Chinese studies, and locating ethnobotanical studies in thecontext of encompassing cosmological and sociologicalconstructs.
Christian Daniels
Institute for the Study of the Languages and Cultures of Asia
and Africa
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
4-51-21 Nishigahara
Kita-ku
Tokyo
Page 21

Japan 114
Tel: 03-3917-6111 ext. 387
Fax: 03-3910-0613
Agricultural technology and ecological change in Yunnan,
16th-20th centuries.
Catherine Despeux
15 avenue Gambetta
92410 Ville d’Avray
FranceTony Dickensheets
3510 Louisa Street, Apt. 3
Pittsburgh PA 15213
U.S.A.
E-mail: tmdst7@pitt.edu
Tel: 412-683-8650
Population and development in China
David Dudgeon
Department of Ecology and Biodiversity
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
E-mail: DDUDGEON@HKUCC.HKU.HK
The ecology of southern China, including Hong Kong. The
ecology, management and conservation of inland waters,
especially streams and rivers.
Wildlife conservation,
especially of wetlands.
Ecological methodology;
conservation planning and assessment.

T.J. Ellermeier
8 Upton Street
Cambridge MA 02139-3809
U.S.A.
E-mail: ellerm@husc harvard.edu
Understandings of epidemics in the Song period.
Mark Elvin
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra A.C.T. 0200
Australia
E-mail: mde402@coombs.anu.edu.au
Fax: 61-6-249-5525
Palaeohydrology of Hangzhou Bay (with Su Ninghu andother Chinese colleagues); history of tuberculosis in modern
China (with Zhang Yixia); aspects of the history of science in
Ming/Qing China; aspects of the history of the emotions in
China since about 1800.
Fan I-chun
Academia Sinica
TaiwanE-mail: mhfanbbc@ccvax.sinica.edu.tw
Tel: 02-789-8260
Fax: 02-786-1675
Ming-Qing social and economic history; local history; urban
history of the Lower Yangzi Delta.

Helen Dunstan
Department of History
Indiana State University
Terre Haute IN 47809
U.S.A.
E-mail: HIDunsta@Ruby.indstate.edu
Tel: 812-237-2724
Pre-modern Chinese economic thought and policy; the salt
industry of south-west Shanxi, 1400-1900; state andenvironment in North China, 1400-1900.

Fang Jinqi
Center for Climatic Research
University of Wisconsin
Madison WI 53706
U.S.A.
E-mail: jqfang@facstaff.wisc.edu
Tel: 608-265-5279
Fax: 608-262-5964
Natural and human-induced environmental change;
human-environment interactions in historical China.

Richard Louis Edmonds
Department of Geography
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Thornhaugh St., Russell Sq.
London WC1H 0XG
EnglandE-mail: re2@soas.ac.uk
Tel: 0171-323-6156 (internat. 44-171-323-6156)
Fax: 0171-436-3844 (internat. 44-171-436-3844)
Broad East Asia area commitment.
Environmental
problems; cultural and historical geography; frontier
settlement and comparative history; transportation.

J. Michael Farmer
Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literature
University of Wisconsin
Madison WI
U.S.A.
E-mail: jfarmer@facstaff.wisc.edu
Tel: 608-278-0955
Interests include the symbolic importance of the Yellow Riverin Chinese culture and history, and the changing
interpretations of the phenomenon of the Yellow Riverrunning clear.

Page 22David Faure
Institute for Chinese Studies

University of Oxford
Walton Street
Oxford OX1 2HG
EnglandE-mail: dfaure@vax.ox.ac.uk
The development of the lineage in the Pearl River delta,
1500-1911; Chinese business history, Ming-Republican
period.
Mary Felley
Ecosystems Ltd.
2F Kingsun Computer Building
40 Shek Pai Wan Road
AberdeenHong Kong
E-mail: 100267.1007@CompuServe.COM
Tel: 852-553-0468
Fax: 852-870-0378
Wildlife and wildland resource conservation andmanagement in China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere in East
Asia; conservation of endangered migratory species
including the Black-faced Spoonbill; evolution of nature
reserve system in the P.R.C.
Carney Fisher
Centre for Asian Studies
University of Adelaide
P.O. Box 498
Adelaide SA 5061
Australia
E-mail: cfisher@arts.adelaide.edu.au
Tel: 61-8-303-5930
Fax: 61-8-303-4388
History of disease, esp. plague, in China.
Antonia Finnane
Dept. of History
Melbourne University
Parkville Vic. 3052
Australia
E-mail: antonia_finnane@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au
Tel: 03-344-5981
Fax: 03-344-7894
Social and economic history of Northern Jiangsu, 16th-20th
centuries; modernization and women.
Magnus Fiskesjo
Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Wieboldt Hall 301
University of Chicago
1050 East 59th Street
Chicago IL 60637
U.S.A.
E-mail: fisk@midway.uchicago.edu
Prehistoric and early historic archaeology of China andSouth-east Asia; mortuary site archaeology; zoo-archaeology. Esp. Shang faunal remains and the hunting
ritual of the Shang kings as recorded in oracle bone
inscriptions.
Keith Florig
Center for Risk Management
Resources for the Future
Washington DC 20036
E-mail: florig@elmo rff.org
Tel: 202-328-5019
Contemporary air and water pollution problems in China.
An integrated plan for environmental management inChongqing; a rough analysis of the overall health andeconomic impacts of air pollution in urban and rural China;
a review and critique of the use of economic incentives in
China’s modern environmental policy; an analysis ofpollution emissions from state-owned enterprises ineighty-two Chinese cities, 1986-90.
Philippe Foret
Department of Geography,
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720
U.S.A.
E-mail: phcforet@violet.berkeley.edu
Tel: 510-642-0380
Fax: 510-642-3370
Urban landscape, cartography & the cultural environment ofChina & Japan; the political ecology of the North China
frontier. The role of landscape in helping to define thecultural & spatial terms of the relationship between ethnic
group & state policy; the cartographical representation of
territory by state bureaucracy; the use of iconography ingarden architecture to express claims of supra-nationalism;
state policies in the creation & protection of ideologicallandscape; the perception of landscape by distinct ethnic
groups who share the same territory; & the role of culturallandscape in formulating spatial claims about ethnic identity.
Keith Forster
Centre for Asian Studies
Faculty of Arts
Southern Cross University
P.O. Box 157
Lismore NSW 2480
Australia
E-mail: kforster@scu.edu.au
Tel: 61-66-20-3905
Fax: 61-66-22-1683
Contemporary Chinese politics, economy and society; theChinese tea industry.
Jose I. dos R. Furtado
Economic Development InstituteWorld Bank
1818 H Street NW
Page 23

Washington DC 20433
U.S.A.
E-mail: JFURTADO@worldbank.org
Tel: 202-473-6461
Fax: 202-676-0977
Integrated farming systems in China; impacts and trade-offs
of large dams; training on environmental issues in China.
Daniel Gunaratnam
E-mail: dgunaratnam@worldbank.org
Shelly K. Habel
2440 Campus Road #431
Honolulu HI 96822
U.S.A.
E-mail: habels@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Tel: 808-943-1444
The environmental movement in China.
Steven Hamburg
Environmental Defense Fund
257 Park Avenue SouthNew York NY 10010
U.S.A.
E-mail: Hamburg@EDF.org
Tel: 212-505-2100
Fax: 212-505-2375
Forest history of Taiwan. Interested as an ecologist in therole of past disturbances on the structure and function offorests.
Han Guanghui
Center of Historical Geography
Dept. of Geography
Peking University
Beijing 100871
China
Tel: 86-1-2501180
Fax: 86-1-2501187
Environmental change; historical population geography.
James Harkness
American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums(AAZPA)
Executive Office and Conservation Center
7970-D Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda MD 20814-2493
Tel: 301-907-7777
Pandas; the Three Gorges Project.
Martin J. Heijdra
Chinese Bibliographer
Gest Oriental Library
317 Palmer Hall
Princeton NJ 08544
U.S.A.
Page 24E-mail: mheijdra@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Tel: 609-258-5336
Fax: 609-258-2461
Ming socio-economic history.
Charles Hellawell
Bond University
Australia
Anyone who knows this subscriber’s current e-mail address
is asked to inform the editor.
R.D. Hill
Department of Geography and Geology
University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
E-mail: rdhill@hkucc.bitnet
The historical and contemporary impact of rural land-use
systems on the environment, especially in Southern China.
HONDA Osamu a1b bBp c5a2-18-14 Osumigaoka
Tanabe-chō
Tsuzuki-gun
Kyōto-fu
Japan 610-03
Tel: 0774-63-5599
Irrigation proclamations in Central and South China during
the Song and Yuan.
Jeffrey H. Hornibrook3137 Garfield Ave South
Minneapolis MN 55408
E-mail: horn0007@gold.tc.umn.edu
Tel: 612-825-3948
The political & social impact of the Anyuan (Pingxiang) coalmine (Jiangxi-Hunan border). Issues include the alterationof farming practices due to changes in food consumption; theimpact of railroad transportation linking the local community
with Hunan & Hubei markets; & the treatment &organization of workers subjected to diseases, hunger, &displacement from family members.
Hou Renzhi
Center of Historical Geography
Dept. of Geography
Peking University
Beijing 100871
China
Tel: 86-1-2501180
or 86-1-2501172 (Dept. of Geography)
Fax: 86-1-2501187
or 86-1-2564095 (Peking University)
Man-land relationships since the Holocene in the zone of
mixed agriculture and pastoralism along the Great Wall in
North China.

Paul W. Howard
Dept. of History
207 College Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-6379
E-mail: phoward@mail.sas.upenn.edu
or PaulHoward@aol.com
19th and 20th century social history, history of medicine, andhistory of the environment. Dissertation topic: “Opium
Smoking in Late Qing China: Chinese and Western
Responses to a Social Problem, 1858-1915.” Concerns
include the effects of wide-scale poppy cultivation on the
Chinese environment during this period.
J. Donald Hughes
Dept. of History
University of Denver
Denver CO 80208
U.S.A.
E-mail: dhughes@diana.cair.du.edu
Tel: 303-871-2952
Fax: 303-871-2957
World environmental history
Abigail Jahiel
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy
College of Urban Affairs and Public Policy
University of Delaware
Newark DE 19716-7301
U.S.A.
E-mail: ajahiel@strauss.udel.edu
Tel: 302-831-1683
Fax: 302-831-3098
The implementation of China’s water pollution policy;
comparative environmental politics; environmental policy;
sustainable development; policy implementation; andChinese politics.
Nayna J. Jhaveri
Graduate School of Geography
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester MA 01610
U.S.A.
E-mail: NJHAVERI@vax.clarku.edu
The relationship between ethnicity, common property
resource management systems, and environmental change in
the Chinese Himalayan region. Analysis of how differing
conceptions of equity among the Yi and Han affect theconfiguration of common property resource management
systems, and thus the pattern of resource distribution andenvironmental change in the Liangshan Mountains, Sichuan.

Sam Jian

P.O. Box 25143
Arlington VA 22202
U.S.A.
E-mail: ZHAOP@CUA.EDU
China’s environmental policy-making and Chinese
environmental organizations (governmental, business, and
R&D). Consultant providing feasibility studies and entry
strategies for those planning to enter the Chinese
environmental market.
Runs the Internet China
Environment News Digest Service.
Jiang Hong
Graduate School of Geography
Clark University
Worcester MA 01610
U.S.A.
E-mail: hjiang@vax.clarku.edu
Tel: 508-793-7525
Fax: 508-793-8881
Land-related environmental change (e.g. land degradation,soil erosion, sandification); natural resource management;
dynamics of human impact on the environment; societal
responses to environmental change; environmental
sustainability and criticality.
David G. Johnson
Department of History
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720-2550
U.S.A.
E-mail: dgjohnsn@violet.berkeley.edu
The ritual life of pre-revolutionary south-east Shanxi,
especially the sai temple festivals.
Ellen Judd
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg
Canada R3T 2N2
E-mail: ejudd@CC.UManitoba.CA
Tel: 204-474-6328
Fax: 204-478-8170
Gender and development in rural China (agriculture, ruralindustry, household-based enterprises); women’s organizing
strategies in contemporary China; gender strategy for
China-Canada Integrated Lean Swine Production Project(Canadian International Development Agency).
Jonathan Justi
Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / OAR/IA1315 East-West Highway, Room 11323
Silver Spring MD 20910
U.S.A.
E-mail: Siqing@aol.com
Page 25

OR jjusti@rdc noaa.gov
Tel: 301-713-2469
Fax: 301-713-0666
As program coordinator for the US-China Marine andFisheries Protocol and US-China Atmospheric Protocol,interested in oceanographic and atmospheric issues. Alsointerested in general environmental issues in other fields in
China.

environmental change.
David Kelly
Department of Politics
University College
Australian Defence Force Academy
Canberra A.C.T. 2600
Australia
E-mail: d-kelly@adfa.oz.au
Tel: 61-6-268-8859
Fax: 61-6-268-8852

Forest E. Kay(KESTREL International (USA) Ltd.)
201A Fuchinobe St.
4811 Kamitsuruma
Sagamihara-shi
Kanagawa-ken
Japan 229
E-mail: bkay53@freenet fsu.edu
or 71732.1472@Compuserve.com
Tel. & fax: 81-3117-67-6785
or 81-0462-51-1520
General interest

Dorothy Ko
Dept. of History
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla
CA 92093-0104
U.S.A.
Tel: 619-534-1996
Fax: 619-534-7283

Barry Keenan
Department of History
Denison University
Granville OH 43023
U.S.A.
E-mail: KEENAN@CC.DENISON.EDU
Tel: 614-587-6253
Fax: 614-587-6417
Chinese environmental history; design of courses inenvironmental history more broadly.

Lai Chi-kong
Dept. of History
University of Queensland
Brisbane Qld 4072
Australia
E-mail: C. Lai@mailbox.uq.oz.au
Tel: 61-7-365-6339
Fax: 61-7-365-6266
Modern Chinese economic history; economic organizations
in Qing China.

David L. Keenan
Box K-4
Grinnell College
Grinnell IA 50112
U.S.A.
E-mail: keenan@ac.grin.edu
Tel: 515-269-4248
Fax: 515-269-4953
The biji collections of Ji Xiaolan (1724-1805). Has
designed course and summer seminar for high school
teachers on the physical and cultural ecology of China.

William Lavely
Dept. of Washington
University of Washington
Box 353340
Seattle WA 98195-3340
U.S.A.
E-mail: lavely@u.washington.edu
Tel: 206-543-6805
Fax: 206-543-2516
Chinese population

David N. Keightley
Department of History
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720-2550
U.S.A.
E-mail: keightle@garnet.berkeley.edu
The North Chinese landscape and climate, c. 1200-1050 B.C.,
as reflected in oracle-bone inscriptions and archaeologicalevidence. Early environment as the context in which early
Chinese political culture and cosmology were formed, and asa benchmark against which to measure subsequent
Page 26David Chi-Chun Lee
Anyone who knows this subscriber’s current postal or e-mailaddress is asked to inform the editor.
Environmental policy and social attitudes in Taiwan.
James Lee
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena CA 91125
U.S.A.
E-mail: JZL@CCO.Caltech.edu
Tel: 818-356-4297

Fax: 818-405-9841
Chinese demography, esp. historical demography;
comparative demography, esp. southern Africa, East Asia,
western Europe; Chinese history, esp. Qin-Han andMing-Qing.
Zhu LeeWorkshop of Political Theory and Policy Analysis
513 N. Park Street
Indiana University
Bloomington IN 47405
U.S.A.
E-mail: zhlee@indiana.edu
Tel: 812-855-0441
Fax: 812-855-3150
Environmental policy and sustainable development;international comparative environmental policy analysis;
international law and the function of international NGOs in
affecting environmental policy. Currently participating in a
project on forest resources and institutions in Bolivia, India,
Nepal, Uganda, and elsewhere (perhaps including China).
Angela Ki Che Leung
Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy
Academia Sinica
Nankang
Taipei 11529
TaiwanE-mail: tpleung@ccvax.sinica.edu.tw
OR aleung@3pp.sinica.edu.tw
Tel: 886-2-789-8191
Fax: 886-2-785-4160
Medical institutions in China, Song-Qing.
Li Bozhong
Dept. of Economic History
Institute of Economics
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
2 Yuetanbei xiaojie
Beijing 100836
China
Tel: 86-1-835-5191
Chinese agricultural history; social and economic history of
Jiangnan.
Li Xiaocong
Dept. of History
Peking University
Beijing 100871
China
Tel: 86-1-2501652
Fax: 86-1-2564095
Historical geography (esp. urban settlements, communications, human ecology); the relationship between humanactivity and environmental change in past times; Chinese
historical cartography.

Newton X. Liu
Bridge to Asia
1214 Webster Street, Suite F
Oakland CA 94612
U.S.A.
E-mail: nxliu@well.sf.ca.us
Tel: 510-834-1919
Fax: 510-834-0962
Bridge to Asia is an information transfer service program,and one of its electronic Information Transfer Stations will
focus on environmental science.
Liu Shi-yung
Dept. of History
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh PA 15260
U.S.A.
E-mail: SXLST1@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Tel: 412-681-3324
The relationship between the Chinese medical profession andthe colonial medical system in Taiwan after 1898, probably
focussing on the China Hookworm Commission in 1923–24,
and the survey of public health in Taiwan during the 1920s
and 1930s.
Liu Ts’ui-jung
The Institute of Economics
Academia Sinica
Nankang
Taipei 11529
TaiwanE-mail: ECTJLIU@ccvax.sinica.edu.tw
Tel: 02-782-2791-316
Fax: 02-785-3946
Topics in the environmental history of Taiwan; the economicand environmental history of the Ming and Qing periods.
Adam Loch
Bond University
Australia
Anyone who knows this subscriber’s current e-mail address
is asked to inform the editor.
Raymond Lum
Assistant Librarian
Harvard-Yenching Library
Cambridge MA 02138
U.S.A.
E-mail: raylum@harvarda harvard.edu
Tel: 617-495-0585
Fax: 617-496-6008
Kerrie L. MacPherson
Department of History
University of Hong Kong
Page 27

Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
E-mail: KLMacP@hkucc.hku hk
Tel: 852-859-2861
OR 852-859-2874
Fax: 852-858-9755
Chinese urban history and planning history; Chinese urban
public health and medical infrastructure; history of cholera
in China; history of sexually transmitted diseases and
HIV/AIDS in Hong Kong and China.
Joseph P. McDermott
St John’s College
Cambridge CB2 1TP
EnglandTel. and fax (home): 01223-845761
Chinese social and economic history, Song-Ming, including
land use, deforestation, concepts of landscape, andirrigation.
Cathy Mabry
Harvard ForestBox 68Petersham MA 01366
U.S.A.
E-mail: cmabry@lternet.edu
or mabry@lternet.washington.edu
Tel: 508-724-3302
Fax: 508-724-3595
Forest ecology; the long-term impact of human activity on
the structure and function of plant communities; theapplication of ecological principles to agriculture; ecologicalrestoration.
Robert B. Marks
Dept. of History
Whittier College
13406 Philadelphia Street
P.O. Box 634
Whittier CA 90608
U.S.A.
E-mail: RMARKS@POETS.Whittier.edu
Tel: 310-907-4200 ext. 4346
The mutual relationship between environment and economy
in South China (Guangdong and Guangxi) over the past
2,000 years. The first part of the project, which takes thestory to 1850, has been completed, and should soon be
published in book form. The second part of the project(1850-2000) will use historical documents, contemporary
data, remote sensing (LANDSAT images), and field work tochart environmental change in South China.
Peter Matthews
210 Katsura Garden Heights
Kuzetakada 257-78
Minami-ku
Page 28

Kyoto
Japan
E-mail: BXB01642@niftyserve.or.jp
Tel: 81-75-934-8834
Fax: As above.
Ethnobotany, agriculture, prehistory, plant domestication,
plant genetics, subsistence, Asia and the Pacific. Specificinterests in taro (Colocasia), paper and paper mulberry(Broussonetia), and Chinese wax gourd (Benincasa).
Lewis Mayo
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra A.C.T. 0200
Australia
Plants, animals, and social power at Dunhuang: a study ofreciprocal interactions.
Nicholas K. Menzies
The Ford Foundation
International Club
Jianguomenwai Dajie No. 21
Beijing
China 100020
E-mail: INTERNET@CGNET.FORD-BEIJING
Tel: 532-6668
Telefax: 532-5495
Y.B. MIAO
Dept. of Civil Engineering
FCTUC
3049 Coimbra
PortugalE-mail: ybmiao@ciuc2.uc.pt
General interest
Steven Michaud
Acme Software
P.O. Box 37-8416
Chicago IL 60637
U.S.A.
E-mail: smichaud@mcs.com
Chinese philosophy, and related topics.
Ruth Mostern
Dept. of History
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720
U.S.A.
E-mail: ruth@violet.berkeley.edu
Writing on geography and cartography in Song China; Songnotions of spatiality, with special reference to how thecreation and articulation of boundaries and proprietaryinterest (ritual, administrative, and economic) in landinteracted with the domestication of the south-west frontier.

Rhoads Murphey
Dept. of History
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045
U.S.A.
Fax: 313-747-4881
All aspects of Chinese and Asian environmental history.
Douglas P. Murray
Lingnan Foundation
809 UN PlazaNew York NY 10017
U.S.A.
E-mail: dmurray@iie.org
Tel: 212-984-5591
Fax: 212-984-5452
Has organized several environment-related projects as a
Board Member of the (U.S.) National Committee on
U.S.-China Relations.
Susan Naquin
Department of History
Princeton University
Princeton NJ 08544-1017
E-mail: snaquin@phoenix.princeton.edu
Fax: 609-258-5326
Chinese history, 1600–1900.
Chris Nielsen
24 Oxford Street
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138
E-mail: nielsen@ksgbbs harvard.edu
Tel: 617-496-2378
Fax: 617-495-8839
International relations with China regarding environmental
science and policy. Coordinator and contact person for
Harvard’s interdisciplinary research project on energy andenvironment in contemporary China.
Markus Niggenaber
Institute of East Asian Studies
The University of Cologne
Duerener Strasse 56-60
50931 Koeln
Germany
E-mail: a2188554@athena rrz.Uni-Koeln.de
Tel: 49-221-43-12-01
Fax: 49-221-468-01-32
Environment protection and its relation to economics incontemporary Jiangsu.
Cheryl Oakes
LibrarianForest History Society

701 Vickers Avenue
Durham NC 27701
U.S.A.
E-mail: coakes@acpub.duke.edu
Tel: 919-682-9319
Frederic Obringer
Route de Laval
77120 Mauperthuis
FranceTel.: 64 03 07 20
Peter C. Perdue
History Faculty, E51-210
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139
U.S.A.
E-mail: pcperdue@MIT.EDU
Tel: 617-253-3064
Fax: 617-253-9406
Environmental change, ethnicity, and the relationshipbetween long-term economic change and military conquest in
the Qing empire, especially the Qing conquest of Xinjiang inthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Judy Polumbaum
School of Journalism & Mass Communication
University of Iowa
Iowa City IA 52242
E-mail: jpolumb@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
or judy-polumbaum@uiowa.edu
Tel: 319-335-5866
Development of, and trends in, China’s environmental
journalism.
Don C. Price
Dept. of History
University of California at Davis
Davis CA 95616
U.S.A.
E-mail: dcprice@ucdavis.edu
Political, intellectual and cultural history of China c. 1900,
including nationalism, ideas of revolution and democracy,individualism, the public sphere, etc.
Roger W. Purdy
Dept. of History
John Carroll University
University Heights
OH 44118
U.S.A.
E-mail: RPURDY@jcvaxa.jcu.edu
Tel: 216-397-4776
Fax: 216-397-4256
International relations in the Pacific Rim
Page 29

S. Ravi Rajan
Dept. of Geography
501 McCone Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720
U.S.A.
E-mail: srrajan@violet.berkeley.edu
Tel: 510-642-0380
Fax: 510-642-3370
Comparative environmental history, with a focus on Southand South-east Asia, and Southern Africa.
Thomas G. Rawski
Dept. of Economics
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh PA 15260
U.S.A.
E-mail: TGRAWSKI@vms.cis.pitt.edu
The development and modern history of China’s economy;
innovation in Chinese manufacturing.
James Reardon-Anderson
Asian Studies
School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
Washington DC 20057
U.S.A.
Tel: 202-687-6636
Hal Rothman
Editor, Environmental History Review
E-mail: rothman@nevada.edu
Milton Russell
Joint Institute for Energy and Environment
325 South Stadium Hall
Knoxville TN 37996-0710
U.S.A.
E-mail: ESTEP@utkvx.utk.edu
Tel: 615-974-0721
Fax: 615-974-1838
Miranda A. Schreurs
Dept. of Government and Politics
University of MarylandCollege Park MD 20742-8221
U.S.A.
E-mail: MSCHREUR@bss2.umd.edu
Tel: 301-405-7797
Fax: 301-314-9690
Comparative national responses to global environmental
problems. Dissertation compares Japanese and German
responses to stratospheric ozone depletion and global
climate change. Japanese overseas development aid andthe environment; Japanese involvement in China.
Page 30

SEO TatsuhikoInstitute of History and Anthropology
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba-shi
Ibaraki-ken
Japan 305
E-mail: seo@shakai.social.tsukuba.ac.jp
Tel. and fax: 0298-53-4050
The cities and environmental history of the loess region in
China.
Hugh Shapiro
1555 Middle Avenue
Menlo Park CA 94025
U.S.A.
Psychopathologies of daily life in early twentieth century
China.
John R. Shepherd
Department of Anthropology
University of Virginia
Charlottesville VA 22903
E-mail: jrs4c@virginia.edu
Tel: 804-924-7044
or 804-293-8381
Fax: 804-924-1350
Social history and settlement of Taiwan since the 17th
century; the interaction of Han and aborigine groups on the
Taiwan frontier; Chinese demographic history, especiallyregional variation in mortality trends and the marriage
market in Taiwan.
Shi Mingzheng
Department of History
University of Houston
Houston TX 77204-3785
E-mail: histj@menudo.uh.edu
Tel: 713-743-3119
Fax: 713-743-3216
The built environment; urban and social change in modern
China.
Shi Nianhai
Institute for Chinese Historical Geography
Shaanxi Teachers’ College
Xi’an
Shaanxi 710062
China
Tel: 86-29-526-1946
Chinese historical geography and historical ecology;
China’s pre-modern capitals; Sui-Tang history.
Pierre Sigwalt
11 rue des Récollets
75010 ParisFranceTel: 1-42-09-16-79
Has published widely on contemporary developmental andenvironmental issues in Taiwan, especially typhoons andtheir impact.
Jonathan Spence
Dept. of History
Yale University
P.O. Box 208324
New Haven CT 06520-8324
U.S.A.
Kristin Stapleton
Dept. of History
University of Kentucky
Lexington KY 40506-0027
U.S.A.
E-mail: kestap01@ukcc.uky.edu
Tel: 606-257-3675
Fax: 606-323-3885
Early twentieth century local, esp. urban, administration; theimplementation of police reform in Chengdu, 1902-1911.
Janice Stargardt
Cambridge Project on Ancient Civilization in South East
Asia
The Martin Centre, University of Cambridge
6 Chaucer Road
Cambridge CB2 2EHEnglandTel: 44-01223-332981 or 64953
Fax: 44-01223-334748
History of man-made environmental change in mainland
South East Asia, esp. Thailand and Burma: changes invegetational cover, water régimes and traditional crop
yields.
Julia Strauss
Dept. of Politics
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Thornhaugh St., Russell Sq.
London WC1H 0XG
EnglandE-mail: js11@soas.ac.uk
The administrative and institutional aspects of theimplementation of environmental and conservation policy.
Richard P. Suttmeier
Dept. of Political Science
University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403
U.S.A.
E-mail: petesutt@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU
Tel. and fax: 503-741-8055

Environmental and technological risk management in China;
Chinese science and technology policy.
E. Takei
210 Katsura Garden Heights
Kuzetakada 257-78
Minami-ku
Kyoto
Japan
E-mail: BXB01642@niftyserve.or.jp
Tel: 81-75-934-8834
Fax: As above.
Ethnobotany, agriculture, plant domestication, food andcuisine, Asia. Specific interests in millet species (Setaria,
Panicum, etc.), soy bean use, Ry_ky_ Islands, Indonesia.
Mike Thomsen
Dept. of Agricultural Economics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison WI 53706
U.S.A.
E-mail: mthomsen@students.wisc.edu
Tel: 608-231-1548
Institutional organization, agriculture, and technical change,
especially in developing economies.
Malcolm Tull
Department of Economics
Murdoch University
Western Australia 6150
Australia
E-mail: tull@csuvax1.murdoch.edu.au
or tull@csuvax1.csu murdoch.edu.au
Tel: 09-360-2481
Fax: 09-310-7725
Economic history. Australian and East Asian economic
development and maritime history; resource use andenvironmental management in modern Japan; environmental
policy in Taiwan.
Tung An-Chi
Institute of Economics
Academia Sinica
Nankang
Taipei 11529
TaiwanE-mail: ACTUNG@IEAS.ECON.SINICA.EDU.TW
Economic development (especially East Asian N.I.C.s);international trade theory; economic history of Taiwan.
Dan Viederman
China Programme Coordinator
The World Wide Fund for Nature
1 Tramway Path
CentralHong Kong
Page 31E-mail: CHINA@WWFNOTICE.INFONET.COM
Tel: 852-526-1011
Fax: 852-586-1146
Wang Hongchang
Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
5 Jianguomennei Street
Beijing 100732
China
An economist with active research interests in environmental
history.
Wang Hurng-Jyuhn
Institute of Natural Resources
National Dong Hwa University
HualienTaiwan R.O.C.
Tel: 038-662500 ext. 175
Fax: 038-662533
Natural resource policy analysis, environmental policy,
natural resource economics. Research topics include thetransition theory applied to environmental policy formulation,
property rights (natural resources and environment), andnon-market goods (natural resources and environment)
evaluation.
Robert P. Weller
ISEC
Boston University
10 Lenox Street
Brookline MA 02146
U.S.A.
E-mail: rpweller@acs.bu.edu
Tel: 617-353-6398
Fax: 617-353-6408
The environmental movement and the growth of a domestic
market in nature tourism in Taiwan. The relations of thesenew phenomena to economic change, and to earlier Chinese
views of nature. Hopes to expand this work to include the
PRC in future.
Pierre-Étienne Will
Collège de France
11 place Marcelin-Berthelot
75231 Paris
FranceE-mail: will@ext.jussieu fr
History of water control and irrigation in imperial China; thelate imperial Chinese state and economic development.
Dennis Williams
E-mail: dwilliam@nov.snu.edu
Editor of the newsletter of the American Society for
Environmental History.

Jim Williams(Energy and Resources Group,
University of California at Berkeley)
613 Carmel Avenue
Albany CA 94706
U.S.A.
E-mail: jimwill@garnet.berkeley.edu
Tel: 510-524-4236
Energy use; technology; policy; water use; hydropower;
dams; ecosystem-climate interactions; social aspects ofenvironmental issues; history of science and technology.
Martin Williams
Centre for Environmental Studies
University of Adelaide
P.O. 498
Adelaide SA 5000
Australia
Tim Wright
School of Humanities
Murdoch University
Murdoch WA 6150
Australia
E-mail: twright@csuvax1.murdoch.edu.au
Tel: 61-9-360-2322
Fax: 61-9-310-6285
The impact of the world depression in the 1930s,
contemporary Chinese economic reform and its social effects,
the contemporary Chinese coal industry, and Chinese
business history.
Wu Kegang
Department of Geography
University of Liverpool
Roxby Building
P.O. Box 147
Liverpool L69 3BX
EnglandE-mail: Kegang.Wu@liverpool.ac.uk
Tel: 01151-794-2835
Chinese environmental issues; natural environment andsustainable development; physical geography; soil erosionand deforestation; environmental change modelling andmonitoring; environmental impact of larger projects (e.g.
Three Gorges dam). Areas of interest: China and Nepal;
East and South-east Asia generally.
Xu Guoqi
Harvard University
U.S.A.
E-mail: Xu@husc harvard.edu
International relations; history; comparative study ofAmerican and Chinese attitudes towards the environment.
Yang Dong

Page 32

Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra A.C.T. 0200
Australia
E-mail: dongyang@coombs.anu.edu.au
Fax: 61-6-249-5525
Water control in pre-modern South China, and related topics,
with a focus on the interface between lowland water control
activities and the exploitation of woods and other natural
resources in the uplands in Zhejiang; changes in élite
perceptions of the relationship between nature andhumankind.
Stephen S. Young
Graduate School of Geography
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester MA 01610-1477
U.S.A.
E-mail: SYOUNG@VAX.CLARKU.edu
Tel: 508-793-7336
Fax: 508-793-8881
Deforestation and forest ecology, especially in South-western
China.

Asian Studies Newsletter Archives
9225 Limestone Place
College Park
MD 20740-3943
U.S.A.
CCP Research Newsletter(Newsletter of the Chinese Communism Research Group)
Editor: Timothy Cheek
Dept. of History
The Colorado College
14 E. Cache La Poudre
Colorado Springs CO 80903
U.S.A.
Dibner Institute for the History of Science andTechnology(Burndy Library)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E56-100
38 Memorial Drive
Cambridge MA 02139
U.S.A.
E-mail: ruggere@mit.edu

Charles Zhang
292 Main St., E38-500
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge MA 02139
E-mail: zhang@ilp mit.edu
Tel: 617-253-0411
Fax: 617-258-6148
Works in MIT’s Far East Corporate Relations office on
developing collaboration between MIT and China.

EAANnouncements(Newsletter of the East Asian Archaeology Network)
Editor: Gina L. Barnes
St. John’s College
Cambridge CB2 1TP
EnglandE-mail: GLB1@HERMES.CAM.AC.UK
Tel: 01223-333322
Fax: 01223-333503

Zhang Guoxiong
Center of Historical Geography
Dept. of Geography
Peking University
Beijing 100871
Tel: 86-1-2501180
Fax: 86-1-2501187
Environmental change; historical population geography.

East Asian History of Science Library
Needham Research InstituteLibrarian: John P.C. Moffett
8 Sylvester Road
Cambridge CB3 9AF
EnglandE-mail: jm10019@cus.cam.ac.uk

Zhang Yixia
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra A.C.T. 0200
Australia
E-mail: yixia@coombs.anu.edu.au
Fax: 61-6-249-5525
History of medicine.
Library, other institutional, and exchange subscriptions

Indonesian Environmental History Newsletter
Editors: Freek Colombijn and David Henley
KITLV
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
Tel: 71-272295
Fax: 71-272638
Institut d’Extrême-Orient, Collège de France(Library)
52 rue du Cardinal Lemoine
Page 33

75231 Paris
FranceWorld and comparative environmental history: Hughes,
Rajan

Long Bow Group
Representative: Nora Chang
55 Newton Street
Brookline MA 02146
U.S.A.
E-mail: 71233.1602@CompuServe.COM
Tel: 617-277-6400

2. Chronological classification
Early China: Bilsky, Fiskesjo, Keightley, J. Lee
Sui-Yuan: Ellermeier, Honda, Leung, McDermott, Mayo,
Mostern, Seo, N. Shi
Ming-twentieth century: Daniels, Faure, Finnane, Marks
Ming-Qing: Chao, Dunstan, Fan, Heijdra, D. Keenan, J. Lee,
Leung, T. Liu, McDermott, Naquin, Perdue, Will
Nineteenth century: Amelung, Howard, Lai
Twentieth century, historical: Boxer, Hornibrook, S. Liu,
Price, Rawski, Stapleton, Tull, Wright
Recent and contemporary, political and economic: Bennett,
Breslin, Brown, Cheek, Cotlar, Forster, Furtado,
Gunaratnam, Habel, Jahiel, Jian, Judd, Kelly, Z. Lee,
Murray, Nielsen, Niggenaber, Polumbaum, Purdy,
Russell, Schreurs, Strauss, Suttmeier, Thomsen, Tung,
H.-J. Wang
Recent and contemporary, scientific or technological(includes geography): Cartier, Chen, Florig, Harkness,
Jiang, Justi, J. Williams, Wu

National Committee on US-China Relations
E-mail: ncuscr@igc.apc.org
Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Herrenberger Strasse 51
72070 Tübingen
GermanySoutheast Asia Collection
Alden Library
Ohio University
Ref. Librarian: Jeffrey Ferrier
Athens OH 45701-2978
U.S.A.
E-mail: ferrier@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu

Subscribers’ names classified by broad subject
areas(N.B. No name is entered more than three times at the verymost).
1. Regional classification
Northern China and neighbouring territories (see also under“Early China”): Amelung, Cheng, Dunstan, Hou,Johnson, Mayo, Perdue, Reardon-Anderson, Seo
South-east coastal provinces (Jiangsu-Fujian): Caffrey, Fan,
Finnane, B. Li, Niggenaber, YangSouthern China (including Hong Kong): Corlett, Dudgeon,
Faure, Hill, Honda, MacPherson, Marks
Central China: Hornibrook
Western China: Jhaveri, Stapleton
South-west China: Damon, Daniels, Menzies, Mostern,
Young
Taiwan: Caffrey, Hamburg, D. Lee, S. Liu, T. Liu, Shepherd,
Sigwalt, Tung, Weller
Asia or the Asian-Pacific region: Chen, Connors, Matthews,
Murphey, Takei, Wu
Japan: Schreurs, Tull
East Asian “newly industrializing countries”: Tung
South Asia: Chakravarty-Kaul, Rajan
South-east Asia: Rajan, Stargardt
Australia: Connors
Page 34

3. Classification by subject area
Historical and cultural geography, geographical perspectives
on history: Cartier, Edmonds, Han, Hou, X. Li, N. Shi, G.
Zhang
Cartography and pre-modern geographic thought: Foret, X.
Li, Mostern
Geographical Information Systems: Cicone, Crissman,
LavelyNon-anthropogenic environmental change: Fang
Climate: Fang, Sigwalt
Ecology: Corlett, Dudgeon, Hamburg, Mabry
Botany: Matthews, Takei
Forests: Hamburg, Z. Lee, Mabry, Menzies, Oakes, Yang,
Young
Migratory species: Felley
Pandas: Harkness
Population (human): Campbell, Dickensheets, Han, Lavely, J.
Lee, Shepherd, G. Zhang
Agricultural and land-use history: Daniels, B. Li, McDermott
Property rights (including common property systems) andrural land-use systems (changes in, environmental impactof): Chakravarty-Kaul, Cicone, Hill, Jhaveri, H.-J. Wang
Ethnohistory/ethnicity and environment, ethnobotany:
Crissman, Damon, Foret, Jhaveri, Matthews, Perdue,
Shepherd, Takei
Opium cultivation: Howard
Mining: Hornibrook, WrightThe built environment, urban history: Fan, X. Li,
MacPherson, Seo, M. Shi, N. Shi, Stapleton
Disease, medicine, public health: Campbell, Chao, Ellermeier,Elvin, Fisher, Howard, Leung, S. Liu, MacPherson, Y.
Zhang
Water and its management: Amelung, Boxer, Dunstan, Elvin,Farmer, Honda, Will, Yang
Oceanography: Justi
Attitudes towards environment, views of nature, cosmology,
history of science: Bilsky, Bloom, Boxer, Brown, Damon,
Elvin, Farmer, Foret, Weller, Xu
Teaching of environmental history: Bloom, B. Keenan, D.
Keenan4. Contemporary topics
Environmental and environment-related policy (including
risk management) in contemporary China and Taiwan:
Breslin, Brown, Florig, Jahiel, Jian, D. Lee, Z. Lee,
Niggenaber, Strauss, Suttmeier, Tull, H.-J. Wang, J.
Williams
The environmental impact of economic policy changes anddevelopment projects: Bennett, Wu
Dam projects: Furtado, Harkness
Contemporary environmental degradation: Chen, Corlett,Edmonds
Land degradation, soil erosion, etc: Jiang
Pollution: Florig, Jahiel
Energy and environment: Nielsen
Conservation, nature reserves: Dudgeon, Felley
Society’s responses to environmental change: Jiang
Environmental and conservation movements: Connors, Habel,
WellerEnvironmental journalism: Polumbaum
Environmental training within China: Furtado
5. Non-environmental topics
Economic and business history (see also under“Chronological classification”: many of the scholars
listed there are economic as well as environmental
historians): Faure, Lai, Rawski, Wright
Economics: H. Wang
China’s international relations, international business links,
etc.: Cotlar, NielsenElectronic news and information services: Jian, N. Liu
Chinese philosophy/intellectual history: Adler, Bloom, Cheek
Ritual and religion: Johnson
Gender studies, gender history: Barlow, Finnane, Judd, Ko
Other general interest: Kay, Y.B. Miao, Michaud, Shapir________________________________________________
Editorial disclaimer. The Chinese Environmental History
Newsletter is edited by Helen Dunstan, Department ofHistory, Indiana State University. The views expressed in
the newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of the editor.

Page 35