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... "The Earth as Transformed by Human Action," synopsized in the Annals (B. L. Turner, Kates, and Meyers 1994), was a landmark global-scale study. More recent Annals writings have expanded emphasis on human-environment interactions in relation to biodiversity, with special attention to analysis of prospects for environmental conservation with sustainable use (Zimmerer 1999;Cowell and Dyer 2002;Naughton-Treves 2002;Jiang 2004;Voeks 2004;Byers 2005;Campbell 2007;Goldman 2009). ...
... Vibrant exchange is promised, for example, in historically framed works that are broadly engaged with science, technology, and the past and present interplay of diverse environmental knowledge systems (B. L. Turner, Kates, and Meyers 1994;Galloway 1996;Richardson 1996;Endfield and Nash 2002;Kirsch 2002;Etter, McAlpine, and Possingham 2008). ...
This study uses an intellectual history approach to construct a retrospective on Annals nature-society geography during the past century (1911-2010). It begins by identifying six areas of topics and approaches that have emerged as primary clusters in the 1990s and 2000s: (1) environmental governance and political ecology; (2) environmental hazards, risk, and vulnerability science; (3) land use and cover change science; (4) human-environment interactions; (5) environmental landscape history and ideas; and (6) scientific concepts and environmental management. A combination of continuity and change involving the core areas of human-environmental scholarship is found to distinguish Annals publications during recent decades (1990-2010) vis-a-vis preceding periods (1911-1969, 1970-1989). The current plurality and partial intersection of core topics and approaches is mostly a contrast to previous predominance and distinctness of the Sauerian Berkeley School and the Chicago School of hazards research. Reflection on this intellectual history sheds light on issues of the timely role of nature-society within the geographic discipline and in relation to environmental interdisciplinarity and policy. Using the concept of translating across knowledge domains, Annals writings demonstrate the expanded, multistranded intellectual spaces of nature-society geography.
Human actions are altering the terrestrial environment at unprecedented rates, magnitudes, and spatial scales. Land-cover change stemming from human and uses represents a major source and a major element of global environmental change. An international and interdisciplinary agenda is currently being developed to address these issues, through several closely-connected foci of study. A division of the world according to common situations of environment, human driving forces, and land-cover dynamics will be followed by detailed study of the processes at work within each situation. The results will form the basis for a concurrent effort to develop a global land model that can offer projections of patterns of land transformation. -from Authors