bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Provincial Nature of George Perkins Marsh
Authors: Hall Marcus 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
While many of Marsh's novel conservation insights were universal and true for citizens of all countries, his key warnings about degradation were characteristically American - having been interpreted, produced, and packaged by an American for Americans. The contrasts he saw between American and Mediterranean lands allowed Marsh to formulate and then support his thesis that humans not only modified but damaged the earth. This paper suggests that Marsh's warnings about degradation depended upon America's rising infatuation with its wild continent: not until a nation could view wildland as healthy and beneficent could one of its citizens suggest that enlightened humans often degraded it. For those accustomed to tamed, gardened land, as in southern Europe, non-human forces inflicted the worst land damage. Marsh ushered in a new paradigm of environmental damage that placed blame on culture rather than nature.
Acclimatisation and Environmental Renovation: Australian Perspectives on George Perkins Marsh
Authors: Tyrrell Ian 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This article explores the global dimensions of the thought of George Perkins Marsh and his Man and Nature (1864). It argues that Marsh was not simply influenced by American versus European contrasts in environmental change, nor was his work based only on conservation ideas, being influenced also by the examples of acclimatisation movements within the British empire settlement colonies. He incorporated material on acclimatisation from Australia into his major work, and his acceptance, with reservations, of aspects of acclimatisation practice, for example global eucalyptus plant transfers, was a key factor making his work influential within those settlement colonies after publication of Man and Nature . This global context reinforces the sense of Marsh as a thinker of his times, embedded in a larger and older discourse over the fate of forests and other natural resources. Marsh's attempts to promote balance in humans' relations with nature led him to explore a renovationist and improvement oriented ethic as much as a restorationist or preservationist one. Though widely regarded as the father of conservation, his legacy is more ambiguous and more complex, and his influence reflects changing perceptions of European colonial impacts in the nineteenth century.
Alpine Milk: Dairy Farming as a Pre-modern Strategy of Land Use
Authors: Orland Barbara 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
From an agronomic standpoint, today's Alpine milk production as well as mountain farming in general seems to be inefficient. Due to an European overproduction of food, the massive input of labour by the mountain farmer is no longer profitable. As producers of environment and standard-bearers of landscapes, however, farmers are sorely missed in the Alps today. By the 1980s geographers were pointing out that ecological problems in the Alps can be the result of the under-use of nature. Cultural landscapes, which today are admired according to aesthetic or environmental protection considerations, disappear with the farmers. Against this background, the paper introduces the premodern Alpine dairy farming as a case study which illustrates the changing relations between natural resources, economic interests and cultural values that form the interplay between land use, agricultural production methods and the meaning of food. The story of the Alpine milk illustrates that in premodern times food production reflected much more the connection between local land resources and farmer's skills, tools and practices - a link that has ceased to exist in the mindset of industrialised societies.
Australia Unlimited? Environmental Debate in the Age of Catastrophe, 1910-1939
Authors: Frost Warwick 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
Between the First and Second World Wars, Australia was under significant social, political and economic pressures. It has been generally argued that these problems stifled environmental debate, encouraging governments to look to large-scale development schemes for solutions. In turn, the few critics of these schemes were ruthlessly attacked as not having the national interest at heart. This article contests this interpretation of the period. It argues that there was an environmental debate, with a wide range of interests pushing for conservation, the development of National Parks and limits on these development schemes.
Environmental History in Australasia
Authors: Robin Libby , Griffiths Tom 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
Australia and New Zealand share a southern, settler society history and cultural solidarity as British colonies and dominions. Their early unity as 'Australasia' is where this paper begins, focusing on the strong role of science in shaping environmental history and policy in both countries. Agricultural science was crucial to environmental policy and has given a distinctive quality to the practice of environmental history in Australasia. But the long-term influences of very different physical environments and Indigenous inheritances. ultimately define Australian and New Zealand environmental historiography as more contrastive than similar, and promise to drive these countries in divergent directions.
Hunting Narratives of the Age of Empire: A Gender Reading of Their Iconography
Authors: Wonders Karen 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
The hunting-and-collecting mania of sportsmen from north-western Europe and the eastern United States is explored by focusing on the many hunting narratives that recount trips to the Canadian part of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Shore during the Age of Empire (1875-1914). These narratives, many of which were lavishly illustrated, have remained largely unexplored as a source for the social history of hunting. Here the hundreds of frequently dramatic visual representations, in particular the trophy displays, are systematically scrutinised and major iconographic motifs identified. The point is made that the iconographic idiom did not primarily convey a meaning that related to the hunters' participation in the work of empire, but one that celebrated the hunters' character traits and masculinity, often by means of a conflation of victor-and-vanquished.
The Last European Landscape to be Colonised: A Case Study of Land-Use Change in the Far North of Sweden 1850-1930
Authors: Andersson Rikard , ùstlund Lars , Tùrnlund Erik 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
The agricultural colonisation of the interior of northern Sweden in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can be regarded as Europe's last colonising venture supported by an economy based on self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, nomadic Sami people have practised basic economic approaches to resources and environment in this region for thousands of years. The aim of this study was to analyse the swift land-use transition, from nomadic to agricultural, in the last colonised landscape of northern Sweden. Using historical documents and maps together with modern maps and a field survey, we wanted to link land-use patterns as strongly as possible to landscape features and ecosystems. Resource use of farmers and the native Samis showed many similarities with some important exceptions. Some obvious disparities seem to have evolved, mainly connected to the animal species that were domesticated. With the Sami people involved and interfering with the colonisation process, their use of resources contributed significantly to local economy and land use therefore became intensified. Interestingly, in the studied area the main driving force for establishment of new settlements was commercial forestry. However, in the last colonised landscape, forestry reached its physical limits, leaving mountain birch forests with evidence of traditional Sami land use and Sami historical traces.
If John Muir Had Been an Agrarian: American Environmental History West and South
Authors: Stewart Mart A. 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
Environmental history in and of the American South has developed in a different direction than the field in general in the U.S., which has been shaped by its origins in the history of the American West. The history of humans and the environment in the South has been much more driven by the history of agriculture than by frontier or wilderness interactions, as well as by the history of the relationship between white and black Americans and their respective uses of the land in the region. It also has more in common with environmental history outside the U.S. than with the field as it at first developed in the U.S.
Deforestation, Forest Transitions, and Institutions for Sustainability in Southeastern Mexico, 1900-2000
Authors: Barton Bray David , Klepeis Peter 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
Research on tropical forest cover change processes identifies myriad driving forces and demonstrates how change dynamics are non-linear and complex. Despite appreciation in the academic literature for the historical patterns and processes of deforestation, however, a simplistic, linear 'deforestation narrative' persists in the popular imagination. Concern arises when this narrative influences environmental policy and effective response to the tropical deforestation problem. Our main goals here are twofold: (1) to contribute to a nuanced history of forest change in southeastern Mexico; and (2) to explore the role of institutional development in reducing deforestation rates. Drawing on forest transition theory, we analyse the twentieth century forest histories of the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, the southern Yucatan Peninsula, and the Lacandon Rainforest. A deforestation narrative rightly dominates characterisations of the 1960-85 period in southeastern Mexico, but it falls short of accurately representing the complex processes of deforestation, forest recovery, and the development of sustainability-oriented grassroots institutions in the 1985-2003 period.
Winds of Colonisation: The Meteorological Contours of Spain's Imperium in the Pacific 1521-1898
Authors: Bankoff Greg 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between prevailing weather systems and colonialism in the context of Spanish possessions in the Pacific from Magellan till the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that any historical appreciation of Hispanic colonialism and culture would be incomplete without due consideration of the role meteorological phenomena played, both at the macro-level in terms of the form and extent of empire and at the more micro-level as manifest in the daily experience of communities.
Interstate Water Pollution Problems and Elusive Federal Water Pollution Policy in the United States, 1900-1948
Authors: Paavola Jouni 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This article examines water pollution and its control in the United States from the turn of the twentieth century until after the Second World War, a period during which water pollution became an interstate problem. State water pollution control policies existed at the time. However, states were unwilling to control the pollution of state waters because of the threat of industrial flight, and the pollution of interstate waters because it would have mainly benefited downstream states. The states first sought to resolve their conflicts over the pollution of interstate waters by litigating in the Supreme Court of the United States, but it was not well-suited for managing the quality of interstate waters. Many organisations also lobbied for federal water pollution control legislation but the federal government only endorsed the use of interstate compacts to manage water quality in interstate waters. However, they were largely ineffective and did not address the threat of industrial flight which was an obstacle for water pollution control in state waters. Federal funding of water pollution control measures during the New Deal had more lasting impacts and became an element of federal water pollution legislation when it was finally enacted after the Second World War.
Mining the Reefs and Cays: Coral, Guano and Rock Phosphate Extraction in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, 1844-1940
Authors: Daley Ben , Griggs Peter 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
Scholarly attention has recently focused on the extent of the deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef and several authors have attempted to place that decline into historical context. We present documentary and oral history evidence that the extent and severity of mining in the Great Barrier Reef has been hitherto neglected in environmental histories of the ecosystem. Extraction of phosphatic sandstone, guano, rock phosphate and coral from many islands, cays and coral reefs have resulted in extensive transformations of some habitats. In particular, Raine, Lady Elliot, Lady Musgrave, North West and Holbourne Islands experienced intensive mining for guano and rock phosphate, while more sustained guano mining took place at Upolu, Oyster and Michaelmas Cays prior to 1940. Coral mining - which has not previously been documented for the Great Barrier Reef - also occurred in at least twelve locations between 1900 and 1940 with the result that thousands of tons of coral were removed from some reefs and pulverised to produce agricultural and industrial lime. This account suggests that historical mining in the Great Barrier Reef has left impacts in the landscape of several islands and cays. Further scientific research and monitoring is required to elucidate the impacts of coral mining, although comparisons with coral mining sites elsewhere in the world suggest that it is reasonable to presume that the impacts of that activity were severe for parts of several reefs, including Snapper Island, Kings and Alexandra Reefs.
For the 'Preservation of Friends' and the 'Destruction of Enemies': Studying and Protecting Birds in Late Imperial Russia
Authors: Bonhomme Brian 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This paper surveys major developments in the Imperial Russian history of wild bird protection and related issues of ornithology during the century or so leading up to the First World War. Emphasis is given to two related outcomes, both of which set the Russian Empire apart from many of its western neighbours: the country's refusal - despite long negotiations - to sign a landmark international treaty on cross-border bird protection (the 1902 Paris Convention) and the fact that the Empire did not pass any significant domestic legislation dedicated to wild bird protection. These are interpreted not so much as failures, however, but as evidence of a broader development. Whereas Russian ornithologists and bird-protection advocates had for most of the nineteenth century sought to imitate or catch up with European and American approaches, by the end of that century many of them had instead become convinced that what worked further west was not appropriate for their circumstances. Pointing to the peculiarities of Russian public habits and culture, as well as to the supposed distinctiveness of the Russian Empire's environmental and geographic conditions, they instead began to focus on game law reform, public education and other issues - ultimately to little effect.
'Water Used to be Scattered in the Landscape': Local Understandings of Soil Erosion and Land Use Planning in Southern Zimbabwe.
Authors: Wilson K.B. 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This article presents some local understandings of ecological history in a semiarid area of Zimbabwe as an exploration of how changes in land use that reflect both local initiative and state planning have transformed the hydrology of local catchments of heavy clay ‘mopani soils’ and greatly accelerated soil erosion. Local explanations provide a wide-ranging and challenging analysis of the dynamics of watersheds situated within a complex social and historical context. In conjunction with the spread of ox-ploughing and population growth and redistribution, a range of ill-conceived and authoritarian ‘conservation’ and ‘development’ interventions by the colonial state are argued by local intellectuals to be the major causes of accelerated soil erosion. Particular attention is given to how government imposed the deforestation and intensive use of difficult top land soils, and then transformed that uneven heterogeneous landscape into a smooth bare land connected by contour ridges and paths so that water concentrates, erodes, and then leaves the desiccating land to silt the rivers. The existence of sophisticated ‘indigenous knowledge’ systems in Africa has now been widely accepted, but this case study suggests that their very depth, variability and complexity means that attempts to harness local ecological knowledge for the understanding of – or development action about – environmental change may be more problematic than is often assumed. Researchers, government and conservation and development organisations need to do much more than seek to ‘tap’ such knowledge. Real understandings and ‘sustainable development’ can only flow from new power relationships with rural people and their knowledge
'Penetrating' Foreign Lands: Contestations Over African Landscapes. A Case Study from Eastern Zimbabwe.
Authors: Schmidt Heike 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
While it was happening, European expansion was often legitimised by evoking frontier images: pioneers setting off from the metropolis, penetrating wilderness in order to open access to resources, like minerals, living-space, and fertile lands. Central to the ideology of the frontier is the notion of 'no-man's land'. These 'pioneers', however, often had to face local inhabitants and their interpretations and uses of this land. Thus it will be argued that contestations over landscape were at the same time battles over the legitimation of European expansion, as well as over local perceptions of this process. Ideologically, contestations by Europeans and Africans become apparent in the sexualisation of landscape. This paper is based on the case study of a Valley in eastern Zimbabwe on the border with Mozambique, and more specifically of two tea estates which were established in the rainforest. Unusually late for the region, European influence in this remote area only began to become significant in the 1950s which were an important turning point regarding land and landscape in the area. These years of great change will be analysed in order to map out different strands of interest by the main parties involved. It will be demonstrated that their readings of landscape translated into contestations over land. A recent example of such a conflict will be given.
Conflicts over Development and Environmental Values: the International Ivory Trade in Zimbabwe's Historical Context
Authors: Hill Kevin A. 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
The international debate over sustainable utilisation of animal species often reaches a fever pitch, especially when Northern and Southern governments and NGOs clash. This paper examines one such clash in its proper historical framework: the recent debate over the international ivory trade. The article outlines Zimbabwe's pro-ivory trade position, with special attention paid to Zimbabwe's attempts to transform a local culture which has been hostile to wildlife conservation. Specifically, the paper argues that the current majority government is trying to transform the formally racist Rhodesian preservationist policies into utilisationist policies so that local people can realise some material benefit from the conservation of the African elephant, even in face of fierce opposition from the Western world.
Ecological Change in North India: Deforestation and Agrarian Distress in the Ganga-Jamna Doab 1800-1850
Authors: Mann Michael 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
The British were not the only foreign rulers to bring ecological catastrophe to India. Large areas of forest had been destroyed under the Moguls in the 17th century. The Moguls' former hunting grounds west and south west of Agra had disappeared by 1800. That the residency in Fatehpur Sikri was deserted after the wells had silted up was a further clear indication of this deterioration. Yet the reasons for this overexploitation differed greatly from those of the British rulers. It can be assumed that it was demographic pressures which led to forest clearances in the 17th century. Timber was needed to build new houses and even towns, whose citizens in turn needed firewood, and land to cultivate. In the context of the transformation of Indian agrarian structures by the colonial rulers, totally different mechanisms were in operation. * Until 1835 the revenue rate in the Ceded and Conquered Provinces was over three quarters, only being reduced to 'half the net rental assets' after 1855. Only then did the revenue rate again match that in force under the Moguls, although its flexibility was still not as great. * The market for land created by the British laid a value upon the soil making it a tradeable commodity. Whilst there had been some limited private property in pre-British times, land had not been a marketable asset. These two prerequisites put in place by the colonial rulers set the ecological catastrophe in motion. For the peasants, a vicious circle of revenue and debt payment, cash crop plantation and permanent acquisition of new land was created just to meet the new demands. Forests were cleared to gain new land for cash crops, whilst cultivation of food was increasingly marginalised. Ever greater demands were put upon the soil, hardly leaving time for its regeneration and in many parts of the Doab, but particularly in the Agra Division in the second half of the 19th century, it was totally exhausted. This change was completed within more or less 25 years (1805-1830). The devastation of the ecology of the Doab, which manifested itself so appallingly in 1837-38 led to the impoverishment both of large sections of the population and of the region.
Famine in a Forest Tract: Ecological Change and the Causes of the 1897 Famine in Chotanagpur, Northern India
Authors: Damodaran Vinita 
Published: June 2007

Abstract
This paper addresses one of the most under-researched areas of resource use and management in rural India, that of 'wild resources', and explores the links between ecological change, famine and poverty. It is argued that once deforestation started to take place (in the context of the exploitation of the indigenous people by an outsider landlord class, aided by the colonial state), and the forest department denied people access to traditional famine foods, the Chotanagpur region found itself for the first time subject to the kind of vulnerability to famine that had affected lowland populations for a much longer period.