The Invention of Sustainability: Nature and Destiny, c.1500–1870
Abstract
Cambridge Core - European History after 1450 - The Invention of Sustainability - by Paul Warde
... 'Forests should be owned' means that they should be under centralized control and treated as property of private parties or an organized state (Rose 1986). The common perception during the early development of forestry was that wood supplies were dwindling because of exploitative and wasteful practices of the peasantry and the greedy (Warde 2018), and the emerging discipline of forestry could provide efficient solutions for optimal sustained production of timber based on principles of natural science, economics and mathematics (Lowood 1990). However, implementing forestry required investments in measuring, monitoring and treatments to regiment the forest. ...
... However, implementing forestry required investments in measuring, monitoring and treatments to regiment the forest. Such investments required access to capital, commitment to long-term planning and the power to enforce management plans (Scott 1998;Warde 2018). Forests held or managed as commons lacked the centralized authority thought to be necessary for enforcing long-term planning and the capital needed for monitoring and treatments, which helped justify state take-over of communal woods (Warde 2018). ...
... Such investments required access to capital, commitment to long-term planning and the power to enforce management plans (Scott 1998;Warde 2018). Forests held or managed as commons lacked the centralized authority thought to be necessary for enforcing long-term planning and the capital needed for monitoring and treatments, which helped justify state take-over of communal woods (Warde 2018). As a result, forest land in central Europe ended up being directly managed by the state, or title was transferred to private individuals to be managed for timber production by professional foresters (Warde 2018). ...
The discipline of forestry developed in 18th century Europe from the confluence of concerns about timber supply, industrialization and a disintegration of communal land rights. Out of this history, forestry has developed into an institution-a set of conventions, norms and legal rules influencing decisions made by foresters in their professional roles-that is rooted in a particular worldview that frames forests primarily as production systems to be managed for the satisfaction of human needs and preferences. We identify four institutional foundations of forestry drawing from textbooks, histories, university curriculum, professional societies’ codes of ethics, policy documents, peer reviewed literature and the writings of prominent foresters. We explore how these foundations can contribute to limiting considerations for diverse worldviews and values and impede the discipline’s utility in combating climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental injustice. To overcome these limitations and make forestry a more diverse and inviting field capable of addressing 21st century challenges, we propose revising these foundations based on relational thinking and suggest ways such a shift in the institution of forestry could be facilitated. We argue that these revised institutional foundations can make the discipline more open to diverse worldviews, more inviting to groups traditionally underrepresented in forestry, more trusted by the general public and better able to confront the challenges forests face under global change.
... Sustainability is a fuzzy concept that has evolved with time as its definition expanded and has different meanings based on context and uses [19]. It was first coined in the 17th century by Hans Carl Von Carlowitz and applied to forestry [20]. Later, one of the most recognised definitions is the one attributed to the 1987 Brundtland Commission (i.e., the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development) Report that defines sustainable development as a "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [21], which reminds individuals of Hans Jonas' imperative of responsibility based on the precautionary principle [22]. ...
... More than 60% of the articles (25) included in this study were published in the last three years (2020-2022), an acceleration in these studies compared to the seven years prior (2013-2019), during which less than 40% of the articles (16) were published ( Figure 2). The authors of the selected articles were based in 18 different countries, yet almost 50% of the articles (20) were written by authors hailing from just three countries, namely the USA, Iran, and the UK (nine, six, and five articles, respectively) ( Figure 3). More than 60% of the articles (25) included in this study were published in the last three years (2020-2022), an acceleration in these studies compared to the seven years prior (2013-2019), during which less than 40% of the articles (16) were published ( Figure 2). ...
... More than 60% of the articles (25) included in this study were published in the last three years (2020-2022), an acceleration in these studies compared to the seven years prior (2013-2019), during which less than 40% of the articles (16) were published ( Figure 2). The authors of the selected articles were based in 18 different countries, yet almost 50% of the articles (20) were written by authors hailing from just three countries, namely the USA, Iran, and the UK (nine, six, and five articles, respectively) ( Figure 3). ...
Medical devices are instrumental in servicing the healthcare sector and promoting well-being in modern societies. However, their production and use contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, thus causing indirect harm to global health. With a share of approximately 4.4% of global emissions, the healthcare sector exhales CO2 throughout its value chain; sources of this range from direct electricity consumption and water heating in healthcare facilities to the supply chains delivering healthcare services and products. Within this context, the environmental impact of medical devices is present across their production, distribution, usage, and eventual disposal. Each step in the lifecycle of medical devices consumes energy and natural resources, and the end product, after its often single use, is discarded, generating plastic or electronic waste. This study aims to present the key findings from a scoping review of academic research on the topic, which focuses on reducing the environmental impact of medical devices and equipment. The review, conducted according to the PRISMA checklist for scoping reviews, examined 41 studies and categorised them based on the lifecycle stages of medical devices (design and development, manufacturing, usage, and end of life) and the sustainability aspects (economic, environmental, and social) discussed by the authors. The findings suggest that while efforts have been made to enhance economic and environmental sustainability throughout the design, development, and usage of medical devices, there is still room for improvement in mitigating their ecological impact at the end of their lifecycle and maximising their social impact by design.
... Concerning hi/stories, we take the lead from sustainability historians who study regional or global sustainability narratives (cf. Grober 2012;Caradonna 2014;Warde 2018;Schleper 2019). SOY STORIES studies historical actors' narratives, which we refer to as hi/stories (cf. . ...
... Concerning plural hi/stories: Historical actors articulate their regions' key challenges and whether regions can sustain themselves in diverse and conflicting ways (Warde 2018). SOY STORIES therefore takes the lead from recent sustainability history inspired by Warde (2018) which denaturalizes and politicizes sustainability narratives by researching the multiple and potentially conflicting narratives that diverse actors tell about soy-related sustainability challenges (Moss & Weber 2021;. ...
... Concerning plural hi/stories: Historical actors articulate their regions' key challenges and whether regions can sustain themselves in diverse and conflicting ways (Warde 2018). SOY STORIES therefore takes the lead from recent sustainability history inspired by Warde (2018) which denaturalizes and politicizes sustainability narratives by researching the multiple and potentially conflicting narratives that diverse actors tell about soy-related sustainability challenges (Moss & Weber 2021;. ...
The research project SOY STORIES investigates diverse Brazilian and Dutch histories connected by soy, and studies how a connected diversity perspective can contribute to imagining more inclusive sustainable futures. Since the 1970s, accelerating soy production in Brazil has been associated with regional challenges such as large-scale deforestation, land-grabbing and a pesticide crisis. Meanwhile soy-based intensive animal farming in the Netherlands came with challenges such as a 4-decades-long national manure and nitrogen crisis, public health hazards, greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare problems. Studying these connected histories of diverse challenges-challenges which could be characterized as sustainability challenges-we aim to develop an alternative approach to sustainability histories that either produce fragmented microhistories or reductionist (often Western-centric) global master narratives. Moreover, by working with a broad variety of social partners, we aim to simultaneously develop more plural and inclusive histories, and investigate if and how developing these plural-and-connected histories may inspire different (i.e. respecting plural ways of being on both sides of the Atlantic) modes of engagement with sustainability challenges today-which, too, tend to alternate between parochialism and universalism. This research proposal (1) introduces the research aims, (2) develops a tentative conceptualization and (3) research design, (4) discusses research methods, (5) articulates envisioned contributions to the fields of sustainability history and to transdisciplinary sustainability research and (6) discusses societal relevance.
... Sustainability in this context emerged in early modern Europe (Warde, 2018) and Japan (Caradonna, 2014). The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). ...
... The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). The discourse on sustainability involved many factors related to the political, economic and environmental management of emerging nation-States and their increasingly proactive governance from the sixteenth century (Warde, 2018). As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. ...
... As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. The earliest discourses about state-governed sustained yield centered around the supply of grain and timber products (Grober & Cunningham, 2012;Scott, 1998;Warde, 2018). ...
... Sustainability in this context emerged in early modern Europe (Warde, 2018) and Japan (Caradonna, 2014). The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). ...
... The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). The discourse on sustainability involved many factors related to the political, economic and environmental management of emerging nation-States and their increasingly proactive governance from the sixteenth century (Warde, 2018). As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. ...
... As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. The earliest discourses about state-governed sustained yield centered around the supply of grain and timber products (Grober & Cunningham, 2012;Scott, 1998;Warde, 2018). ...
... Sustainability in this context emerged in early modern Europe (Warde, 2018) and Japan (Caradonna, 2014). The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). ...
... The conceptual development was to some degree global, as aspects of it related to the European exploration and colonialism of the period (Grove, 1995). The discourse on sustainability involved many factors related to the political, economic and environmental management of emerging nation-States and their increasingly proactive governance from the sixteenth century (Warde, 2018). As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. ...
... As the state came to rely on revenue from the exploitation of natural resources to compete internationally in commerce, war and religion, the natural world increasingly became a political issue and object of the governance by nation states. The earliest discourses about state-governed sustained yield centered around the supply of grain and timber products (Grober & Cunningham, 2012;Scott, 1998;Warde, 2018). ...
... It emerged as a blanket concept of concern for a planet Earth that seemed increasingly vulnerable, shrinking, overpopulated, overexploited, polluted and underprotected (Vogt 1948 andOsborn 1948 are seminal texts). This perception was novel, despite eruptions of previous concern over deforestation, flooding, drought, extinctions of individual species, and soil decline (e.g., McNeill 2001;Barrow 2009;Dotterweich 2013;Warde 2018). Yet it wasn't immediately obvious what the appropriate environment was actually like, or what share of the responsibility was carried by a certain country, besides the obvious fact that it carried the prime responsibility for its own territory. ...
This article presents a new way of understanding Global Environmental Governance (GEG), historically and functionally. We outline a revised analytical framing, which connects the post-WWII moment of early globalizing conservation with the intensifying attempts to govern the human-earth relationship through an ever-growing assemblage of governable environmental objects and their quantifiable indicators as proxies . Our argument is as follows: (1) GEG has followed a trajectory of dispersal of actors, institutions, conceptual tools and responsibilities from the micro- and local scales to the planetary. We analyze how these trajectories unfold in three essential domains: Earth System science, sovereignty, and neoliberalization. (2) GEG is performative . The governance itself has created the dynamic environmental objects under governance. (3) In this way, GEG has normalized the environment as a policy object.
... 12 His 1840 work, Organic Chemistry in Its Application to Agriculture and Physiology, identified what Liebig saw as the essential elements of soil-namely, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium-and he argued that problems with soil fertility were the result of deficiencies of these elements. 13 This new understanding of soil lent itself to a new branch of science called agricultural chemistry, one in which the chemical composition of plants and fields could be quantified and inventoried and different elements could be substituted like for like. 14 Inspired by this chemical turn as well as by the dramatic agricultural changes that had occurred in Great Britain since the 1760s, many American farmers and their bureaucratic allies sought out new means to minimize nutrient loss and maximize productivity. ...
This article focuses on the nineteenth-century fertilizer manufacturer the Pacific Guano Company, and seeks to understand how it adapted its production in response to the collapse of the Maine menhaden fishery in 1879. This collapse devastated the national market for fish scrap, the firm’s primary input. The company managed to maintain relatively consistent fertilizer output throughout this period of uncertainty by embracing new materials and by actively seeking more stable sources of these novel ingredients. Outwardly, the company gave no indications that it was dealing with supply chain disruption, even though it was, at the same time, rapidly rewriting the recipes for its core products. This disconnect demonstrates how generic categories of nature can help a firm adapt to a crisis and how an environmental change as significant as a fishery collapse can be hidden from the public.
... Wolfgang Behringer (2009Behringer ( [2007 does precisely this in his thoughtprovoking analysis which places climate change, as histoire probleme, as the subject of vast tracks of historical changes (for a more recent example see Fressoz and Locher 2024). Other scholars have engaged in a critical reading of the history of ideas such as 'the environment' or 'sustainability' (Warde 2019;Warde et al. 2019). Yet, in a region whose historiography is rigidly divided into ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern blocks, unpacking these historical processes entails both a rethinking of conventional periodisation and a careful reassessment of regional coherency. ...
... 25 Gundersen 1991Gundersen 1988: 58-69 28 Berntsen 2011;Gundersen 1988: 76-87;Gundersen 1991: 12-13;Søilen 1995a: 17-19;Ulvund 2018: 14-23. 29 Ulvund 2013Warde 2018. 30 Gundersen 1991: 13-14. ...
Nature Conservation or Self-interests? Nature Conservation Cases in DNT and NJFF 1880–1930: This article discusses how two central outdoor recreation organizations, the Norwegian Trekking Association(DNT) and the Norwegian Association of Hunters and Anglers (NJFF), met the view on nature of the nature conservation movement that came to Norway around the turn of the last century. This is done through an analysis of how DNT and NJFF handled some central nature conservation conflicts of which they themselves were part in the period from 1880 to 1930. The analysis shows that the organizations’ practices when it comes to taking a position in nature conservation cases is best described as consideration of their own interests (hiking or hunting) –interests that sometimes coincide with nature conservation interests, and sometimes do not. The article thus challenges established representations of DNT and NJFF as pioneers in nature conservation.
... Det finns emellertid sätt att komma runt denna anakronistiska fälla genom att ta hänsyn till hur människor uttryckte sig gällande de utmaningar som de mötte och hur lösningar på dessa problem genomfördes. Att människor ställts inför utmaningar av att få natur resurser att bestå är ett historiskt faktum (Warde 2018). Att människor sedan tidig medel-tid skapat och upprätthållit institutioner för långvarigt, gemensamt resursut nyttjande är likaledes historiskt belagt (de Moor 2015). ...
In Sweden, trees have traditionally been used for various purposes. For ages they have provided us with firewood, food and fodder as well as with material for building and handicraft. In the Swedish rural landscape standing trees have also functioned as markers to highlight special places or sites, borders or trails. Many of these human activities have left traces in the wood or bark of living trees, by producing scars or causing deformities in trunks or branches.
The scarred trees can survive for many centuries, thus providing a living archive of historical vernacular life. In the last decades, researchers of landscape history and dendroecology have developed means for interpreting and dating these traces,
establishing the widely accepted term ‘Culturally Modified Trees’ (CMT).
The article briefly presents a selection of culturally modified trees in Sweden, representing several historical uses as well as a variety of scars and incisions. The study concludes with a remark on the threats against these trees from modern forestry and the dire need
for their adequate assessment and juridical protection as ancient monuments.
... This 'value-neutral' approach has overlooked the importance of human perceptions and motivations. In contrast, as studies of enclosure have noted, during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the transformation of 'wasteland' was couched in discourses of 'civilization' and moral 'improvement' (Griffin, 2023;Howkins, 2014;Warde, 2018). Our research confirms that these cultural impetuses were also applied to moorland reclamation. ...
The upland moorlands of Britain are environmentally and culturally important ecosystems. Yet, our understanding of historical attempts to 'reclaim' these landscapes is often based upon incomplete accounts of agricultural 'improvement'. Studies of historical landscape change have frequently focused on singular 'revolutionary' moments due to the limitation and biases of surviving historical sources, which has created a contemporary fixation on 'reversing' singular interventions. By combining palaeoecological data (pollen, coprophilous fungal spores and microcharcoal) from a recent study of five upland sites with newly rediscovered archival documents, this paper details the differences between how nineteenth-century actors described ecological interventions and some of their actual characteristics and consequences. Through interdiscip-linary synthesis, we reveal how perceptions of ecological change were filtered and shaped by the sensibilities and motivations of 'improvers'. This enables us to position 'reclamation' within a sequence of long-term management practices that shaped these complex ecosystems.
... Questions in Earth System Science (ESS) likewise do not necessarily center humans in wider questions of habitability. Here Dipesh Chakrabarty has proposed to distinguish the "global" and "planetary," via "sustainability" which centers human needs and "habitability" which "does not reference humans" but instead focuses on the possibility for the planet to support (and continue supporting) "complex, multicellular life" (Chakrabarty, 2019, p. 20; see also Warde, 2018;Vatter, 2022). Put differently, "humans are not central to the problem of habitability but habitability is central to human existence" (Chakrabarty, 2021, p. 83). ...
The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report warns in stark terms that many long inhabited parts of the world are now on course to become uninhabitable. As astronomers continue to search the universe for new habitable planets, it is equally essential to historicize the consequences of changing habitability on this one. This article reviews how scholars have engaged with the widely noted but rarely theorized categories of “habitability” and “uninhabitability.” While tracing longer imperial genealogies, the primary focus is on notions of habitability in relation to European global empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and their postcolonial legacies. The article traces three key themes in the literature: that habitability was inherently limited, and beyond those limits allegedly lay uninhabitability; that habitability was differential and that certain places were habitable for some groups but not others (but that this might be changed by technological interventions); and finally, that the limits of habitability were not static, but could change for both better and worse. Here the links between colonialism and ideas of acclimatization, terraforming, “improvement,” deliberate uninhabitability, and an “Anthropocene” have all been central to the literature. These have often been closely associated with insidious forms of environmental determinism, which are taking on new forms in an age of crisis (especially in narratives around climate and migration). By drawing together previously disparate literatures, this article ultimately calls on scholars to embrace habitability studies more widely, and to expand on their interdisciplinary potential for communicating the societal consequences of a changing climate.
This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge
... This definition is, however, so broad that it allows for countless interpretations when applied on a local and practical level (Dernbach 2003). Over time, sustainability has been conceptualized in multiple and shifting ways by different actors, and there has never been any real agreement on what constitutes sustainability (Robinson 2004;Cardonna 2014;Borowy 2018;Warde 2018;Mensah 2019;Purvis et al. 2019). ...
Sustainability certificates are increasingly used as tools for shaping bioeconomic production processes and trade. However, their specific effects are subjected to debate. A multitude of certificate schemes and standards are currently in use, defining and measuring sustainability in the bioeconomy in highly varying ways. Different representations of environmental effects, resulting from the use of different standards or scientific methods in certification, can have very real implications for how, where and to which degree bioeconomic production can be conducted and the environment will be conserved. Further, the implications for bioeconomic production practices and management embedded in the environmental knowledge employed in bioeconomic sustainability certificates will produce different winners and losers, and privilege some societal or individual concerns at the expense of others. In this way, sustainability certificates share some characteristics with other standards and policy tools that embody political contingencies, but are presented and often understood as objective and neutral. The paper argues that the politics of environmental knowledge involved in these processes warrant more awareness, scrutiny and explicit consideration from decision makers, policy developers and researchers.
This chapter explores the rise of sustainable consumption in the Netherlands from the 1950s to the 1990s. Initially driven by social concerns, sustainable consumption evolved to address both social and environmental issues by the 1980s. As the idea of ‘sustainable development’ gained prominence, it could build on a longer history of campaigns promoting sustainable consumption. By the 1990s, sustainable consumption was recognized as both a practice and an idea. At the same time, the limits of what could be achieved through promoting sustainable consumption appear to have been reached. The chapter analyzes the conditions enabling its rise, the motives behind it, and the associated practices, offering insights into barriers to wider adoption and lessons for future campaigns promoting sustainable consumption.
Th is article aims to evaluate how Brian
Short’s environmental analysis of the history of
Ashdown Forest was carried out in his book
Turbulent Foresters. A Landscape Biography of
Ashdown Forest. Based on this multithreaded
narrative, it was possible to enter into a polemic
and compare Brian Short’s approach to the
arguments in Giacomo Bonan’s or Paul Warde’s
works. Th e central aspect of the article, however,
is the discussion of two exposed perspectives –
the analysis of the infl uence of the agents on the
functioning of Ashdown, and the debate around
the concept of the functioning of the ‘commons’
and the social confl icts present in the forest of
Winnie the Pooh.
Erosion is a significant environmental challenge in Serbia, shaped by natural and human factors. Pronounced relief, fragile geological substrate, a developed hydrographic network, and a climate characterized by an uneven distribution of precipitation throughout the year make this area prone to activating erosion processes and flash floods whenever there is a significant disruption in ecological balance, whether due to the removal of vegetation cover or inadequate land use. Researchers have recorded approximately 11,500 torrents in Serbia, most of which were activated during the 19th century, a period of significant social and political change, as well as intensive deforestation and the irrational exploitation of natural resources. By the mid-19th century, the effects of land degradation were impossible to ignore. As the adequate assessment of soil erosion intensity is the initial step in developing a prevention and protection strategy and the type and scope of anti-erosion works and measures, this article presents the path that the anti-erosion field in Serbia has taken from the initial observations of erosion processes through the first attempts to create the Barren Land Cadastre and Torrent Cadastre to the creation of the Erosion Potential Method (EPM) and its modification by Dr. Lazarević that resulted in the creation of the first Erosion Map of SR Serbia in 1971 (published in 1983). In 2020, a new Erosion Map of Serbia was created with the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies and based on the original method by Professor Slobodan Gavrilović—the EPM—without the modifications introduced by Lazarević. We compared the 1983 and 2020 erosion maps in a GIS environment, where the change in soil erosion categories was analyzed using a confusion matrix. The updated erosion maps mirror the shift in methodology from a traditional approach (Lazarević’s modification) to the modern GIS-based method (Gavrilović’s original EPM) and reflect technological improvements and changes in land use, conservation practices, and environmental awareness.
The Industrial Revolution led to dramatic economic changes which persist to the present. This paper focuses on urban areas in England and Wales, the birthplace of the First Industrial Revolution, and the role of early transport improvements, like improving rivers and roads, building canals, and reducing sailing costs. We estimate how much inter-urban freight transport costs declined from all such innovations between 1680 and 1830 using a new multi-modal transport model. We find that relative to producer prices, transport costs declined by nearly 75%. We then estimate how lower trade costs led to significantly higher urban population through increased market access. Our empirical strategy addresses confounding factors and potential endogeneity. A counterfactual suggests that without any change in the ratio of transport costs to producer prices between 1680 and 1830, the population in 1841 would have been more coastal and inland towns would have been 20 to 25% smaller. In extensions, we show that levels of market access in 1830 had persistent, positive effects on urban population up to 1911. It also led to significantly higher property income, more migration, and fewer unskilled occupations by the mid-nineteenth century. Broadly, early transport improvements significantly shaped the spatial structure of urban economies during the First Industrial Revolution and beyond.
Este artículo trata sobre las políticas forestales coloniales de Gran Bretaña en el Caribe en los siglos xvii y xviii. Da cuenta de la utilización de madera caribeña en Gran Bretaña y en sus colonias, mostrando que en este lapso la tala fue constante, pero hubo una evolución en las políticas del imperio para contener la deforestación. Presenta, como antecedente, la preocupación europea por la escasez de madera, la estrategia de importación desde el Báltico y Norteamérica y algunas normativas forestales emitidas en Inglaterra, subrayando el papel que jugaron los científicos y la Sociedad de Artes. Destaca las diferencias entre las disposiciones acuñadas para las primeras islas colonizadas, para las «islas cedidas» y para los asentamientos en las costas continentales, con el objetivo de mostrar que las políticas forestales emitidas para el Caribe británico fueron expedidas a «conveniencia», acatadas priorizando la productividad y la ganancia y de acuerdo con la racionalidad del capitalismo basada en la extracción de materias primas de las colonias para el aprovisionamiento de las metrópolis. Este tipo de capitalismo fue inaugurado entonces, pero aún está vigente.
This article addresses the impact of wildfires on rural peasant communities during the pre-modern period. It demonstrates how and when wildfires started, what was done to limit their occurrence, what economic and environmental consequences followed, and what social safety-nets existed. By using the case of Lower Satakunta (Western Finland) during the seventeenth century, the article reveals that the occurrence of wildfires was strongly correlated with agricultural methods, climate variability, and weather conditions. The environmental consequences often led to substantial loss of forest and agricultural lands and the economic consequences were often such that, without aid from the local community, the future existence of peasant households was impossible. Nevertheless, through the renewed medieval laws on fire support (Sw. brandstod), peasant communities were able to create socio-economic safety nets that helped them withstand and recover from fire disasters.
How should historians of environmental and climate sciences respond to the Earth's move from the blank canvas to a foreground feature of ‘big-picture’ scholarship? This article highlights three crucial themes for histories of science in the Anthropocene: categories of scale and methods of scaling, the relationship between history of science and the disciplines it historicizes, and the entanglement of environmental damage and environmental knowledge. Critically engaging a wide range of recent literature across history of science, environmental history, and environmental humanities, alongside an array of case studies, the article puts forward an agenda for ‘planetary pictures’. These are analyses that actively contribute to the vital political and ethical task to make visible, and force a reckoning with, the perpetrators and victims of Anthropocene violence.
This study demonstrates that the fashion industry’s future is influenced by two fundamental pillars: technological innovation and sustainable development. However, it underscores the necessity for legal regulations that promote and safeguard innovation in a sustainable fashion, as the current legal framework lacks a clear structure for implementing innovative solutions. The authors argue that technology-supported sustainability can add extra value to manufactured products, thereby enhancing ethical brand equity. Additionally, it delves into the significance of Sustainable Development Goals and Corporate Social Responsibility in the business practices of the textile, clothing, leather, and footwear sector. In summary, it emphasizes the importance of integrating sustainability and technological innovation into the fashion industry, while also advocating for increased legal support for innovative sustainable fashion.
This work examines the changes that took place in the management of forest commons in eighteenth-century Austrian Lombardy. During that period, fiscal and administrative reforms facilitated greater knowledge of the territory and the relationships between communities and wood merchants-entrepreneurs. Conflicting views arose when the Viennese government, aware that vast forest resources were being badly managed, took inspiration from modern theories of political economy and decided to privatize all forest commons. However, after careful research some enlightened Milanese officials began to consider mountain forests as part of a complex ecological system and question the environmental sustainability of the policies implemented.
In this thesis, the agrarian authors among German-speaking Lutheran and Catholic pastors were analyzed following an agricultural didactics approach. Beside the housefathers and scientific texts, another tradition became evident. This had its origin in the works and teachings of Comenius.
The house fathers can be characterized by a small number of publications, written in the context of a desired promotion. The addressees were nobles and higher state officials. In the same period we can identify scientific authors, working in their spare time. Compared to the house fathers, they tended to write their texts late in life, mostly after retiring.
Comenius literature and tradition on the other hand, is characterized by a pedagogical logical, step-by-step structure, the granting of a right to live for nuisance and pest animals, learning to live in a global society, which tolerates each other and peacefully exchanges ideas, as well as conserving the very foundation for life on earth.
Taking these aspects together, the authors formulated similar goals, compared to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
This article studies how agrarian management was reimagined in the context of emerging agrarian capitalism between the sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries in England by examining the development of discourses of thrift, industriousness, and improvement among agricultural writers. It demonstrates that agricultural writers' approach to farm, land, and labor management moved from a localized context of thrifty householding in the sixteenth century to a national context of industriousness and improvement by the mid-seventeenth century. This change in discourse, as this article will show, was an attempt to provide management advice and establish managerial power over the agricultural labor process within an increasingly connected, competitive, and impersonal agrarian economy.
The fully updated second edition of this innovative textbook provides a system analysis approach to sustainability for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. To an extent unparalleled in other textbooks, the latest scientific data and insights are integrated into a broad and deep transdisciplinary framework. Readers are encouraged to explore and engage with sustainability issues through the lenses of a cultural and methodological pluralism which promotes dialogue and alliances in the search for a (more) sustainable future. Ideal for students and their teachers in sustainable development, environmental science and policy, ecology, conservation, natural resources and geopolitics, the book will also appeal to interested citizens, activists, and policymakers, exposing them to the variety of perspectives on sustainability issues. Review questions and exercises provide the opportunity for consolidation and reflection. Online resources include appendices with more advanced mathematical material, model answers, and a wealth of recommended additional sources.
O livro “Tecnologias Sustentáveis”, traz a contribuição de 18 capítulos que versam sobre diferentes
temas, como tecnologias para a eficiência produtiva, que abrangem o desenvolvimento e aplicação de novas
tecnologias e materiais mais sustentáveis e alinhados com a preservação do meio ambiente; tecnologias
sociais, que abrangem estudos sobre problemas da sociedade, sustentabilidade nas indústrias e áreas da
saúde, além de trabalhos na área de tutela ambiental, inovação social e educação ambiental; tecnologias
baseadas na natureza, que abrangem estudos sobre técnicas de engenharia natural, restauração ambiental
e controle biológico, além de outros tópicos alinhados à temática do livro, bem como trabalhos oriundos
de dissertações, teses e materiais de disciplinas de pós-graduação.
Este artigo integra pesquisa de doutorado, inserido em um macroprojeto de pesquisa com abordagem interdisciplinar de estudo de bacias hidrográficas (BHs) no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (PPGAD/Univates). Objetiva analisar a governança da Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio dos Sinos (BHRS), considerando os entraves existentes que impedem ou retardam avanços nos índices de qualidade das águas bem como de disponibilidade hídrica (quantidade de água). A metodologia aplicada se baseia em estudo de caso, valendo-se da análise de conteúdo de fontes documentais: plano de bacia, planos de saneamento, estudos técnicos dentre outros pertinentes à temática disponíveis nas revisões bibliográficas e em organizações de bacia. Aborda-se a centralidade da temática da governança das águas da bacia, considerando o conceito de gestão integrada de bacias hidrográficas (GIBH), que articula de forma sistêmica a adoção de tecnologias voltadas à sustentabilidade dos ecossistemas no território de bacias. Como considerações finais, pondera-se que a BHRS carece da implantação plena do sistema de gestão dos recursos hídricos no Estado (RS/Brasil), o que poderia ampliar o uso de tecnologias sustentáveis e melhorar os índices de qualidade da água.
The evolution of society and economic activity, particularly during the twentieth century, has created conditions that threaten the environment at the planet level, as well as the prosperity and well-being of society (Belz et al., 2013). The world scenario is changing as a result of current growth trends. The concentration of economic power, the denationalization of economies, the forms of production and consumption, market systems, socioeconomic imbalances, environmental impacts, and the effects of the presence of human beings on the planet constitute an unprecedented legacy.
A crescente competição entre os agentes econômicos contribuiu para o surgimento do fenômeno da obsolescência programada, como forma de acelerar o processo de consumo de bens duráveis, reduzindo o período temporal para a sua substituição e assegurando a continuidade de geração de receitas operacionais para as organizações. O estudo objetiva revisar na literatura científica a relação entre a obsolescência programada e o descarte de resíduos sólidos eletrônicos, com a sustentabilidade. Trata-se de uma revisão sistemática da literatura
nas bases de dados EBSCO no período de 2011 a 2020, utilizando os descritores e palavras-chave “Electronic Solid Waste” + “Scheduled obsolescence” + “Sustainability”. Foram encontradas 10 incidências com os termos pesquisados na língua inglesa, sendo que um total de 07 (sete) artigos abordam a temática. Os resultados mostram que a obsolescência programada no setor eletrônico é uma prática reiterada que se dá por pequenas atualizações tecnológicas e alterações no design, o que induz a troca frequente e o descarte de produtos, resultando no aumento significativo de resíduos sólidos eletrônicos com danos à saúde humana e ao meio ambiente. Observa-se uma lacuna na questão específica da obsolescência programada em relação aos resíduos sólidos eletrônicos.
Palavras-chave: Obsolescência Planejada. Sustentabilidade. Resíduos Sólidos Eletrônicos. Sustentabilidade.
Redução da vida útil.
Late Holocene dunes migration is
intricately linked to climate change and anthropogenic
actions. Along the Portuguese coast, large-scale sand
drifts occurred between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries, sometimes associated with the Little Ice
Age (LIA) period, characterised by long-term cooling
across the north Atlantic region. Primary historical
sources, coupled with scientific data about
paleoenvironmental conditions and OSL ages were
used to analyse the spatial and temporal extent of the
sand drift occurrences and explore their impact on
coastal communities. Covering the period of the past
millennium, the study describes the main drivers for
drift events in Portugal. The results show the
intensification of sand drift episodes after 1500 AD,
which can be attributed to both natural forcing
factors and human activities (e.g., agriculture and
intensive deforestation). It is also clear that human
pressure on dunes was dominant after 1800, when
dunes fixing strategies through afforestation
programmes were seen as the best solution to control
sand encroachment. The negative impact of the driftsands
was an important trigger for the management
of coastal areas and determinant for the implementation of a set of environmental policies in
Portugal. Through a geohistorical perspective, the
paper discloses the human-nature interactions over
time, and the long-term efforts of governments to
control natural processes, contributing to large-scale
landscape transformation of the Portuguese coastal
dunes.
The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000).
This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline.
The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000).
This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline.
For centuries, people have understood that forests, and our utilisation of them, influence the climate. With modern environmental concerns, there is now scientific, governmental, and popular interest in planting trees for climate protection. This book examines the historical origins of the idea that forests influence climate, the bitter controversy that ended the science, and its modern rebirth. Spanning the 1500s to the present, it provides a broad perspective across the physical and biological sciences, as well as the humanities, to explain the many ways forests influence climate. It describes their use in climate-smart forestry and as a natural climate solution, and demonstrates that in the forest–climate question, human and sylvan fates are linked. Accessibly written with minimal mathematics, it is ideal for students in environmental and related sciences, as well as anyone with an interest in understanding the environmental workings of forests and their interactions with climate.
Land is a basic resource upon which all humanity depends [...]
The rise of agrarian capitalism in Britain is usually told as a story about markets, land and wages. The Enclosure of Knowledge reveals that it was also about books, knowledge and expertise. It argues that during the early modern period, farming books were a key tool in the appropriation of the traditional art of husbandry possessed by farm workers of all kinds. It challenges the dominant narrative of an agricultural 'enlightenment', in which books merely spread useful knowledge, by showing how codified knowledge was used to assert greater managerial control over land and labour. The proliferation of printed books helped divide mental and manual labour to facilitate emerging social divisions between labourers, managers and landowners. The cumulative effect was the slow enclosure of customary knowledge. By synthesising diverse theoretical insights, this study opens up a new social history of agricultural knowledge and reinvigorates long-term histories of knowledge under capitalism.
This essay is devoted to the eastern Alpine area, among the region best known for the history of forest resources. With a wide and diversified demand for timber for its industries (Arsenal, glassworks, mint) and early forestry legislation, Venice conditioned ways and times of supplying this resource, imported even from outside its borders.
In the pre-industrial age, the area between Tyrol and Friuli constituted a basin capable of satisfying multiple needs in the Adriatic and Mediterranean emporiums. The many natural constraints of forests and river routes imposed a supply chain fragmentation that involved many workers' employment. These activities were mainly dependent on environmental and climatic conditions and required large amounts of capital and the technical skills of specialized personnel. They were organized around kinship networks and family firms, which could constitute a precondition for preserving/maintaining investments in the field.
Key words: the Alps, Venice, Timber Trade, Early Modern, Family Firms, Environmental History.
The fundamental aim of this thesis is to explore how marine species declines have changed the structures of the American food system. It does so through three case studies. The first focuses on the gradual decline of American oyster populations on both the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the impact this had on American cooking and cuisine. The second focuses on the collapse of the menhaden populations off the coast of Maine in 1879 and the impact of this event on both local bait fishermen as well as fertilizer producers reliant on menhaden scrap as a source of nitrogen for their fertilizer blends. The third focuses on the collapse of California Pacific Sardine populations off the coast of California in the late 1940s and the resulting disruptions this caused to the animal feed market in the post-World War II period. Overall, this thesis finds that these species collapses can be understood as significant moments of both change and continuity in the development of the food system, pushing producers and consumers away from localized food production and towards the greater stability of more industrialized supply chains. Through this work I hope to demonstrate that not only are marine species declines and fish stock collapses important events in the history of food production but also that fish have played a far greater role in the development of the American food system than the existing scholarship acknowledges.
O artigo analisa a emergência da história ambiental, como uma ciência consciente de si mesma, no contexto histórico e cultural da passagem do século XX para o século XXI. Ele define a história ambiental como uma investigação aberta e não reducionista das interações entre sistemas sociais e sistemas naturais ao longo do tempo. Também são discutidos os fatores sociológicos e as principais questões epistemológicas presentes na constituição desse novo campo historiográfico.The article analyzes the emergence of environmental history as a self-conscious science in the historical and cultural context of the passage of the twentieth to the twenty-first century. He defines environmental history as an open and non-reductive investigation of the interactions between social systems and natural systems over time. Also discussed are the sociological factors and the fundamental epistemological issues present in the constitution of this new historiographical field.
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.
Compared with other scientists of the nineteenth century, the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–73) was a complex figure. In part, this was because Liebig established such broad borders for his science. Chemical methods, popular and professional publications about chemistry, technological applications, promoting the car and even politics – all were central concerns stemming from Liebig's notion of chemistry as the central science.
When Liebig discovered John Stuart Mill's Logic , a work on the philosophy of science, it struck a deep chord within him. Mill's high praise for Liebig's chemistry certainly provided Liebig with a means to promote his own reputation. In addition, Mill's Logic presented science as a central method for the general reform of society, a goal Liebig was himself struggling to define in the early 1840s. In the scientific method, Mill discovered a ‘rule by the elite’, which he could never find nor justify in his political philosophy. This was a rule that greatly appealed to Liebig, and he set out to ensure that Mill's work was translated and published in German. Though many details of this transaction are known, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between Liebig and Mill's book, and the significance of this relationship for understanding Liebig's role as a gatekeeper and inter-relations between science and politics.
From the mid-1580s wine production all over Central Europe dropped to a low level that was maintained beyond the turn of the century. This is concluded on the basis of four series of wine production from Lower Austria, Western Hungary, Wrttemberg, and the region surrounding the lake of Zrich (Switzerland) for the period 1550--1630. This long sequence of crop failures is related to a temperature decline in all seasons, particularly in winter, affecting Europe north of the Alps. The economic, social and political consequences of this climatic "gearshift" are investigated from the example of Lower Austria. It is shown that it had far-reaching effects for major social groups depending on the wine economy and the revenues of the Habsburg crown.
The introductory paper to this special issue of Climatic Change summarizes the results of an array of studies dealing with the reconstruction of climatic trends and anomalies in sixteenth-century Europe and their impact on the natural and the social world. Areas discussed include glacier expansion in the Alps, the frequency of natural hazards (floods in central and southern Europe and storms on the Dutch North Sea coast), the impact of climate deterioration on grain prices and wine production, and finally, witch-hunts.
The documentary data used for the reconstruction of seasonal and annual precipitation and temperatures in central Europe (Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic) include narrative sources, several types of proxy data and 32 weather diaries. Results were compared with long-term composite tree ring series and tested statistically by cross-correlating series of indices based on documentary data from the sixteenth century with those of simulated indices based on instrumental series (1901–1960). It was shown that series of indices can be taken as good substitutes for instrumental measurements.
A corresponding set of weighted seasonal and annual series of temperature and precipitation indices for central Europe was computed from series of temperature and precipitation indices for Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, the weights being in proportion to the area of each country. The series of central European indices were then used to assess temperature and precipitation anomalies for the 1901–1960 period using transfer functions obtained from instrumental records. The statistical analysis of these series of estimated temperature and precipitation anomalies yielded features which are similar to those obtained from instrumental series.
Results show that winter temperatures remained below the 1901–1960 average except in the 1520s and 1550s. Springs fluctuated from 0.3°C to 0.8°C below this average. Summer climate was divided into three periods of almost equal length. The first was characterized by an alternation of cool and warmer seasons. The second interval was 0.3°C warmer and between 5 and 6% drier than in the 1901–1960 period. It is emphasized that this warm period included several cold extremes in contrast to the recent period of warming. Summers from 1560 were 0.4°C colder and 4% more humid. Autumns were 0.7°C colder in the 1510s and 20% wetter in the 1570s. The deterioration of summer climate in the late sixteenth century initiated a second period of enlarged glaciers in this millennium (the first having been in the fourteenth century) which did not end until the late nineteenth century.
An analysis of forcing factors (solar, volcanic, ENSO, greenhouse) points only to some volcanic forcing. In order to understand circulation patterns in the sixteenth century in terms of synoptic climatology, proxy information was mapped for a number of anomalous months. Attempts to compare circulation patterns in the sixteenth century with twentieth-century analogues revealed that despite broad agreements in pressure patterns, winters with distinct northeasterly patterns were more frequent in the sixteenth century, whereas the declining summer temperatures from the mid-1560s seem to be associated with a decreasing frequency of anticyclonic ridging from the Azores’ center of action towards continental Europe. The number of severe stonns on the Dutch North Sea coast was four times greater in the second half of the century than in the first. A more or less continuous increase in the number of floods over the entire century occurred in Germany and the Czech lands. The Iberian peninsula and the Garonne basin (France) had the greatest number of severe floods in the 1590s.
The analysis of the effects of climate on rye prices in four German towns involved a model that included monthly temperatures and precipitation values known to affect grain production. The correlation with rye prices was found significant for the entire century and reached its highest values between 1565 and 1600. From the 1580s to the turn of the century wine production slumped almost simultaneously in four regions over a distance of 800 kilometers (Lake Zurich to western Hungary). This had far-reaching consequences for the Habsburg treasury and promoted a temporary shift in drinking habits from wine to beer. Peasant communities which were suffering large collective damage from the effects of climatic change pressed authorities for the organization of witch-hunts. Seemingly most witches were burnt as scapegoats of climatic change.
Changes in forests are influenced by, and themselves influence, such local conditions as soil, climate and exposure, and also the demands put on the forests by society. Forestry has played a crucial role, since the 19th century at least, in the way these demands are fulfilled through the use and management of forests. This paper describes a regional case study of the history of forestry practices in the north-eastern part of the central plateau of Switzerland during the 19th century, based on an analysis of official documents connected with forestry. The analysis examines, in particular, how the creation of new terms such as 'Niederwald' (i.e., simple coppice forest) and 'Mittelwald' (coppice-with-standards forests) influenced the way in which forestry officials classified forests, which, in turn, influenced how forestry was planned and implemented.
During the 19th century, community authorities increasingly took to transforming coppice forests into high forests. This trend was critically observed by forestry officials, who themselves conducted similar transformations in the cantonal forests directly managed by them. According to a classification of stand descriptions which used definite criteria for the different forest types, most of the decline of coppice-with-standards forests occurred after the middle of the 20th century. This development is discussed with respect to changing demands for the different sorts of timber produced in the different forest types.
This article looks at the history of the Tableau Economique from a visual point of view. It shows that Quesnay invented the Tableau to formalize visually his economic theory, and that he used different versions of the Tableau ('Zigzag', 'Precis' and 'Formule') for reasons of visual rhetorics. Accordingly, the visual history of the Tableau clarifies several problems identified by previous 'ecommentors'. The paper concludes that the history of the Tableau as an image cannot be equated with that of Quesnay's abstract economic model without missing the Tableau Economique's raison d'etre.
title> RIASSUNTO Matematici e filosofi naturali diedero contributi importanti, alla fine del XVII secolo, allo studio e al perfezionamento delle tecniche di sfruttamento delle foreste. L'articolo esamina alcune delle tecniche usate in quel periodo e alcune innovazioni, in relazione alla concezione baconiana di studio della natura messa in atto da filosofi naturali come John Evelyn, Robert Plot e Nehemiah Grew. Di quest'ultimo, in appendice viene presentata una lettera inedita su questo argomento.
This paper sets out to capture the emergence between 1760 and 1840 of a recognizable science of agriculture in Europe. The first attempts to explain and to theorize husbandry as practiced on the farm emanated from economists and agronomists employing the ‘encyclopedic’ approach of the Enlightenment generation. Despite significant additions to chemical knowledge in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries the task of applying this knowledge to agriculture initially appeared insurmountable. Only in the 1820s and the 1830s were the obstacles gradually removed. A more rigorous approach to experimentation and to quantification evolved, and it was combined with investment in institutions seeking to educate landowners and farmers. As a result of these developments chemists secured pride-of-place above all other professionals in the management of agriculture as the primary food-producing sector of the economy.
In the seventeenth century, the Caribbean islands were increasingly incorporated into the international trade network, the core of which was constituted by the European colonial powers. The growth of markets and buying power in Europe stimulated investments in sugar plantations. Consequently, sugar cane agriculture in the Caribbean developed into a considerable apparatus, consisting of land, people, animals and buildings. Agricultural methods and techniques, as well as well-organised routines in sugar production, were developed with a view to managing the sugar plantations as efficiently as possible. The results were in many cases deforestation, impoverished soils and erosion. The changes in the landscapes were noticed and commented upon by visitors who wrote travel accounts of the English and French islands. By the end of the seventeenth century, new agricultural methods and techniques had been developed, based on the growing body of experiences of the sugar planters. The aim of the strict regime on the plantations was to control nature in order to produce sugar as efficiently as possible. In some cases experience taught planters to use resources in a more sustainable manner. The ambition to control nature created the solutions to the problems caused by overexploitation. Conservationist measures were taken to keep the sugar production apparatus in as good a shape as possible.
Timber resources were essential for maintaining the fleets that controlled Spain's transatlantic empire in the sixteenth century. This article argues that although the forest clearances for building the Armada during the reign of Felipe II (r. 1556-98) have been characterized as politically and ecologically destructive, this demand for timber as a strategic resource for war marked the beginning of systematic management of Spanish forests. It also connects forest conservation and the replanting of species valued by the navy, such as oaks and pines, with the militarization and expansion of bureaucratic state power. Finally, this article sheds light on social history by describing the ways in which agents of the crown faced practical limitations to their authority, primarily in the well-forested northern regions. To harvest naval timber without disrupting the social order, Madrid had to balance local interests and imperial demands. Even as international conflicts drained the finances of Spain and rapidly consumed its material and human resources, the crown continued to reaffirm the long-standing legal rights of local communities to access forest resources. Still, by the end of the century, Spain had begun using advanced techniques to gather and communicate information about forests in more regions, expanding its forestry bureaucracy into the largest of its kind in Europe.
In the beginning was the story Or rather: many stories, of many places, in many voices, pointing toward many ends.
New institutional approaches to the commons have seen a proliferation of work in recent years that has overturned stereotypes of 'tragedy' and mismanagement. Much of this work remains centred, however, on the fortunes of individual commons and relates changes in management to local
challenges and experiences. This article uses a large sample of by-laws from commons in south-western Germany to show how regulation has emerged as a complex historical process of imposition of rules by lordship, emulation of neighbours and response to crisis; it demonstrates that relying
on the internal evidence of individual by-laws can be quite misleading about the circumstances of their creation. The article argues that a major stimulus to by-law recording was intra-communal conflict, and, as the results of negotiated resolution of these disputes, we should be cautious
of reading by-laws as records of ecological optimisation rather than attempts to resolve conflicts over the allocation of resources.
Early modern London burned quantities of dirty coal that were unparalleled anywhere in Europe before industrialization, and the consequent smoky air was a matter of more serious and sustained concern than has been appreciated by either early modern or environmental historians. During the 1620s and 1630s, King Charles I and his government sought to remove smoky industries, above all large brewhouses, from the vicinity of the court in Westminster. This was part of a broader campaign for order and beauty that has been described by other scholars, but a focus on smoke highlights the very partial successes achieved by attempts to reform the real spaces of royal government. The improvement of Westminster's air during Charles's personal rule displays an early modern variety of environmental concern that was expressed through courtly display, hierarchy, distinction, and exclusion.
This essay attempts something a little peculiar: a study of the genesis of a concept within discourses which did not, in fact, use the word. This is at least true of "sustainability" in English. The emergence of the German equivalent, Nachhaltigkeit, which might also be expressed by the idea of "lasting-ness", is, however, usually dated to the use of the word nachhalthende by Hanns Carl von Carlowitz in his Sylvicultura oeconomica of 1713, the first great forestry manual of the eighteenth century. In fact, the term can be found in the 1650s.
John Evelyn was born on 31 October 1620 at Wotton near Dorking in Surrey, the second son of a wealthy gentleman. The family, which could trace its ancestry back to the late fifteenth century, had risen to wealth in the time of Elizabeth I, when Evelyn’s grandfather introduced into this country, and engaged in, the manufacture of gunpowder. Evelyn’s father was a man of some culture (he sent his three sons to Oxford). In 1633-4 he was Sheriff of the combined counties of Surrey and Sussex, a dignified but expensive office. His whole household was orderly, liberal, and reasonably devout. The young Evelyn was brought up by his mother’s people at Lewes in Sussex. He remained at school there until he was seventeen, when he went to Balliol College, Oxford; at about the same time he was admitted to the Middle Temple, but for its social training rather than for study of law, He stayed at Oxford, though with considerable interruptions, for three years. As he later acknowledged, his school was unable to give him a proper grounding; Oxford did not make good the defect. Evelyn was inquisitive and observant, but had little powers of clear and precise thought and of synthesis. He had however two acquisitions unusual in this country in his time. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the great art-collector and patron, had been helped by Evelyn’s father to buy an estate at Albury near Wotton. He received the young Evelyn kindly and fostered in him a strong interest in the visual arts; and if Evelyn’s love of landscape is to be regarded as something spontaneous, it was probably in Arundel’s household that he learnt to express it. No specific origin for his scientific interests is known. Evelyn’s father died in 1640. When the Civil War came in 1642 Evelyn was in a difficult position: the estate at Wotton, now belonging to his brother, was in territory held by Parliament; if Evelyn joined the king, as he apparently wished to do, the estate might have been forfeited.
A program of forestry surveys and reform conducted in France during the 17th century has been accused of rationalizing the landscape and suppressing peasant culture; tools of cartography were said to have made rural lands both more legible to the state and alien to locals. On closer inspection, it seems that the surveys did not produce abstract rationalizations of the forests that made them 'readable' at a distance or more orderly on the ground; mainly the reformers developed databases or archives of misuses of the forests by nobles who were supposed to be managing them for the crown. This paper follows one reformer, Louis de Froidour, as he moved through the Midi-Pyrenees, using a set of letters he wrote while doing forest surveys for the reform. He described and explained noble opposition to his entering 'their forests', and how he nonetheless conducted the required surveys and acquired the necessary documents. Froidour not only did not target peasant villages, but also sometimes even protected forests that he said locals needed more than the crown. He had no romantic affection for mountain inhabitants (quite the opposite). He protected their interests because villagers rather than nobles paid taxes, and so disrupting their economies would not benefit the state. This case study, while only focusing on a small area of France, provides valuable insight into the logic of the reform, and its political consequences.
In this essay Chakrabarty engages with Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer's concept of the'anthropocene,'proposed in 2000 to describe the geological epoch in which humans exist as the main geological force. Chakrabarty asks how fierce and irreversible climat change impacts our thinkingabout human history. Analysingthe assumptions of classical historiography as well as current research on global warming, Charkabarty concludes that in the face of climate change it becomes necessary to supplement global histories of capital with a species history of humans.
This paper is concerned with the application of science to a practical activity. The story begins in the late eighteenth century, a period of agricultural innovation, with various authors urging that definite chemical knowledge should replace rule of thumb in the application of fertilisers. In the work of Archibald Cochrane, ninth Earl of Dundonald, we find this exhortation beginning to give way to descriptions of actual chemical experiments, and interpretations of equilibria in the soil. But it is only with Davy's Agricultural chemistry of 1813 that we get clear descriptions of soil analyses that could be undertaken by a farmer, accompanied with a certain amount of biochemical information on the growth of plants. Davy's recommendations were essentially conservative; he provided support for the best practices already being recommended by innovators. His book is interesting too, for the light it casts upon his more theoretical writings.
Henry Carey was the most important American economist of the middle part of the 19th century. Although he lacked an academic following in the United States, he was influential in Europe. In the course of denouncing British trade policy and British political economy, Carey developed an ecological-economic analysis that prefigures much modern thought. Carey began with the dangers of soil depletion and developed a dynamic theory of value based on the cost of reproduction. He called for a development strategy based on the complete, local recycling of all goods, including even waste products from both animate and inanimate sources. This article details the strengths and shortcomings of Carey's work. Although Carey was quite conservative and trusted in markets, his theories point in the direction of a radical ecological-economic program.
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.
This article places the landscape central to our understanding of early modern senses of place and belonging. A material 'language' existed at the heart of social relationships and identities. This language was by no means static: over time its meanings were continually interrogated, thus reflecting the ongoing significance of certain landmark features and places, as well as allowing for processes of reinvention and adaptation. Material relics inherited from the past demanded some degree of interpretation and, whether respected or neglected, their interpretation to a great extent reflected the shifting needs and values of early modern rural societies. These theoretical issues are explored in relation to two interrelated developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the growing social and geographical importance of the parish and the defence of custom and common rights. Using oral testimonies gathered during litigation proceedings the article explores the interconnectedness between individuals, their social lives and everyday experiences, and knowledge of the landscape. By examining the meanings and associations attached to parish boundaries conflicting ideas about space and identity were revealed which were as much about the division of resources, customs and rights as they were about defining parish 'communities'.
This article examines the circulation of printed questionnaires as a research strategy among those investigating the constituent parts of the British Isles between the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries. It traces the origins and development of published ‘heads’ or ‘articles of enquiry’ as a means of acquiring information on antiquities, geography, and natural history and pieces together the research networks through which this methodology was shared and elaborated. The learned societies, ecclesiastical infrastructure, and periodical publications of the day are shown to have been instrumental in promoting this practice and in forging links between scholars and the ‘learned and ingenious’ in the parishes to whom such ‘queries’ were addressed. It is argued that these questionnaires were an important and insufficiently appreciated aspect of regional studies during the period. Though the responses to them are shown to have been highly variable, both in quantity and quality, it is suggested that they helped to establish what has become an important technique of data collection in modern academic inquiry.
This article examines the development of formal poor-relief provision across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in rural Germany, through a case study of a district of the Duchy of Württemberg. It presents a detailed picture of practices to support the poor, whether through payments and alms from the poor chest, institutions providing credit, common rights or village and town granaries. In building up a picture of institutional practice, it also presents extensive information on the recipients of relief. It is argued that both the institutional framework and new trends in its development during the period ante-dated the Reformation, and that this society enjoyed a wide and varied capacity to support the poor that bears comparison with the English Old Poor Law. However, in a differing socio-economic context, demand for support remained more limited, and the demographic catastrophe of the Thirty Years' War arrested trends towards increasingly formalized collections, pensions and doles.
The usual picture of the medieval peasantry is based on nineteenth-century scholarship, which has proven difficult to dislodge from educated minds. This article continues the revision of an important detail in the picture, the scattering of plots in open fields. Some recent work on the subject by Robert Allen and Gregory Clark is midly disputed, and new evidence is presented that risk avoidance is the key to understanding peasant behavior. The reason for the scattering was not sentiment or socialism. Peasants were not perhaps rational in every detail; but they were prudent.
For nearly 150 years after its foundation, Fellows of the Royal Society collected information on trees, investigated their anatomy and physiology, promoted planting and improved planting practices, and introduced, naturalized and classified foreign species. Their discoveries and advice were widely disseminated and used. Historians have generally neglected this interest, although the Society's first publication was an influential work on trees. They have also overlooked the significance of Stephen Hales's remark in Vegetable Staticks--that he hoped his enquiries into the nature of plants would improve skills in agriculture and gardening-and his linking of sap movement to tree pruning. Fellows' experiments and field trials not only advanced knowledge of the structure, nutrition and growth of trees but also provided empirical evidence supporting instructions for cultivating them.
The notion of ‘resource management’ has inspired some historians to rethink the nature of the state authority in early modern
Europe. Like recent work on parts of Italy and Germany, this article investigates the development and implementation of legislation
that sought to regulate the management and exploitation of forests. This was self-interested policymaking: as ancien régime France strove to match Britain's naval, colonial and maritime strength, the monarchy's priority was ship timbers. Yet the
most sought-after pieces of wood were large, heavy and difficult to transport. According to standard accounts, such resources
became rare during the eighteenth century, and the French navy turned increasingly to timber supplies from abroad. This article
offers a wider view, by finding ways to analyse bureaucratic records created by the royal forestry officials (Eaux et Forêts),
which have been largely neglected by historians. A regional case study suggests that, besides extending the authority of royal
agents to acquire timbers for the naval dockyards, the application of Louis XIV's Ordinance on Waterways and Forests (1669)
generated huge amounts of information about the extent, nature and location of mature timber reserves across France.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Ontario, 2004. Includes bibliographical references.
Historians have commonly described John Evelyn's pamphlet about London smoke pollution, Fumifugium, as a precocious example of environmental concern. This paper argues that
such an interpretation is too simple. Evelyn's proposals are shown to be closely related to political
allegory and the panegyrics written to welcome the newly restored Charles II. However, the paper also
shows that Fumifugium was not simply a literary conceit; rather it exemplified the mid-seventeenth-century
English interest in the properties of air that is visible in both the Hartlib circle and the early
Royal Society
Across the early modern period actors at all levels of European society expressed fears of imminent ‘wood scarcity’ with potentially catastrophic social and economic consequences. Debates as to the ‘reality’ of this risk have subsequently been pursued in many national historiographies with little international comparison. This article provides a cross-national synthesis of this work, along with novel perspectives on the causes of such debates; an examination of the condition of European woodland and the regulation thereof; and reflections on whether Europe was approaching a state of ecological exhaustion around the time of the Industrial Revolution. It is argued that the framework for regulation and debate was set in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century with the widespread development of state oversight of woodlands. Quantitative evidence of the level of supply and demand for wood suggests however that a general, as opposed to a localized, shortage of wood was not plausible before the later eighteenth century. Earlier fears were generated by a combination of an emerging governmental sense of responsibility for resource management, local pressures exerted by urban growth and industry, and above all competition among different users of the woodland. Genuine shortages had emerged by the Napoleonic period but were largely remedied during the nineteenth century by the widespread application of scientific forestry, though at the cost of serious social conflict. This suggests that Europe was not close to an ecological frontier at this period.
History of Political Economy Annual Supplement to Volume 35 (2003) 74-100
The extensive literature and cultural traditions associated with agricultural production in the seventeenth century have been undeservedly slighted in discussions of the agricultural economy. A revolution in agricultural production has been associated traditionally with the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The scientific revolution in agriculture is associated with the mid-nineteenth century emergence of soils chemistry after Justus von Liebig (Fussel 1971; Wilmot 1990). However, recent work has further documented an earlier revolution in agricultural productivity around the beginning of the seventeenth century (Kerridge [1967] 1968; Allen 1992). Two aspects of the increases in agricultural yields are striking. First, the guiding literature on agricultural practices was surprisingly constant from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. Incongruously, despite the increase in agricultural productivity during this period, the agricultural manuals are frequently dismissed as pedestrian and nonscientific.
Second, a cooler climate afflicted northern Europe from around 1300 to after 1900 (Andersen and Borns 1994; Briffa and Osborn 2002). David Grigg (1982, 85, 88) dates the period of poorest climate from 1550 to 1700, with cold winters, wet summers, and shorter growing seasons. Yet this was the very period in which English agriculture doubled its yields per acre, according to R. C. Allen's (1992) statistical study of the Midlands (see also Kerridge [1967] 1968). Perhaps a retrospective overemphasis on the growth of commerce and the mathematization of science have limited our appreciation of the importance of the agricultural base of the economy and its instructional and legal components (Cipolla 1980).
I focus my analysis on the dominant economic concerns of the vast majority of the population of that day and on the reflective thought that paralleled their concerns. Emphasis must be on the physical realities of early modern agriculture. The best data indicate that, in the sixteenth century, 70 to 90 percent of the population lived on the land. This base of the population pyramid struggled to provide for itself and to supply a material surplus to support the political, military, clerical, and commercial superstructure of the society. In the prologue to his agricultural manual of 1534, Mayster Fitzherbert likened the society to the game of "chesse," with the pawns equivalent to the yeomanry. A best estimate for England in 1520 is that it took 100 families on the land to support 106 families. This indicates that roughly 94 percent of the population worked in agriculture at that time (Wrigley 1986, 136). By 1800, it is estimated that 100 families on the land could support a total of 138 families, including themselves. This indicates that over 70 percent of the population was still on the land, but there had been a sixfold increase in the economic superstructure supported by domestic agriculture and augmented by food imports (136). To put this background in perspective, compare it with modern agricultural practices. Less than 5 percent of the population in the United States is still on the land, and much agricultural production is devoted to industrial crops rather than food. The hidden distinction in such an overview is the difference between production per acre and production per laborer. The former is vital in subsistence agriculture; the latter, in capitalist agriculture.
The economic and cultural importance of basic agriculture during the 1600s can be underlined by some consideration of famine. Late medieval grain yields ran from three to five times seed in normal times. Planters used about two bushels of seed per acre, and this had to be held back from the meager harvest for the following year. In this period, bread was figuratively "the staff of life." Barley, however, was frequently malted and made into beer to improve its palatability. Altogether, the four grains (barley, oats, and wheat or rye bread) made up the foundation of the English diet. It was supplemented with a little cheese, beef, or mutton and peas, beans, turnips, or cabbage. In the early seventeenth century, one farm ration was two pounds of bread per day plus four pints of beer and some meat, fruit, and vegetables. Generally, a peck of wheat a week (eight quarts) in bread and near that...
History of Political Economy Annual Supplement to Volume 35 (2003) 14-41
Reflecting on commerce and finance, the economist Charles Ferrère Du Tot (1738) turned his attention to the Compagnie des Indes, that enterprise part royal, part commercial. From the perspective of the French nation, he argued, the company's role was to acquire "spices, drugs, and other things not produced in our country, which we cannot do without and which we would be absolutely required to obtain from our neighbours" (quoted in Haudrère 1993, 93). Du Tot was writing after several turbulent decades of military, monarchical, and fiscal crises that ended the prosperity resulting from Jean-Baptiste Colbert's reforms of sciences, manufactures, and commerce in Louis XIV's reign. But in 1738, the volume of France's colonial trade had recently entered a period of steady increase that would persist until the Seven Years' War (Butel 1990, 155). During this first half-century, relations between the sciences and colonialism would begin a process of transformation that would render scientific activities inseparable from the colonial enterprise and would make the colonial enterprise itself a measure of national strength.
Natural history, commerce, and the condition of the nation were all closely configured in writings on exotic plants and their uses and cultivation. Elsewhere I have explored the political and social ends served by models of the natural economy deployed by French naturalists and medical practitioners in the second half of the eighteenth century (Spary 2000, 1996). Here, my concern is with the ways in which naturalists and medical botanists at the beginning of the century began to insert themselves into networks of global and colonial trade, by portraying their enterprises of classification and cultivation as indispensable contributions to national wealth, and by explaining how nonindigenous, plant-derived luxuries could be converted into sources of profit for the state. Such views reflected the assimilation of two literary and commercial traditions of enquiry into botany: first, the resounding therapeutic successes of medical botany since the 1670s, and second, a genre of writings on rustic or rural economy that formed an important foundation for the political economy of the midcentury.
The involvement of botanists in enterprises of colonial and exotic exploitation marked the extension of forms of resource management characteristic of économie to the global setting. Representations by Du Tot and others of global commercial enterprises as indispensable might seem self-evident in a period when the consumption of exotic goods was generally rising throughout Europe. But such portrayals were hotly contested by some, who characterized exotic natural substances as harmful, addictive luxuries. Two very different models of nature were at stake: was it a treasury to be plundered at man's discretion, or a precious frugal resource to be used only in cases of true need? Here, botanists participated in a broader economic debate over the relative value of global and local resources that would define the nation as a natural entity and set limits to its dependency on particular natural resources. Simultaneously, they began to redefine the basis of wealth. As economic resources, plants, unlike coin, could be cultivated and replicated.
In 1703, a Jesuit reviewer ([Review of Nova plantarum] 1703) scolded the Minim father Charles Plumier: "It is to be wished that he had worked [as much] for Public utility, as he has fulfilled his curiosity." The publication of such a criticism about a leading seventeenth-century traveling naturalist indicates that natural history was acquiring a new agenda at the beginning of the new century. For naturalists in France, the reviewer indicated that curiosity, here characterized as private, was no adequate justification for travel and collecting. The voyager needed an eye to the public good, to exploitable natural resources (Harris 1998; Daston and Park 1998; Whitaker 1996; Licoppe 1996, chap. 3): "If Father Plumier had added the use that can be made of these plants and the aid they give to medicine to his descriptions, he would have reached the point of perfection that one looks for in these sorts of works, by joining the useful to the agreeable." For another contemporary (Biron 1703, xiii), useful natural history was...
This essay argues that high medieval economic growth in Champagne and elsewhere in northern France encouraged a switch in the primary focus of woodland management from extensive silvo-pastoralism to intensive small wood production. For the first time in the thirteenth century, coppicing, short cycles of cutting and regeneration of trees capable of resprouting from stumps or trunks, came to dominate sylviculture as an intensively managed, market-oriented system, one that lasted for centuries. This essay thus provides a wider context for the late medieval and early modern French state's role in shaping forest exploitation. Royal officials did not so much innovate as respond to new market opportunities by appropriating and generalizing practices that had long existed in many regions. Before the sixteenth century few educated experts ventured into the details of woodland management, which remained largely the preserve of nonelite peasants, foresters, and woodmongers, the bearers of a traditional, orally transmitted ecological knowledge.
Durant la periode de Noel de l'annee 1596, le Conseil prive, interpellant les archeveches de Canterbury et de York, lanca une campagne en faveur de l'assistance aux pauvres afin de remedier aux effets des penuries alimentaires recurrentes. L'A. replace la campagne de 1596 pour l'hospitalite generalisee dans ses contextes economique, religieux, politique et social de l'epoque. Insistant sur l'importance des problemes economiques de la fin du 16 eme siecle, il analyse les sermons et exhortations a la charite, ainsi que la signification de l'aumone dans les polemiques religieuses de l'epoque. Il propose egalement la premiere analyse systematique des reponses locales a cette campagne et de son impact sur les relations sociales. Finalement, il examine la relation complexe entre l'hospitalite et l'introduction du statut d'assistance au pauvre de 1598. Selon l'A., l'hospitalite generalisee a des implications importantes, non seulement pour la comprehension des debats parlementaires sur la pauvrete des annees 1590, mais egalement pour le developpement a plus long terme des politiques sociales, notamment pour la reglementation de la mendicite. Les faits reveles par cette etude mettent en evidence l'imbrication complexe d'elements parfois contradictoires de la politique elisabethaine en faveur des pauvres.
Agricultural, economical and social; citation_author=Johnson
- F W James
Samuel Hartlib for the advancement of some particular parts of learning; citation_author=Petty, William
- W P Mr
citation_title=Vermischte Verbeßerungsvorschläge und freie Gedanken über verschiedene, den Narungszustand, die Bevölkerung und Staatswirtschaft der Deutschen, betreffende Gegenstände
- Johann Pfeiffer
- Ludwig