bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Public Attitudes to Contingent Valuation and Public Consultation1
Authors: Brouwer Roy , Powe Neil , Turner R. Kerry , Bateman Ian J. , Langford Ian H.
Published: June 2007

The use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in environmental decisionmaking and the contingent valuation (CV) technique as input into traditional CBA to elicit environmental values in monetary terms has stimulated an extensive debate. Critics have questioned the appropriateness of both the method and the technique. Some alternative suggestions for the elicitation of environmental values are based on a social process of deliberation. However, just like traditional economic theory, these alternative approaches may be questioned on their implicit value judgements regarding the legitimacy of the social-political organisation of the process of value elicitation. Instead of making assumptions a priori, research efforts should be focused on the processes by which actual public attitudes and preferences towards the environment can best be elicited and fed into environmental or other public policy decision-making. In the study presented in this paper, support was found for both the individual WTP based approach and a participatory social deliberation approach to inform the environmental decision-making process, suggesting that a combination of both approaches is most appropriate.
Emotion, Science and Rationality: The Case of the Brent Spar
Authors: Huxham Mark , Sumner David
Published: June 2007

In June 1995, a campaign by Greenpeace forced the multinational oil company Shell to cancel its planned disposal of a redundant oil installation in the Atlantic. The Brent Spar incident attracted massive publicity and was influential in changing government policy on marine disposal of waste. During and following their campaign, Greenpeace were criticised as emotive and irrational by Shell and academic scientists. This paper looks at the arguments used during the debate, using literature, interviews and questionnaires. We investigate the use of key environmental words and phrases and ask what is meant by rationality in this context. We discuss some of the lessons that should be learnt from the incident by policy makers and scientists.
The Disparate Roots of Voluntary Modesty
Authors: Librová Hana
Published: June 2007

The effective solution of environmental problems calls for changes in levels of consumption. Sociologists have described moderation in households of high socio-economic status in affluent countries, and also a type of modesty which cannot be a response to the experience of abundance. However, its essence is not the way of life of a traditional community. Sustainable living based on self-restraint could be considered to be a symptom of the summit of cultural evolution to date. Nevertheless, historical experience warns us against making too much of contemporary cases of moderation.
Humans Valuing Nature: Synthesising Insights from Philosophy, Psychology and Economics
Authors: Lockwood Michael
Published: June 2007

A rational process for assessment of environmental policy options should be based on an appreciation of how humans value nature. Increased understanding of values will also contribute to the development of appropriate ways for us to relate to and manage natural areas. Over the past two decades, environmental philosophers have examined the notion that there is an intrinsic value in nature. Economists have attempted to define and measure the market and nonmarket economic values associated with decisions concerning natural areas. Psychologists have tried to assess the extent to which people believe in an intrinsic value in nature, and have also begun to work with economists to improve nonmarket valuation techniques. I briefly review the contributions made to our understanding of natural area value by environmental philosophy, psychology and economics, and develop a model that integrates insights from these disciplines. Components in the model include cognitions, held values, assigned values and various modes of value expression. I make recommendations for future validation, development and use of the model.
The Development of Environmental Thinking in Economics
Authors: Spash Clive L.
Published: June 2007

There has always been a sub-group of established economists trying to convey an environmental critique of the mainstream. This paper traces their thinking into the late 20th century via the development of associations and journals in the USA and Europe. There is clearly a divergence between the conformity to neo-classical economics favoured by resource and environmental economists and the acceptance of more radical critiques apparent in ecological economics. Thus, the progressive elements of ecological economics are increasingly incompatible with those practising neo-classical environmental economics who try to reduce all concepts to fit within the confines of their models. A group of people can be identified who teach that ecological economics is nothing more than a name for the link between mainstream economics and ecology. A new movement and paradigm are unnecessary for such ends. This viewpoint is argued to be inconsistent with the roots and ideas of the ecological economics movement. Ecological economics is seen here to be synthesising various types of economics (e.g., socialist, institutional, environmental) and moving back to explicit inclusion of ethical issues in the mode of classical political economy. This inevitably means rediscovering neglected past works and exploring new ways of thinking about socio-economics and the environment.
Nature is Already Sacred
Authors: Milton Kay
Published: June 2007

Environmentalists often argue that, in order to address fundamentally the harmful impact of their activities on the environment, western industrial societies need to change their attitude to nature. Specifically, they need to see nature as sacred, and to acknowledge that humanity is a part of nature rather than separate from it. In this paper, I seek to show that these two ideas are incompatible in the context of western culture. Drawing particularly on ideas expressed by western conservationists, I argue that nature is already seen as sacred, and that its sacredness depends on it being seen as separate from humanity, an idea which effectively contradicts the scientific knowledge on which many conservationists base their actions. Goodin's green theory of value is used as a source of ideas about why non-human nature is experienced as sacred, and can be extended to suggest that other values, such as ‘development’ and ‘progress’, are also seen as sacred.
Environmental Thought as Cosmological Intervention
Authors: Greenbaum Allan
Published: June 2007

An important tradition in popular and academic environmentalist thought concentrates on cosmological issues, to do with overarching (or underlying) views about the nature of reality and the place of humanity in nature. This tradition connects the environmental crisis with anthropocentric and mechanistic cosmologies, and tries to address this crisis through cosmological critique and reconstruction – a practice I call ‘cosmological intervention’. This practice presupposes a link between ‘world view’ and ‘ethos’. I argue that an environmentalist ethos does not necessarily or automatically follow from the world view elements propounded in cosmological interventions. Rather, world view symbolises ethos. Cosmologies favoured by environmentalists describe the abstract and necessary properties of the world in ways which reflect those concrete and contingent properties of the world that the ecology movement seeks to protect, extend and celebrate.
Silencing Philosophers: Minteer and the Foundations of Anti-foundationalism
Authors: Callicott J. Baird
Published: June 2007

In ‘No Experience Necessary: Foundationalism and the Retreat from Culture in Environmental Ethics’, Ben A. Minteer forgivably misconstrues my critique of moral pluralism. Contrary to Minteer's representation: I do not accuse moral pluralists of ‘moral promiscuity'; nor do I posit a ‘master principle’ to govern all human action respecting the environment; and although I offer conceptual foundations for environmental ethics, I do not claim that they rest on certain, a priori, and non-empirical intuitions. Rather, the conceptual foundations I offer for environmental ethics are largely scientific. Contrary to Minteer's representation: I do consider a multiplicity of contexts in which ethical actions are situated; and I do respectfully attend to and creatively engage a variety of cultural points of view, both western and nonwestern, in constructing environmental ethics. Anti-foundationalists, such as Minteer and Bryan G. Norton, ironically pose an insidious threat to democratic discussion and debate of environmental values, because they themselves posit, but do not frankly acknowledge, foundational beliefs.
The Origins, Development and Legacy of Scientific Forestry in Cameroon.
Authors: Lanz Tobias J.
Published: June 2007

The influence of scientific forestry in southwestern Cameroon (today Southwest Province) is examined. A brief overview of the pre-colonial and German colonial periods (1885-1916) is provided to describe the beginnings of scientific forestry and how German ideas and institutions formed the foundation for subsequent forest policies. The main focus is on British rule (1916-1940), the period in which modern forestry expanded rapidly. The final section focuses on the intellectual 'construction' of scientific forestry and how the modern legacy continues to influence current forest policies and practices.
On the Contribution of Environmental History to Current Debate and Policy
Authors: Dovers Stephen R.
Published: June 2007

This article proposes a strong role for environmental history in informing current policy and debate in the policy field of sustainability (or, sustainable development). The policy agenda of sustainability is noted, and the unique attributes of these policy problems identified. A three part 'typology of relevance' is proposed, comprising general historical perspectives, ecological and human baselines, and direct policy and institutional lessons. The idea of more immediate lessons is discussed further, with some indicative examples drawn from Australia. Environmental history is argued to have potential as an antidote to policy amnesia and ad hocery. Furthermore, if environmental history is to prosper, then environmental historians must construct explicit connections with pressing current issues.
Modern Forestry and Enclosure: Elitist State Science against Communal Management and Unrestricted Privatisation in Spain, 1855-1900
Authors: Sala Pere
Published: June 2007

The subject matter of the paper is the role played by the State Forestry Services in the making of western liberal societies in the 19th century. The Spanish Law of common lands reduction (1855) ordered the Forester Corps (Public Works Department) to prepare a survey of grazing lands, scrublands and woodlands to be sold and the ones to be retained. High mountain zones were excluded from the auctions because of their hydrogeological functions. Villages maintained the ownership of this area, but they lost the traditional autonomous management, which was transferred with sharp conflicts to the new government employees. Nevertheless, the State civil service was not monolithic. The Ministry of Finance encouraged the sale of villages land properties with the aim of repaying the public debt (the State confiscated 20 per cent of value at auction). The Ministry of Public Works wanted to keep public ownership. Forest engineers strongly fought against privatisation in the second half of the 19th century. I support the thesis that the New Silviculture reinforced an autonomous trend opposed to unrestricted land privatisation that the Liberal State could not ignore. It was an elitist social-scientific response to the ecological dangers (to be derived from unrestricted free market) with the goals of corporatism and of protecting global society and economy.
Sacred Groves and Conservation: The Comparative History of Traditional Reserves in the Mediterranean Area and in South India
Authors: Chandran M.D. Subash , Hughes J. Donald
Published: June 2007

Sacred groves in the ancient Mediterranean are compared with surviving groves of South India, particularly Uttara Kannada, to evaluate the roles of these refugia in maintaining balance between human groups and the ecosystems of which they are part. In the Mediterranean written records survive, and archaeological investigation provides some information. In South India, the authors observed a living if declining tradition which has persisted for millennia among village people. There data come from field surveys, folk traditions, historical documents and literature.
Empire Forestry and American Environmentalism
Authors: Barton Gregory A.
Published: June 2007

This article examines the influence of empire forestry on the environmental movement in the United States. It particularly examines the British Indian forestry exemplar, and traces its influence on environmental thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Three central American foresters, Franklin B. Hough, Charles Sargent and Gifford Pinchot, are examined to illustrate the link between empire forestry and the massive forest reservations that mark the beginning of modern environmental movement in the United States.
The Bureaucratisation of Forest Management in India
Authors: Schug Donald M.
Published: June 2007

Reform and reorientation are words often heard today within government forest administrations. Efforts to change, however, are seldom accompanied by any analysis of the nature and origins of forest bureaucracies and how their structures may resist reform. This paper employs the case of India's forest administration to illustrate how the political-economic environment, authoritarianism and internal culture have militated against forest conservation and the incorporation of rural interests in forest management.
'Annihilating Natural Productions': Nature's Economy, Colonial Crisis and the Origins of Brazilian Political Environmentalism (1786-1810)
Authors: Padua Jose Augusto
Published: June 2007

The article analyses the trajectory of a group of Brazilian intellectuals from1786 to 1810, who inaugurated a systematic critique of the environmental damage caused by colonial economy in Brazil, especially forest destruction and soil erosion. These authors, schooled in the culture of the Enlightenment, adopted a theoretical framework centred on physiocratic economic doctrine and the 'nature's economy' encoded by Linnaeus. Their focus was political, anthropocentric, and pragmatic. They defended the natural milieu on the basis of its importance for the survival and progress of Brazilian society. Waste and destruction of natural resources were attributed to the rudimentary technologies and social practices inherited from the colonial system. They proposed an overall modernisation policy as the road to overcoming environmental degradation in the country.
'The grievous mistakes of the Vanikoro concession':

The Vanikoro Kauri Timber Company, Solomon Islands, 1926-1964
Authors: Bennett Judith A.
Published: June 2007

The British Solomon Islands Protectorate government, in the 1910s, encouraged logging operations on Vanikolo in order to diversify the economy and extend government control in the easternmost islands. The Vanikoro Timber Company began operations in 1926 without any reforestation clause included in its licence. Problems with the assessment of royalties on trees felled in the 1930s drew the attention of the Colonial Office to this. Little could be done to change the original agreement, but the British administration halted any major extension of logging until a Forestry Department could oversee a sustainable extraction regime, including reforestation, in the 1960s. The logging company, working under difficult conditions in an isolated area, was never a financial success and finally closed in 1964 when cheaper timbers became readily available on the Australian market. The Vanikolo people remained ambivalent towards the company, valuing its presence as a pathway to the wider world, but often resisting extension of its demands on the island's resources.
From Floods to Reforestation: The Forest Transition in Switzerland
Authors: Mather A.S , Fairbairn J.
Published: June 2007

The forest area in Switzerland has been expanding for more than one hundred years, after a long period of contraction culminating in an apparently accelerated phase of deforestation in the first half of the 19th century. The nature and causes of this transition from net deforestation to net reforestation are considered. It is concluded that the perception of a resource crisis played a key role, but also that various passive factors facilitated an end of deforestation and the beginning of reforestation. The question of the comparability of the Swiss case to that of modern developing countries currently experiencing rapid deforestation is considered.
Deforestation, Erosion, and Fire: Degradation Myths in the Environmental History of Madagascar
Authors: Kull Christian A.
Published: June 2007

Mention of the island nation of Madagascar conjures up images of exotic nature, rampant deforestation, and destructive erosion. Popular descriptions of the island frequently include phrases such as 'ecological mayhem' or 'barren landscape'. This paper compares this common wisdom and conservation rhetoric about the environmental history of Madagascar with the results of recent research by paleoecologists and others. Deforestation and erosion, while very real trends, are exaggerated due to mistaken ideas about pre-settlement forest extent and the eye-catching red soils and erosion gullies. The role of fire, principal tool of landscape change and pasture maintenance, is unnecessarily demonised. Blame is placed on the Malagasy people and problems of poverty and population growth, ignoring economic interests, historical political contexts, community politics, and the potential of the people to manage their resources positively. Finally, drawing from the recent school of thought that recognises the role of narratives, discourses, and representations in the politics of conservation, this paper concludes by illustrating the political nature of the oft-repeated story of environmental degradation in Madagascar.
The Cultural Enframing of Nature: Environmental Histories during the Early German Romantic Period
Authors: Steigerwald Joan
Published: June 2007

The introduction of histories of nature in the late eighteenth century posed the epistemological problem of how to bring the diversity of empirical laws into theoretical unity. Whilst Goethe and Humboldt argued for the possibility of objective histories of nature through modes of disciplined perception, Schelling emphasised the inevitable subjectivity of such histories and the impossibility of displaying visually or instrumentally the internal processes generating manifest forms. Each of these three figures used different technologies of representation to produce their environmental histories. But all three gave a central role to aesthetic judgment in representing their view of a unified history of nature.
Human-Environment Relationships in the Pacific Islands around A.D. 1300.
Authors: Nunn Patrick D. , Britton James M.R.
Published: June 2007

This paper traces the history of human-environment interactions in the Pacific Islands during the last millennium, focusing on three main periods: the Little Climatic Optimum, the Little Ice Age, and, in greatest detail, the transition around A.D. 1300 between the two. The Little Climatic Optimum (approximately A.D. 750-1300) was marked by warm, rising temperatures, rising sea level and probably increasing aridity. The latter condition was linked to development of water-conservatory strategies (agricultural terracing being the most common) requiring cooperation between human groups which facilitated formation of large nucleated settlements and increased sociopolitical complexity. The transition period (approximately A.D. 1270-1475) involved rapid temperature and sea-level fall, perhaps a short-lived precipitation increase. Temperature fall stressed crops and reef organisms, sea-level fall lowered water tables and exposed reef surfaces reducing their potential as food resources for coastal dwellers. Increased precipitation washed away exposed infrastructure. Consequently food resource bases on many islands diminished abruptly across the transition. The Little Ice Age (approximately A.D. 1300-1800) was marked by cooler temperatures and lower sea levels. The lingering effects of the earlier transition largely determined human lifestyles during this period. Conflict resulted from resource depletion. Unprotected coastal settlements were abandoned in favour of fortified inland, often upland, settlements.Climate change is suggested to have been a important determinant of human cultural change during the last millennium in the Pacific Islands.
From 'Useless Brutes' to National Treasures: A Century of Evolving Attitudes towards Native Fauna in New South Wales, 1860s to 1960s
Authors: Stubbs Brett J.
Published: June 2007

The emergence of native fauna as a theme in conservation is used to explore the changing relationship between nature and human culture in late nineteenth century and early to mid-twentieth century Australia. Ideas about fauna conservation are traced through a century-long stream of protective legislation and associated parliamentary debate in the colony of New South Wales. During this period, animal protection legislation evolved in purpose from the protection of introduced game in the 1860s, to the protection of native birds, and eventually to the protection of other native fauna, particularly marsupials. In doing so, it conflicted with laws which encouraged the destruction of marsupials in the interests of agricultural and pastoral production.
Property Rights, Development Policy and Depletion of Resources: The Case of the Central Rainlands of Sudan, 1940s-1980s
Authors: Kibreab Gaim
Published: June 2007

Based on a case study of the Central Rainlands of Sudan, the paper challenges the assumptions and principles underlying the tragedy of the commons model and the property rights paradigm with regard to sustainability of resources owned in common. In the particular experience of the Sudan, and this is generally true of many developing countries, state interference in customary tenurial rights rather than communal property rights has been the ultimate cause of open access conditions of use and consequently of resource depletion.
The Farmer and the Bushman
Authors: Read Peter , Wyndham Marivic
Published: June 2007

We identify two distinct forms of masculinity, Australian and Cuban. The first is best expressed in the nineteenth century bushman's ballads, which celebrated wandering, mateship, independence of bosses, sardonic acceptance of fate, the absence of women and uninterest in the physical landscape. The values of the Cuban guajiro or rural labourer, expressed in the songs of the first half of the twentieth century, celebrated permanence, individualism, a heroic acceptance of fate, the presence of women and a deep attachment to the physical landscape. The differing physical landscapes, the one arid and unforgiving, the other lush and productive, compounded their British and Spanish cultural origins to create two powerful rhetorics of manhood. Both men and their rhetoric were overtaken, then transformed, by political and environmental developments which were not of their choosing.
Beyond Local, Natural Ecosystems: Introduction
Authors: van Dam Petra J.E.M.
Published: June 2007

Editorial introduction to special issue of Environment and History on the theme 'Beyond local, natural ecosystems'.
Three Centuries of Whaling and Walrus Hunting in Svalbard and its Impact on the Arctic Ecosystem
Authors: Hacquebord Louwrens
Published: June 2007

During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries tens of thousands of Greenland right whales and thousands of Atlantic walruses were killed as a result of extensive whaling and walrus hunting in the waters of Svalbard. In this article whaling and walrus hunting and their impact on the environment is reconstructed. Annual catch records and shipping logs made it possible to calculate the original size of the populations and to reconstruct their original migration in the Greenland Sea. Their ultimate elimination made huge quantities of plankton and shellfish available for other marine mammals, polar cod and plankton-feeding birds.
On Cattle and Ships: Culture, History and Sustainable Development in Panama
Authors: Castro Herrera Guillermo
Published: June 2007

During the 20th century, two different ways of relating with nature interacted in Panama. In the Canal Zone, under control of the United States from 1903 to 1977, great emphasis was given to the conservation of water for the operation of the waterway, and forests for its military protection. In the South-west of the country, extensive cattle raising, present since the 16th century, expanded rapidly, partly as a result of demand from the Canal Zone and its surroundings. The future interactions between the two areas, now under one nation-state, is an issue of key importance for sustainable development in Panama.
War, Emergency and the Environment: Fiji, 1939-1946
Authors: Bennett Judith A.
Published: June 2007

When World War Two broke out, Fiji's colonial administration assumed emergency powers to marshal the civilian population to produce goods and services for the war effort, particularly the support of American and New Zealand military personnel based there during 1942-43. This context of emergency framed land legislation revision, enabling the government at times to deal in a high-handed manner in resuming Fijian leased land for native reserves, mainly from Indian tenants. The added population and wartime construction placed extensive demands on Fiji's resources, inducing environmental changes. The government as well as the various racial groups in Fiji were largely unconcerned with this unless the degradation was obvious, threatening the well-being of the human population.
Mountain Forest Policy in Austria: A Historical Policy Analysis on Regulating a Natural Resource
Authors: Weiss Gerhard
Published: June 2007

Employing a policy analysis framework, this paper inquires into the role institutions played in regulating mountain forests in different political-institutional eras in Austria. Theories from political sciences and environmental history are used for a critical re-analysis of forest historical literature. The analysis finds that the Austrian forest policy is better explained by the historical importance of fuel wood and timber production (pre-industrial time and early industrialisation) than by the goal of securing the multiple values of mountain forests for the public. Since the mid-nineteenth century the forest administration has been aware of those values, but the formulation and implementation of forest regulations rather serves the interests of powerful groups. This is the case for the sustained yield doctrine which promotes economic development, and likewise for the regulation of protective forests in the interest of railways. The installation of a strong forest authority in the mountainous provinces was justified by the protective effects of mountain forests (in politics as well as in the scientific literature). However, it seems that the small forest owners were simply unable to organise effectively against supervision. Forest uses have been governed by local commons, by absolutist regimes and by the market economy, together with State regulations. The changes in forest regulation over time show that institutional settings shape the perception of problems and the conception of solutions. However, institutional transitions do not take place overnight: different institutional concepts may coexist at the same time and institutions may adapt to problem situations.
Timber Trade on the Malabar Coast, c. 1780-1840
Authors: Mann Michael
Published: June 2007

State formation in south-west India at the end of the 18th century led to heavy exploitation of natural resources, particularly of the hardwood timbers of Travancore, Malabar, and Kanara. These were either used as articles for export or as building materials for the construction of ships at local port towns. Over centuries, the Malabarian timber merchants had developed trading structures that turned out to be resistant to any attempts to transform them according to the needs of a new ruler. In particular, from the 1790s onwards the British colonial regime tried hard to restructure the well-organised trading system. But ultimately the British failed, because they had neither the power nor the means to pursue such a policy in the long run. On the contrary, at the beginning of the 19th century the authorities in Bombay had to adapt to the social and economic realities in the Malabar province and the adjacent country. The Malabarian local 'agency' remained resistant to the British regime until at least the middle of the 19th century.
The Conservation and Utilisation of the Natural World: Silviculture in the Cape Colony, c. 1902-1910
Authors: Brown Karen
Published: June 2007

The period between the culmination of the South African War in May 1902 and the Union of South Africa eight years later witnessed a significant phase in the development of the Cape's Forestry Department. The Colony's scientific foresters articulated a rhetoric of crisis, based on the assumption that global timber supplies were almost exhausted, in order to encourage politicians to take action to forestall an impending disaster. After the War, the conservation and extension of the country's dwindling woodlands was promoted as a key political issue by Jameson's Progressive Party, which held office from February 1904 to February 1908. The organisation of the Forest Department and the work it performed became the subject of government investigations in an endeavour to achieve silvatic self-sufficiency through the application of more systematic and scientific land management procedures. As a consequence, the Department was centralised under the Chief Conservator of Forests and nationally based conservation programmes, based on German precedents, were put into place. Protecting the trees and encouraging sustainability of yield involved the imposition of restrictions on felling and access to woodlands. This paper explores the ideology of forest conservation and the evolution of silviculture in the post bellum Cape, as well as the socio-economic impact of these policies, focusing in particular on African populations residing in the Eastern Cape and the impoverished woodcutters from the Knysna Forests.
The Limits of Agricultural Growth in the Nineteenth Century: A Case Study from the Mediterranean World
Authors: González de Molina Manuel
Published: June 2007

This paper examines the incidence of environmental factors in the economic growth experienced by the Spanish agricultural sector during the 19th century. Using the principle of Coevolution between Nature and Society, this paper aims to verify a fundamental hypothesis which, in our view, suggest a new way of looking at the past of Mediterranean agriculture and its late incorporation into the more advanced agricultural world. The traditional view considers the low yield per hectare of the main cereals to be an indication of the relative backwardness of Southern Spanish agriculture, here the importance of environmental factors is asserted, at least until its complete transformation into an industrial-type agriculture, based on fossil fuels. Here, the relative backwardness will be explained not only by deficiencies in productivity, capital investment or diffusion of new technology, but principally by the comparative ecological disadvantages that areas such as Andalusia had in comparison with Northern Europe, if an agricultural growth based on cereals were to be chosen.
Did they Really Hate Trees? Attitudes of Farmers, Tourists and Naturalists towards Nature in the Rainforests of Eastern Australia.
Authors: Frost Warwick
Published: June 2007

Feelings of hatred, fear and alienation towards the Australian environment have been amongst the major themes of Australian history. Farmers especially have been characterised as hating trees, particularly in the densely treed, difficult to clear rainforests of eastern Australia. In contrast, in recent years there has been consideration of nineteenth and early twentieth century tourists, naturalists and artists taking delight in these same rainforests. Generally characterised as having urban sentiments, they have been portrayed as in stark opposition to their rural counterparts. Such a clear-cut division seems too absolute. This paper presents evidence of farmers who greatly appreciated the rainforests. Attempting to preserve rainforests, they failed in some cases, but in others were successful. In some instances, farmers were keen naturalists and in others they gradually evolved into tourism operators.
Extreme Weather and the Energy Metabolism of the City
Authors: Murphy Raymond
Published: June 2007

This study uses a critical realist perspective to investigate relations between social constructions and the dynamics of nature. The material metabolism of the modern city is based on the redeployment of the processes of nature. This redeployment provides energy for anabolic processes in which complex social and physical hybrids (heating, lighting, transportation, communication, water-supply systems and climate-controlled micro-environments) are built from simpler structures. Massive energy flows of nature can, however, confront the city, unleashing catabolic reactions in which complex social and physical hybrids are broken down to simpler ones. This case-study of the 1998 ice storm in north-eastern North America documents the learning that occurs as a result of nature's overwhelming energy flows destroying the essential infrastructures of modern urban life. This extreme weather event knocked out for an unusually long period the electrical transmission system that provides the energy for a metropolitan area situated in a dark, frigid environment, and thereby produced the most costly disaster in Canada's history.
Everything Circulates: Agricultural Chemistry and Recycling Theories in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Marald Erland
Published: June 2007

This paper analyses the arguments in favour of recycling put forth by agricultural chemists in the mid nineteenth century. In this context the study emphasises how agricultural chemical theories, mainly developed by Justus Liebig, were connected to larger issues outside the scientific domain. The study also investigates how agricultural chemists argued for different kinds if recycling systems in a more practical way. By way of conclusion, some reasons for the ultimate abandonment of the recycling discourse at the end of the nineteenth century will be discussed.
Floating Timber in Northern Sweden: The Construction of Floatways and Transformation of Rivers
Authors: Törnlund Erik , Östlund Lars
Published: June 2007

The development of the export-oriented forest industry played an essential role in the industrialisation of Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century. A very important factor was the available watercourses: these could be used to transport timber from inland forests to the sawmills on the coast. The aim of this study is to analyse the transformation of one river in boreal Sweden, the Vindelalven, during 1820-1945, caused by the introduction of large scale floating of timber. The most prominent feature of this development was the exploitation of a landscape without any industrial infrastructure. Production volumes and the scale of production within the forest industry increased radically from the mid-nineteenth century and transformed the landscape of both the forests and the rivers. The transformation of this natural watercourse, by building different kinds of floatway structures and dramatically changing the flow of water, can be divided into four characteristic periods: i) 1820-1850, ii) 1850-1900, iii) 1900-1945, and iv) from 1945 to the end of the log driving era in Vindelalven in 1976. The many different activities and the lengthy time period have resulted in a fundamental transformation of the river and its ecological characteristics, and have therefore left an almost indelible imprint on the river Vindelalven.
Histories of Protected Areas: Internationalisation of Conservationist Values and their Adoption in the Netherlands Indies (Indonesia).
Authors: Jepson Paul , Whittaker Robert J.
Published: June 2007

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries are under threat both physically and as a social ideal in Indonesia following the collapse of the Suharto New Order regime (1967-1998). Opinion-makers perceive parks as representing elite special interest, constraining economic development and/or indigenous rights. We asked what was the original intention and who were the players behind the Netherlands Indies colonial government policy of establishing nature 'monuments' and wildlife sanctuaries. Based on a review of international conservation literature, three inter-related themes are explored: a) the emergence in the 1860-1910 period of new worldviews on the human-nature relationship in western culture; b) the emergence of new conservation values and the translation of these into public policy goals, namely designation of protected areas and enforcement of wildlife legislation, by international lobbying networks of prominent men; and 3) the adoption of these policies by the Netherlands Indies government. This paper provides evidence that the root motivations of protected area policy are noble, namely: 1) a desire to preserve sites with special meaning for intellectual and aesthetic contemplation of nature; and 2) acceptance that the human conquest of nature carries with it a moral responsibility to ensure the survival of threatened life forms. Although these perspectives derive from elite society of the American East Coast and Western Europe at the end of the nineteenth century, they are international values to which civilised nations and societies aspire. It would be a tragedy if Indonesia rejects these social values and protected areas because subsequent management polices have associated protected areas with aspects of the colonial and New Order regime that contemporary society seeks to reform.
Medieval Slash-and-Burn Cultivation: Strategic or Adapted Land Use in the Swedish Mining District?
Authors: Emanuelsson Marie , Segerstrom Ulf
Published: June 2007

The general view in Swedish historiography of an inherent conflict between iron-making and the practice of slash-and-burn is questioned on the basis of this palaeoecological case study of repeated slash-and-burn cultivation from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries in the mining district of central Sweden. An alternative thesis of a mutual association between iron-making and the practice of slash-and-burn is put forward. Deliberately used by the mining peasant, slash-and-burn was a way to turn forest resources into cereals, animal fodder and charcoal for iron-making. However, the initial practice of slash-and-burn ceased after c. 400 years, when competition for forest resources arose due to the scarcity of local forest. The new situation seems to have brought about changes in land use from slash-and-burn cultivation to field cultivation and a meadow-field-rotation system. This study also shows that the practice of slash-and-burn and its relationship to the use of forest resources may be crucial for understanding the historical relationship between iron production and agriculture in the Swedish mining district.
From Myths to Rules: The Evolution of Local Management in the Amazonian Floodplain
Authors: de Castro Fabio
Published: June 2007

Local management systems (LMS) are dynamic, locally crafted institutions whose set of prescriptions regulating resource use are created in different stages of the users' existence. The complex relationship between these types of institutions and their environment (both local and external) provides an opportunity to analyse human responses to social and ecological changes through time. This paper focuses on historical analysis of the local management of the Brazilian Amazonian floodplain, which is divided into three distinct periods of floodplain occupation- Amerindian Period, Migrant Period and Caboclo Period. Each period reflects a management pattern based on different types of resources, groups of users and individuals who managed the system. The analysis reveals that local management systems in this region encompass three rule types - ecological, cultural, and political - according to the source of incentives that influences the prescription. An increased focus on political prescription to limit entry and to monitor rules has taken place more recently in order to cope with the faster pace of environmental change in the region as well as to lower the consequent transaction cost among new actors. The fishing accords, for example, combine politically oriented goals of resource control with ecologically oriented goals of resource conservation. The historical dimension of LMS is fundamental to unravelling the connections between new sets of prescriptions and old management systems. Due to the system complexity, the consonance of both goals should be held as an empirical question rather than as an assumption.
Environmental History of Marine Mammal Exploitation in Trinidad and Tobago, W.I., and its Ecological Impact
Authors: Romero Aldemaro , Baker Ruth , Cresswell Joel E. , Singh Anuradha , McKie Annabelle , Manna Michael
Published: June 2007

Marine mammal exploitation has been documented for the Caribbean in recent times for only a handful of countries. Based on those studies a complex image of how that exploitation has taken place has begun to emerge. In order to fully understand whaling, dolphin fisheries, and manatee hunting, we still need to ascertain patterns of exploitation for many of the island-nations in that part of the world. We present a comprehensive analysis of marine mammal utilisation for Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago has been characterised by land-based whaling, organised during most of the nineteenth century by local elites. Dolphin fisheries have been rare and restricted to by-catches. Trinidad has the last remaining population of manatees among the eastern Caribbean islands, which is composed of a small number of individuals confined to a small swamp. We compared the history, patterns, and results of this exploitation in Trinidad and Tobago with other neighbouring nations (Venezuela, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines). As in other countries in the area that practised intense whaling, local populations of humpback whales have become virtually extinct in their waters. Culture, more than anything else, seems to be the force shaping the nature of marine mammal exploitation in the Caribbean, which has resulted in different histories and methods of exploitation for each one of the countries studied.
Narratives of Rights: Codifying People and Land in Early Nineteenth-Century Nilgiris
Authors: Cederlöf Gunnel
Published: June 2007

This article has two aims. Firstly, it analyses how multi-faceted narratives of south Indian people as communities and their rights in land and resources were established in early European reports from the Nilgiris. These narratives were gradually accommodated in increasingly racial interpretations of Indian society from the 1860s onwards. These became established in the state-produced historiographies at the turn of the century, and have even been repeated by social scientists up to the present day. Secondly, it focuses upon how ethnologically-derived categories influenced the codification of people in the Nilgiris, and how this process interacted with the legal codification of peoples' access to land and natural resources.
The Paradox of Smokeless Fuels: Gas, Coke and the Environment in Britain, 1813-1949
Authors: Thorsheim Peter
Published: June 2007

The contemporary world faces a toxic legacy: environmental contamination caused by past industrial activities. In Britain, a large proportion of the soil and groundwater pollution that occurred during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century came from gasworks and coke plants. Paradoxically, many people long viewed them as the answer to the country's pollution problems. Smoke-abatement activists and industry officials argued that gas and coke could be burned without producing the large quantities of particulates and volatile organic compounds that emanated from coal fires. Yet promoters of these 'smokeless fuels' failed to recognise that they did not eliminate environmental problems, but instead shifted them from sites of consumption to those of production. Air pollution declined in many places, but it grew worse in those containing gasworks and coke plants. In addition to displacing pollution geographically, the manufacture of gas and coke displaced it chronologically by creating hazards that would long endure. Today, decades after they ceased production, many of the places where gasworks and coke plants once stood remain contaminated by toxic by-products.
Forestry and Flooding in the Annecy Petit Lac Catchment, Haute-Savoie 1730-2000
Authors: Crook D.S. , Siddle D.J. , Jones R.T. , Dearing J.A. , Foster G.C. , Thompson R.
Published: June 2007

Upland environments are particularly vulnerable to the stresses of climate change. The strength and persistence of such forces are not easy to measure and hence comparison of climate impacts with anthropogenic impacts has remained problematic. This paper attempts to demonstrate the nature of human impact on forest cover and flooding in the Annecy Petit Lac Catchment in pre-Alpine Haute Savoie, France, between 1730 and 2000. Local documentary sources and a pollen record provided a detailed history of forest cover and management, making it possible to plot changes in forest cover against local and regional precipitation records, and their individual and combined impacts on flooding. A main period of large-scale, uniform and rapid deforestation in the catchment was identified in the early nineteenth century, but sub-catchment patterns of reforestation and regeneration have varied up to the present. The period of deforestation was accompanied by demographic expansion and regional scale exogenous forces, such as small scale industrial development, foreign occupation, war, caveats and laws, acting alongside local scale endogenous forces and land fragmentation, agricultural crisis, and the desire for pasture. These all produced conflict between individual needs and those of communities and resulted in localised changes in forest cover. Joint phases of deforestation and flooding are more evident in individual second order tributaries than the whole catchment, but there appears to be no obvious or simple causal link between forest cover change, climate anomalies and flooding.
Draining the Marshlands, Disciplining the Masses: The Linth Valley Hydro Engineering Scheme (1807-1823) and the Genesis of Swiss National Unity
Authors: Speich Daniel
Published: June 2007

The first large-scale hydro technical project of modern Switzerland, the Linth Valley hydro engineering scheme (1807-1823), has been considered to be 'a great moral endeavour'. The paper asks, what historical conditions made it possible to conceive of hydro technical engineering in moral categories? Following the political views of the main promoter of the scheme, Hans Konrad Escher (1767-1823), it shows, that within a specific ideological framework no clear-cut distinctions were drawn between the natural, the technical and the social. Rather, within this early example of environmental management, genuinely technical means of engineering were successfully used to address both urgent political and social problems of the time. The main argument is, that the act of draining marshlands successfully promoted national unity and set important preconditions for the later to be founded liberal nation state.