bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Book Reviews
Authors: Ling Peter , Dobrovolny Susanne
Published: June 2007

Dianne Glave and Mark Stoll (eds), To Love the Wind and Rain: African Americans and Environmental History (PETER LING)
Mikko Saikku, This Delta, This Land: An Environmental History of the Yazoo-Mississippi Floodplain (SUSANNE DOBROVOLNY)
Water as a Weapon: The History of Water Supply Development in Nkayi District, Zimbabwe
Authors: Cleaver Frances
Published: June 2007

This paper argues that much historical and political analysis of Zimbabwe neglects a crucial resource: water. Using data from Nkayi district, evidence is presented to show how access to water rather than land has been the critical factor in its settlement and development. Water supplies were provided by the state during the first half of the century to support economic and fiscal policies and to render forced resettlement possible. During the years of struggle preceding and including the Liberation War, control over water was used as a weapon, and this remained a significant issue in the post-Independence period. Examples are offered of people's resistance to such control through non-cooperation in water development activities and the evolution of a culture of minimal water use strongly associated with concepts of solidarity and survival. Finally the implications of this historic legacy for current development initiatives are discussed.
Conservation, Control and Ecological Change: The Politics and Ecology of Colonial Conservation in Shurugwi, Zimbabwe.
Authors: McGregor JoAnn
Published: June 2007

The transformation of rural societies and their strategies of resource use in the colonial period was the outcome of contestation, negotiation and alliance on a number of different levels. Conservation ideas and policies have played an active part in this process, shaping as well as reflecting the nature of colonial rule. Though the appeal of conservation lies in invoking mutual benefits, the history of its implementation in Zimbabwe is one of authoritarianism and discrimination. For settlers, conservation entailed financial and other incentives: for Africans, it entailed coercion and punitive restrictions on resource use. Conservationist alarm provided not only a justification for state intervention, but also a legitimation for using force. Focusing first on official discourse and the conflict which accompanied the passage of early conservation legislation, this article then looks at the different interpretations of the effects of implementation in Shurugwi communal area. Shurugwi was particularly significant because it was the testing ground for early state interventions and was upheld as a model of successful state ‘development’ – a representation which allowed for the (forcible) reproduction of the same policies in different ecological contexts around the country.2 Policies justified as conservationist provoked some of the most widespread rural resistance3 and also created new environmental problems. Where local leaders welcomed state conservation interventions, they often did so for different reasons than those officials intended: adoption was not necessarily an endorsement of the policies’ technical value. As legitimate political authority at local level was tied to maintaining the fertility of the land, disputes over conservation were at the same time struggles over local authority. Such disputes drew on notions of the relationship between nature, community and ancestors which differed significantly from the ‘autonomous’ view of nature enshrined in natural science.4 Although local environmental knowledge is often more detailed and commonly incorporates a more accurate understanding of local conditions than officials’ technical ideas, local as much as official representations of ecological change are embedded in a political, economic and cultural context, and are neither shared nor uncontested.
Local Environmental Conservation Strategies: Karanga Religion, Politics and Environmental Control
Authors: Mukamuri B.B.
Published: June 2007

In southern and central Zimbabwe, religious and political authority is drawn from land guardianship cults. Intellectuals have emphasised the role of these cults in providing communal economic and ecological benefits. Schoffeleers, for example, stated: Territorial cults are rituals to counteract droughts, floods, blights, pests and epidemic disease afflicting cattle and man ... territorial cults function in respect of the well-being of the community, its fields and livestock ... and the general economic interests ... they also issue and enforce directives with regard to a community's use of the environment ... The impact of territorial cults on the ecological system is such that, borrowing Rappaport's phrase, we may justifiably speak of a 'ritually directed ecosystem'.1This article questions Schoffeleers' interpretation. It argues that local religious institutions are used by ruling lineages for political control, to grant preferential access to particular resources and to enhance political hegemony. The symbolism expressed in the rituals and environmental taboos is more powerful than the idiom of 'conservation'. Researchers should be more sceptical when they talk about a 'ritually controlled ecosystem'.
Artists with Axes
Authors: Bonyhady Tim
Published: June 2007

Nineteenth century artists have been widely identified as agents of environmental protection, particularly in the United States. But while their paintings and photographs sometimes helped to secure the protection of particular places, artists often showed little respect for the environment when they set about securing their views. This destructiveness may lie behind even those works which seem to express greatest awe before nature - causing us to reassess both the role of art and our attitude to it.
Man Against the Sea: Natural and Anthropogenic Factors in the Changing Morphology of Harngzhou Bay, circa 1000-1800
Authors: Elvin Mark , Ninghu Su
Published: June 2007

Inner Harngzhou Bay, on the east coast of China at approximately 30 degrees N, is an unstable macrotidal estuarine system whose geographical configuration has altered dramatically over the last thousand years. In particular, the mouth of the Qiartarng river has shifted twice: (1) in 1620 from a southern debouchement just to the north of Mount Kan to a central or mid-bay debouchement south of mount Herzhuang, and (2) in 1692-5 from this central debouchement to approximately its present northern exit. A thousand years ago there was an approximate balance between the deposition of sediments, mostly brought in by the tides from the mouth of the Yarngzii immediately to the north, and their removal by river flow, especially at periods of peak discharge, in conjunction with ebb tides. Human intervention made a major contribution to disrupting this equilibrium by the building of sea-walls, the diversion of rivers, and the reduction of peak discharge, in part by storing water in irrigation systems. The shift of the Yellow River to a predominantly southern course after 1194, and especially the increased discharge of fine-grain sediment at its sea-mouth as the result of hydraulic engineering in 1578-9, also played a part, by increasing the quantity of fine-grain sediments transported southwards down the coast. The committment of both local society and imperial government to complex and costly hydraulic systems in this area created forms of what may be termed 'technological lock-in', in other words a foreclosing of other options on the future use of labour, resources and administrative inputs, though release from the 'lock-in' could also sometimes occur as the result of shifts in the patterns of sediment deposition and erosion that were favourable to human economic interests. The present paper summarises and interprets previous work on the hydrology and hydraulics of this area, presents a preliminary reconstruction of the geographical pattern of change based on historical maps and documents, and outlines some of the analytical problems that will need to be addressed in the future. It also shows that, under certain circumstances, geomorphological change, partly anthropogenic in origin, can affect human social and economic life over relatively short periods (typically tens to hundreds of years). The conclusion is that long-term economic history without environmental history is, at best, lopsided and, at worst, misleading.
Reading Forest History Backwards:The Interaction of Policy and Local Land Use in Guinea's Forest-Savanna Mosaic, 1893-1993
Authors: Fairhead James , Leach Melissa
Published: June 2007

Sophisticated local agricultural and forest management techniques have underlain the creation and maintenance of the main landscape features in Kissidougou Prefecture of Guinea's forest-savanna transition zone. Social anthropological, oral historical, archival and aerial photographic evidence shows how over long periods, peri-village forest islands have been created from savannas, productive rice swamps from inland valleys, and productive upland soil and vegetation conditions from unimproved herbaceous savanna. From 1893, colonial policy was based on reading the region's environmental history backwards, assuming forest islands to be relics of a once-extensive dense humid forest cover which local agriculture and fire-setting had destroyed. Archival evidence shows how the deductions of botanists, agronomists and foresters, coupled with the assumptions of administrators and other visitors, mutually reinforced each other to create and sustain a vision of degradation so pervasive that it still underlies modern environmental policy. The paper examines how colonial and post-colonial policies conceived within this vision have interacted with local land use. Given varying administrative capabilities, it considers the extent to which changes in local practices have been conditioned by policy as opposed to other social, economic, political or ecological changes, and the extent to which environmental changes have fortuitously coincided with policy objectives.
In Our Own Image: The Environment and Society as Global Discourse
Authors: Redclift Michael
Published: June 2007

The environment is clearly shaped by human hands, but it is also shaped by the human mind. The paper examines the way in which the environment is produced, as intellectual capital. It asks about the extent to which the environment can be understood by science and through science. It explores the way in which science, as a cultural form, enables us to construct an environment which is 'manageable', but prevents us from coming to terms with increased uncertainty. Drawing on research about the Canadian frontier in the 1840s and current critiques of environmental economics, the paper concludes by suggesting that research on the global environment should recognise the existence of different, and divergent, understandings of what the global environment is, and how the problems associated with global environmental change can be addressed. This paper is about how the environment is produced. It is about the physical landscape that results from human activities and ingenuity, and the mental landscape that shapes these activities and is shaped by them. It asks whether our environment, any environment, can be understood by science or through science. It explores the way in which our science, as a cultural form, gives rise to our construction of the environment. When I say that the environment is a social construction, what do I mean? Here are some examples: these are the discourses.
Man and the Natural World: Reflections on History and Anthropology
Authors: Goody Jack
Published: June 2007

The efforts of both anthropologists and historians have been weakened by a failure to take into account what the other half were doing. Anthropologists have tended to see nature and culture as too harmoniously related in the simpler societies, overlooking evidence of the kind of ambivalence that is often regarded as typical of later societies. Modern historians, on the other hand, have tended to see new feelings of nature emerging in their chosen period. In Keith Thomas's Man and the Natural World, for example, the idea of development is closely tied to notions of the Enlightenment. A discussion of the cultural history of flowers demonstrates that what seems from a local point of view to be a rapid advance towards the modern may in fact be a catching up with other great traditions, earlier as well as wider.
'Unswept stone, besmeer'd by sluttish time': Air Pollution and Building Stone Decay in Oxford, 1790-1960.
Authors: Viles Heather
Published: June 2007

On 1st January 1790 the Oxford canal finally opened with the arrival in Oxford of 200 tons of cheap coal from the Midlands. This event was one important stimulus to the economic transformation of Oxford from a quiet university and market town to a large commercial and industrial centre. The advent of affordable coal in plentiful supply encouraged economic progress, but at the same time brought a largely silent pollution legacy which is still evident today. In this essay, I wish to argue that the issue of building stone decay induced by air pollution has been a major theme in the recognition of, and reaction to, 'the air pollution nuisance' in Oxford. Changing perceptions of the aesthetic appeal of decayed buildings; opposition to industrial and economic progress; increasing scientific understanding of the decay process; and a concern with conservation and preservation of the historic university centre have all been important strands within the history of air pollution here.
Historical Cadmium and Lead Pollution Studied in Growth Rings of Oak Wood
Authors: Eklund Mats , Bergbäck Bo , Lohm Ulrik
Published: June 2007

Time-defined oak wood segments and soil samples were used as a source of information on the cadmium and lead pollution process induced by the emissions that occurred from 1726 to 1840 around a Swedish alumworks. Trees growing during the time of the emissions contained elevated levels of both cadmium and lead, probably as a result of increased metal concentrations in the atmosphere. Younger trees, which started their growth after the emissions ceased contained no elevated levels of cadmium or lead. The only exception was one tree where the lead concentration of the soil was about 1700 mg/kg in the 10-20 cm layer. A conclusion that can be drawn is that a relatively small increase in the Cd/Pb content of the atmosphere can produce a substantial increase in the Cd/Pb concentrations in the wood. On the other hand, it takes much more Cd/Pb in a soil to produce similar concentrations of Cd/Pb in wood. The lead chronologies of some young trees in the immediate vicinity of the alumworks illustrate the dilution of lead in the environment, displaying decreasing lead concentrations over time. There are still, however, substantial amounts of lead present in the area shown both in the soil and the wood analysis, thereby again emphasising the long duration of lead pollution of an area.
Estimates of Air Pollution in York: 1381-1891
Authors: Hipkins S. , Watts S.F.
Published: June 2007

Plume dispersion modelling has been used to estimate the smoke and sulphur dioxide concentrations for historic York in five individual years, 1381, 1672, 1841, 1851, and 1891. Historical data concerning population, housing, industrial distribution, fuel imports and exports have been used to generate a source matrix for sulphur dioxide and smoke for the model. The general levels of pollutants implied by the results seem to be consistent with changes in York over the time-span studied. Maximum annual average sulphur dioxide concentrations (in central York) range between 10 and 120 mgm3 (1672 and 1861 respectively), and for smoke between 5 and 40 mgm-3 (1381 and 1861 respectively). The main sources of uncertaintity are implicit in the quality of the data set, which in this case due to certain peculiarities of York record keeping is thought to be good. Sensitivity analyses indicates that because the results of this model are estimates of annual average concentrations, they are likely to be relatively insensitive to changes of up to 20% in up to 15% of the source matrix providing the distribution of the errors in the historical data is random.
Environmental Histories of South Asia: A Review Essay
Authors: Rangarajan Mahesh
Published: June 2007

Ecological histories of South Asia are going through a growth phase. Within a few years of the first ecologically informed study of a peasant movement, there has been a welter of fresh monographs. From an initial focus on forests and irrigation, the agenda is also broadening out to include a range of sectors, from small dam systems to urban air pollution, from changing attitudes to fauna to histories of science. Yet, the unifying theme largely remains the nature and significance of the colonial experience. The only overview of the processes of change,
This Fissured Land
, is an ambitious attempt to span centuries and subregions to map the changing patterns of prudence and profligacy in resource use. Two broad themes taken up in the literature will be the focus of this essay: how far colonialism was an ecological watershed, and how producers responded to new pressures. The third issue is of what we can or should learn (or unlearn) from the colonial experience. Such a select reading of themes still omits a large corpus of work, but it can help focus attention on interpretive problems that may well be of wider interest.
The Attitude of Kautilya to Aranya
Authors: Ray Rita Ghosh
Published: June 2007

The Kautiliya Arthasastra is a famous treatise on state-craft which within its state policies includes ecological concerns, implicitly but effectively. The Kautiliya Arthasastra gives a vivid and lively description of different categories of forests. The essence of the text lies in the fact that it makes a clear departure from the Vedic texts and Puranas, where forest is depicted as an abode of demons and a place of exile for unfortunate kings and evil-doers. It is Kautiliya Arthasastra which for the first time stresses the economic importance of forests in the formulation of principles and policies of the state.
Past Environments through Palynology: A Short Appraisal with Reference to the Western Ghats
Authors: Meher-Homji V.M.
Published: June 2007

The science of palynology has proved to be a good tool to reconstruct the past, to build up archaeological scenarios and to record climatic changes during the Holocene period. However, the terms employed to denote climate, like arid and humid, are often used without proper definitions, ignoring intricacies of climate. Sometimes the species whose pollen grains are used as markers of dryness or wetness are themselves not very faithful indicators. In yet other cases the vegetation change registered through pollen spectrum is solely attributed to climate without considering the anthropic interference or other factors of environment like shifts in courses of river or pests and diseases. Taking the Indian region as an example where the spatial and temporal variations of climate are pronounced, the deficiencies in expressing the climate in its multifaceted complex, and in deriving the climate change, are exposed by a critical analysis of two well acclaimed papers on palaeo-palynology.
Colonialism and Professionalism: A German Forester in India
Authors: Saldanha Indra Munshi
Published: June 2007

Professional German foresters played an important role in shaping the course of forest management in India during the last century. It is to Sir Dietrich Brandis that the credit for the introduction of scientific methods of management is given. Brandis introduced seriousness and professionalism into Indian forest administration. But in general for Brandis German forestry served as a model for the establishment of systematic forest management in India. When the above is viewed in the light of the further fact that in Brandis' time the knowledge of tropical forests was extremely limited in Germany, a number of problematic issues emerge. The paper explores Brandis' relation with the British government. From the evidence available, it appears that Brandis often felt constrained by the 'narrow mindedness' and the 'prejudice and ignorance' of the government. It is argued that the systematic forestry introduced in India by Brandis was along the lines of forestry developed in very different social and ecological conditions, and that its development was greatly constrained by colonial interests.
Ghosts of the Past: Where does Environmental History Begin?
Authors: Main A.R.
Published: June 2007

The present environment of Australia represents a palimpsest which records a history of past climates, nutrient poor soils, burning, and increasing aridity. The details of the history are not readily disentangled. The weathering profiles and the nutrient-poor soils associated with their surficial expression may be of great age. Adaptive responses of plants to the nutrient status of the soils may be contemporaneous with and of the same age as the weathering, leaching and initial leached soil formation. Adaptations that developed initially in response to one selective force, e.g., nutrient-poor soils, may subsequently have been co-opted to another purpose such as sclerophylly in resisting wilting during drought, or lignotubers in surviving drought, grazing and burning. The sclerophylly developed by plants in response to nutrient-poor soils makes them fire-prone in the sense of Mutch (1970) which is an adaptation in so far as it promotes sterile ash beds on which seeds germinate free from fungal attack. Present observations cannot readily be used to interpret past environments. In order to infer the nature of past environments it is necessary to consider geological, climatic and weathering histories as well as the physiological development of the structures being used as evidence to infer past environmental conditions. It is argued that the origins of fire adaptations may pre-date the arrival of Aborigines, whose influence on the biota may then have been to produce the patterns observed by the early settlers and to eliminate or winnow out those fire sensitive species unable to cope with their cultural practices. Aboriginal use of fire in cultural and hunting practices has only influenced the biota for about 50,000 years which is too short a time to have influenced the biota other than to eliminate, or winnow out, those elements unable to cope with the fire regimes imposed by their cultural practices.
Environmental History and the Construction of Nature and Landscape: The Case of the 'Landscaping' of the Jutland heath
Authors: Olwig Kenneth R.
Published: June 2007

It is my thesis that the discipline we now know as environmental history owes a great deal of its impetus to the emergence at the beginning of the 19th century of a socially engaged and environmentally committed interdisciplinary 'proto-discipline'. A material conception of nature was of key importance to this environmental history, and thereby to the historically conscious conservation movement which it set in motion. This concept of nature as thing could, however, be (mis)construed to represent a reification which separates humanity from nature. This reification, as will be seen, was problematic because it bore concealed within it older normative concepts of nature, which came to imply environmental determinism as a natural ideal and the alienation from nature of any form of humanity which violated this ideal. This meant that humanity tended to be counterpoised to nature. There is a consequent need today to 'deconstruct' this concept of nature in order to 're-invent', as it were, a conception of nature which maintains the conservation imperative, but which shifts its focus from things to the dynamics of a society-environment relation in which humanity can take a positive and active role. I exemplify my argument by drawing upon a classic case of the intertwining of environmental transformations and changing conceptions of nature: that of the 'landscaping' of the Jutland heath. Even though this analysis is not about Transylvania, a key factor in it proves to be an arcane bond between bats, vampires and the concept of landscape.
Wood and Forestry in German History: In Quest of an Environmental Approach
Authors: Radkau Joachim
Published: June 2007

Environmental history is mostly human history, but, at the same time, should be more than it; that ambiguity causes much theoretical confusion. The author discusses some conceptual problems of environmental history and their effect upon historiographical practice. In connection with that, he comments on several open questions of German forest history: the environmental significance of the many cries of alarm about 'wood famine'; the idea of nature in the course of the history of forestry; the complicated relations between forestry ideas and practice, and the different paths of French and German forestry.
Gender and Environmental History: From Representation of Women and Nature to Gender Analysis of Ecology and Politics
Authors: Leach Melissa , Green Cathy
Published: June 2007

While gender-blindness has characterised much writing on colonial environmental history, women have assumed centre-stage in the historical narratives produced by two linked contemporary policy discourses: ecofeminism, and 'women, environment and development'. Yet the latter's representations are highly problematic, both in simplifying and obscuring important relationships and processes, and in supporting potentially regressive policy agendas. The paper outlines an alternative approach to environmental history grounded in gender analysis. Drawing on well-documented case studies from Africa and India, it shows how a gender approach reveals linkages between ecological processes and relations of labour, property and power critical to understanding environmental change and assessing policy options.
Historical Evidence on the Incidence and Role of Common Property Regimes in the Indian Himalayas
Authors: Baumann P. C.
Published: June 2007

Historical evidence is often used in contemporary debates about future policy to promote particular ideological positions on the role that common property regimes should play. This paper examines these positions and argues that common property regimes in the Indian Himalayas historically provided only one of an interdependent set of production strategies.
The Kwagh-hir of the People of Tiv: a Note on Dramatised History Telling and Constructions of Nature among the Tiv of Southern Nigeria
Authors: Harper Peggy
Published: June 2007

Four million Tiv people form the major culture of the Benue state of southern Nigeria. They are popularly known as the greatest democrats in Africa as their society is based on fraternal cooperation between age mates rather than on authoritative chieftaincy. Men of an age work together on communal farming and house building and celebrate their achievements with feasts famed for the excellence of their music and dance. Their women create amongst the greatest dances in Nigeria within their extended family compounds. Each year, during the dry season, when there is little farm work, the leaders of the dance teams compose songs to record recent experiences and new features in their lives which they express in the rhythms and gestures of their dance. This flare for continuous invention reached great heights of creativity in the Tiv story -telling drama known as the Kwagh-hir.
Environment, Ethnicity and History in Chotanagpur, India, 1850-1970
Authors: Damodaran Vinita
Published: June 2007

The paper has attempted to show the ways in which the recurring image of an older landscape has served as a powerful metaphor in Chotanagpur's resurgence. It directly fuelled protest movements in the late nineteenth century and was part of a new emotive language as a modern political idiom came to be developed by the Jharkhand parties in the twentieth century. The cultural revival signalled by the Janata Mukti Morcha in the 1970s found expression in the festival of the sacred grove which was to become one of the most important markers of Chotanagpuri identity and the site where larger and more powerful hegemonies were constituted, contested and transformed. The paper is also an illustration of the more general problem of historical research and demonstrates the ways in which a post-modern analysis of cultural categories such as ethnicity can be related to the old realities of power politics.
'Potatoes Made of Oil': Eugene and Howard Odum and the Origins and Limits of American Agroecology
Authors: Glen Madison Mark
Published: June 2007

Eugene P. Odum (b. 1913) and Howard T. Odum (b.1924) were at the forefront of the 'new ecology' of ecosystems, in the 1950s and 1960s. As part of their programme the Odums were firmly committed to bringing both natural and human ecosystems into accord with the laws of ecoenergetics (the flow of energy through a system). American agriculture struck the Odums as a particularly egregious violator of all the laws of ecoenergetics and hence a dangerous paradigm for world development. By diagramming American agriculture as a simplified circuit of energy inputs and outputs, the Odums concluded that energy subsidies had created a dangerously unstable system. As a remedy they suggested an end to the Green Revolution and a modification of human society so as to better approach the steady-state of a mature natural ecosystem. To achieve their programme goals the Odums needed to enlist the support of their fellow ecologists and the government. In this attempt the Odums were largely unsuccessful, as the ecological community and the US government largely ignored their attempt to reform agriculture. While the Odums' agroecological language and theories have persisted until the present, they have largely been divested of the brothers' broader programme of bringing the entire human ecosystem into accord with natural laws. By re-examining the social and scientific context of the Odums' early agroecology it may be possible to better evaluate agroecology as both a tool and a social programme.
The Cunning of Unreason and Nature's Revolt: Max Horkheimer and William Leiss on the Domination of Nature
Authors: Denham Helen
Published: June 2007

The domination of nature is a concept now fraught with negative connotations; however, it was not always thus. In this article I explore the positive, neutral, and negative meanings attached to the idea of mastery and domination of nature as it was used by Max Horkheimer, director of the Institute of Social Research from 1931-1959, and by a second generation of the Frankfurt School, William Leiss. At issue are two questions. First, what were the social conditions considered by Horkheimer and Leiss that turned human interaction with and control of non-human nature into an exploitative relationship? And second, what did it mean for them to conceive of non-human nature as an active agent in its own right?
Nature Mastered by Man: Ideology and Water in the Soviet Union
Authors: Stevens Richter Bernd
Published: June 2007

The former Soviet Union suffers from environmental degradation of huge areas and the plundering and misuse of natural resources. Its unfavourable natural geological and climatic preconditions are not the only cause for the frequent environmental catastrophes. Neither can the Marxist ideology nor the lack of competent administrative and technological personnel be solely blamed. Yet the vision of a new kind of society without private ownership, and thus profit interests, of natural resources had promised a utopia of man and nature in harmony. What went wrong? I focus on the complexities of reasons and highlight the intertwining and interdependence of economic, historical, political, ideological, and aesthetic aspects.
The Environmental Crisis and the Tasks of History in Latin America
Authors: Castro Herrera Guillermo
Published: June 2007

The study of history in a sense that can be called 'environmental' is a discipline yet to be created in Latin America. This has become an obstacle that must be overcome if we are to understand better the serious social and environmental deterioration of the region. To this end, Latin American historians must engage in dialogue simultaneously with their own societies and with environmental historians from the North Atlantic world. Collaboration between our societies - so different in so many ways - is essential if we want to survive the global environmental problems created by the world system of which we are both part.
Coping with the Past: Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford and the Regional Museum
Authors: Thomas John L.
Published: June 2007

The pioneer urban and environmental planner, Patrick Geddes, and his American disciple, Lewis Mumford, dismissed the monumental art museum as an outsized emblem of the garrison state, corporate consolidation, and imperial ambition. In its place they proposed the scaled regional museum serving citizens as a 'civic gallery', and teaching them about their history with its roots in the environment. That environment took the shape of the valley section, a middle-ground home to the folk and a bedrock of 'enduring factors' lying deep in their 'vital past'. Geddes and Mumford's legacy at the end of the 20th century is thus one of regional reconstruction, historic preservation, and heightened environmental awareness.
Science and the Desiccationist Discourse of the 20th Century
Authors: Saberwal Vasant K.
Published: June 2007

Recent ecological research has questioned the scientific validity of a number of environmental disaster scenarios, particularly those centred on the causal linkages between deforestation and desertification and intensified flooding. This essay explores the progression of theoretical models and empirical research linked to the understanding of the capacity of forested systems to regulate the hydrological regimes of a given area. Drawing upon writings of American and Indian foresters, I suggest that a diversity of viewpoints with regard to the climatic and protective capabilities of forests, expressed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries gradually gave way to a more unified - and highly alarmist - 'desiccationist' discourse by the middle of the 20th century. This position has been sustained within much of the popular press as well as in the publications of numerous conservation agencies, despite being based on models of forest functioning discredited in the ecological literature since the 1920s. This essay documents this transformation, and explores some of the factors that may have helped in the production of this powerful and lasting discourse on degradation.
Human Factors, Extreme Events and Floods in the Lower Po Plain (Northern Italy) in the 16th Century
Authors: Guidoboni Emanuela
Published: June 2007

Researches on climatic variations in the 16th century have stressed the exceptionality of extreme events, such as large and frequent floods, which are used as indicators of increased rainfall. The case of the lower Po basin, where lack of instrumental data renders the concept of exceptionality complex and relative, shows that this is not necessarily valid. There, various human factors determined a high environmental vulnerability. Since the lower Po Plain was a 'man-made' environment, past extreme events must be evaluated in strict relation with the territory's character. Thus the increase in floods constitutes a 'weak' indicator for an increase in rainfall.
The Politics of Conservation in France in the 19th Century
Authors: Matagne Patrick
Published: June 2007

Everything concerning the domain of nature conservation is rich in paradoxes and contradictory interests: the romantic ideal; the established scientific facts; economical and colonial interests; patriotic feelings; moral, ethical and asthetic arguments. I will endeavour to show how French conservation policies in the 19th century interpreted these conflicts and paradoxes through three important issues: i) the protection of landscapes; ii) the protection of animal and vegetable species; and iii) nature conservation in the colonies.
Potash Production in Northern Sweden: History and Ecological Effects of a Pre-industrial Forest Exploitation
Authors: Östlund L. , Zackrisson O. , Strotz H.
Published: June 2007

Potash (potassium carbonate; K2CO3) was one of the most important industrial chemicals in Europe prior to the 20th century. It was obtained from wood-ash from broadleaved trees, which was refined in several steps into the pure chemical. The production primarily took place in the periphery of Europe, in Russia and in the United states. In Sweden, potash was produced in the southern parts on a larger scale from the 17th century. In northern Sweden the production started in the early 19th century, reached considerable proportions within a few decades, and then ceased completely in the 1860s. The trees used were primarily birches ( Betula pubescens and B. pendula ). Previous research on the subject of Swedish potash production has concluded that the production ceased due to shortage of raw material. Through studies of historical records and experimental potash production we challenge these conclusions. In our opinion potash production in northern Sweden lost out to German producers who started to produce potash industrially at the same time that production in northern Sweden ceased. The ecological significance of the potash production is difficult to estimate, primarily because the impact caused by this form of forest exploitation is obscured by subsequent logging and other human activities. Nevertheless, the removal of large old broadleaved trees was one important step in the large-scale transformation of the forest landscape which has influenced the structure and function of north Swedish forest ecosystems.
Land Improvement or Institutionalised Destruction? The Ringbarking Controversy, 1879-1884, and the Emergence of a Conservation Ethic in New South Wales
Authors: Stubbs Brett J.
Published: June 2007

Ringbarking, as a means of destroying trees, was known and practised from the earliest years of British settlement in New South Wales. The practice became controversial as it accelerated across the pastoral lands of the colony from the 1870s. This controversy was mainly the result of fears that ringbarking, carried out speculatively by pastoral lessees, might defeat the object of the land settlement policy of the colony. Parliament responded by enacting legislation to regulate the ringbarking of trees on Crown lands, and in so doing provided a forum for the expression of a wide range of contemporary attitudes towards deforestation. These ranged from the mundane questions of pasture improvement and timber destruction, to the loftier issue of climate deterioration. Examination of these attitudes, as expressed principally in the parliamentary debates in connection with the Ringbarking on Crown Lands Regulation Act 1881, reveals the emergence in late-nineteenth century New South Wales of a vibrant conservation ethic. This opposed, albeit unequally, the environmental exploitation or 'development' ethic which continued for many decades thereafter to dominate the relationship between nature and human culture in the colony.
On the Margins of the Littoral Society: The New South Wales South Coast since 1945
Authors: Brown Nicholas
Published: June 2007

Since the end of World War II the south coast of New South Wales has moved from relative isolation and a declining pastoral economy to being an area of rapid growth, registering the changing social and cultural patterns of urban Australia and becoming the site for a range of national environmental and indigenous rights controversies. This article focuses on the dynamics of this centre-margin relationship, with particular attention to the overlaying of successive histories and sensibilities, and the forms of environmental advocacy these processes have produced.
Kafka in the Forest: A Personal Note on Monga Forest and Contemporary History in New South Wales
Authors: Herbst Peter
Published: June 2007

After some years of absence, I found myself again active in the Australian conservation movement. A forest was to be razed, not far from where this is being written, for a relatively small yield of saw-planks. Not many species were needed; the rest simply got into the way. Access could only be vouchsafed by destroying some relatively rare and ecologically significant plants and damaging the soils and waterways. It is true that the foresters promised to respect the pockets of temperate rainforest which survive in that region. But past experience made us chary to accept their word. Besides, protection was offered only to patches of forest which exceeded a certain size. Under this rule, much of what seemed precious was likely to disappear. As an environmental group we also sought to protect the headwaters of the Mongarlowe River from pollution and siltation. The problems which I should like to discuss have arisen in the context of a conservation battle. There are many such battles; ours is not unique. But here we are concerned with politics and administration rather than with forest ecology. The problems arising out of the daily tasks of a campaign committee are here interwoven with some personal reflections about the state.
The Coming of Age to Australian Forests
Authors: Dargavel John
Published: June 2007

The concept of 'old-growth' has gained public recognition and political force in Australia where government agencies are engaged in mapping its distribution. Its curious definition has stimulated an examination of how forest age has come to be constructed over the period since the white invasion in 1788. The paper examines age as a parameter in colonial and recent science. It then recounts attempts to impose an ordered progression of age classes on the forests of Victoria and Queensland according to the classical principles of forestry transmuted through an imperial model. Forest age is discussed first during the boom period of the 1950s and 1960s, and then as an indicator during the environmental era of the 1970s to the present. Old-growth became an icon of environmental campaigns which had to be defined before it could be delineated. The final part of the paper reports the varying perceptions and values held in Australia about forest age.
European Farming, Australian Pests: Agricultural Settlement and Environmental Disruption in Australia, 1800-1920
Authors: Frost Warwick
Published: June 2007

Generally studies of European settlement in Australia have focused on exotic pests. Such an approach has tended to characterise Australian flora and fauna as weak and unable to cope with the environmental disruption resulting from the introduction of European farming. However, in this article, which considers the settlement of the high-rainfall forests of Eastern Australia, it is argued that the main pests were indigenous not exotic. In the crucial first few years the settlers encountered unexpected higher costs due to forest regrowth, insect plagues, crop-eating birds and marsupials and native predators.
Radical Ecology and Conservation Science: An Australian Perspective
Authors: Robin Libby
Published: June 2007

Histories of environmentalism in Australia often overlook the 1950s, an era when scientific ecology dominated environmental activism. The political work of A.B. Costin in the CSIRO Alpine Ecology Unit in the Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, is examined closely as an example of how a scientist working within the limited institutional structures available to ecologists was able to defend natural areas against formidable odds. The successes of the 1950s established the credibility of science and scientists in conservation matters in the 1960s and later. When radical environmentalism emerged in the late 1970s, many scientific ecologists were angry or hurt about the fact that they became distanced from political power, and some have adopted backlash positions as a result. The history of the involvement of scientific ecologists in political activism in the 1950s sheds light on their reactions to radical environmentalism as it emerged later.
The Municipal Regulation of Smoke Pollution in Liverpool, 1853-1866
Authors: Hawes Richard
Published: June 2007

Overcrowding and epidemic disease helped to promote tremendous municipal sanitary activity in Liverpool from the late 1840s, including an attempt to limit smoke pollution. A smoke prevention committee supervised the work of two specialist inspectors and maintained detailed minutes. These show how councillors decided that 'black smoke' was preventable. The council offered advice on smokeless fuels, furnace design, and other improvements, but much time was spent confirming the prosecution of offenders. Appearing before the magistrates were not only the owners of steamships, glass factories, bakeries and breweries, but also poor law officers, hospital workers and the council's employees. Prominent individuals such as David and Charles McIver, founders of the Cunard Company, and Henry Tate also appear. Although public health matters explains some of this involvement, the need to protect the city's new public buildings was more frequently emphasised. Sadly, the end of the minutes in 1866 makes it difficult to discover the duration of such regulation, and by the late nineteenth century, Liverpool was becoming notorious for its polluted atmosphere.
Historical and Applied Perspectives on Prehistoric Land Use in Eastern North America
Authors: Peacock Evan
Published: June 2007

Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, many scientists continue to ignore prehistoric human impact as a factor in the development of ecosystems in eastern North America. One result is the promulgation of an 'Indian as natural conservationist' mythos in the popular media. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that prehistoric human activities caused significant environmental alteration in many parts of the region. The location, timing, and severity of such alteration varied greatly, suggesting that scientists must become familiar with the archaeological record on human/land interaction at the local level. Misinformation can lead to naive justifications for conservation or other land management activities. It is argued that archaeological data pertain to current theoretical concerns in ecology, such as establishing greater temporal depth in ecosystem studies and investigating the evolution of mosaic-type landscapes. Archaeology can also be used in raising the public environmental consciousness.
Restoring the Countryside: George Perkins Marsh and the Italian Land Ethic (1861-1882)
Authors: Hall Marcus
Published: June 2007

G.P. Marsh wrote his monumental Man and Nature (1864) almost entirely in Italy, where he drew heavily from Italian insights and Italian landscapes. While warning about the human propensity to degrade nature, he also maintained hope in the human ability to restore nature. In Italy, as in the United States, Marsh's writings helped stimulate discussion leading to major new land-use policies; generally preservationist measures in the U.S. and restorationist measures in Italy. The novelty and urgency of Marsh's messages depended upon contrasting Old and New World traditions of land management.
Abruzzo National Park: Land of Dreams
Authors: Sievert James
Published: June 2007

After centuries of seclusion, Pescasseroli and the upper Sangro River valley in Italy's central Apennine Mountains began opening to the world in the early twentieth century. Spearheading the drive was Ermino Sipari, cousin of the famous philosopher Benedetto Croce. Both Sipari and Croce, who was born in Pescasseroli, believed the natural world could bring great material and cultural benefits to the local population. All it would take was a proper land management structure. After a decade of debate in government, in the press, and in conservation circles, the result was the inauguration of Abruzzo National Park in 1922.