A Dictionary of Environmental History

Ian Whyte

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781845114626
• eBook ISBN: 9780857733597
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: History

Increasing awareness of the extent and cause of environmental problems has fuelled the emergence of a new and timely discipline: environmental history. An exciting blend of geography, history, archaeology, anthropology, landscape, environment and science, it seeks to reveal how human activity has affected the environment in the past and how we, in turn, have been affected by that environment. How did people use and transform their environment? What problems of pollution and resource depletion occurred? What has been the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation? How have people's perceptions of nature and the environment changed over time? Environmental historians are revealing how and why our environment changed in the past, they are providing key insights into the mechanisms that influence environmental change today, and are helping to make informed decisions on crucial environmental concerns such as deforestation, desertification, pollution, global warming and climate change. Professor Whyte's A Dictionary of Environmental History provides in a single volume a comprehensive reference work covering the past 12, 000 years of the Earth's environmental history.
An introduction to the discipline is followed by almost 1, 000 entries covering key terminology, events, places, dates, topics, as well as the major personalities in the history of the discipline. Entries range from shorter factual accounts to substantial mini-essays on major topics and issues. Fully cross-referenced and with an extensive bibliography, this pioneering work provides an authoritative yet accessible resourcethat will form essential reading for academics, practitioners and students of environmental history and related disciplines.

A

Aberfan

Village 8 km S of Merthyr Tydfil, S Wales. Scene of a major disaster on 21 October 1966 when a colliery spoil heap collapsed into the village, destroying a cottage and burying the Pantglas Junior School and 20 houses. 144 people were killed, 116 of them children. Half the pupils at the school and five of their teachers died. A tribunal of enquiry reported on 3 August 1967, blaming the National Coal Board at various levels for incompetence but not recommending criminal proceedings against any individual. The disaster drew attention to the dangers posed by mining and other industrial waste (Miller 1974).

acid rain

Most rainfall is slightly acidic due to carbonic acid formed from atmospheric CO₂. In acid rain pollution is due to SO₂ and nitrous oxides reacting to produce H₂SO₄ and nitric acid. Normal rainfall has a pH of around 5; anything lower than this is acid rain. Acid rain was first identified in 1872 in Manchester but has been a widespread phenomenon only from the 1960s. The term has been used since the 1970s to refer to contamination of the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and from volcanic eruptions. Deposition can be wet, in precipitation, or dry, as wind-borne particles. A concentration of SO₂ of 0.2 ppm is harmful to vegetation and 1.0 ppm poses a risk to human health. Pollutants can be carried a long distance in the atmosphere and be deposited, via acid rain, far from their source. Norway has been concerned about acid rain from Britain since the 1860s. Half of Canada’s acid rain comes from the USA. It is especially concentrated in E USA and W Europe but is a growing problem in China, S Korea and Japan. In China acid rain had a limited distribution in the 1980s but has now spread over much of the country as a result of rapid industrialization. Acid rain leaches nutrients and minerals from upper soil horizons, affecting tree growth. In Europe in the 1970s and 1980s it caused widespread damage to vegetation, particularly trees, in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Scandinavia, a process known in Germany as waldsterben. In Scandinavia it has caused a decline in lichens, decreasing food supplies for reindeer. On a more local scale, the problem goes back to the early days of industrialization in areas like N England although the real impact only became clear in the late C20. It became a wider issue following the first UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm in 1972. Acid rain can also contaminate freshwater ecosystems, reducing fish stocks. Acid precipitation can attack the stonework of buildings, like the Acropolis in Athens or St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and also affects human health. Measures to reduce acid deposition include removal of SO₂ produced in power stations using scrubbers (Howells 1995, Jenkins et al. 2007, Park 1987, Longhurst 1991, McCormick 1989). (See pollution, air.)

adaptation to environmental change

Strategies undertaken by individuals, groups or societies in response to environmental changes, that are designed to reduce their vulnerability. They were a feature of human society from the earliest times, a response to environmental problems created by human activities or arising independently, but varying in the nature, speed and success of the adaptation. There has been considerable debate about what elements in societies have encouraged/discouraged successful adaptation. It is interesting to consider the extent to which people in past societies realized that environmental change was occurring, or whether they simply registered and tried to cope with its effects. Responses could be on different scales: individual, community, regional or national. Environmental changes may be periodic (effectively random like flash floods), or cyclical (e.g. El Niño), gradual (sea level change) or rapid (earthquakes or volcanoes erupting). Memories of past environmental changes and how ancestors coped with them may have been enshrined in folk myths (Noah’s flood). Societies may have had inbuilt buffering systems to protect them from environmental change, e.g. famine foods. Some groups within past societies, such as the poor, elderly and very young, were particularly vulnerable to change. Adaptation might be limited by cost, by allocation of responsibility for dealing with the problem, or by societal, political and religious constraints. Societies tended to have a built-in reluctance to change. A frequently cited example of the failure to adapt to environmental change is the Norse settlement of Greenland. Failure properly to evaluate and understand environmental change is also shown by the history of farming on the US Great Plains. Other frequently quoted examples of societies which appear to have collapsed through a failure to cope with environmental change include the inhabitants of Easter Island and the Maya (Diamond 2005). In contrast the development of agriculture in the Near E can be seen as a positive adaptation to environmental change. Diamond has identified five factors which contributed to the collapse of societies: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbours, collapse of trade and unsuitable cultural response. In the examples he cites a decline of the resource base as the main factor precipitating a population crash. The responses needed to adapt to environmental change will also depend on scale. An individual might want protection for their property from rising sea level but regional and national authorities might take a wider view of the greatest good of the greatest number (Brooks 2006, Davies 1996, Diamond 2005, Mortimore & Adams 2001, Scoones 1992). (See resilience.)

aerial photography/photographs

An early form of remote sensing. There are two kinds of photographs: oblique, taken at angles of less than 90°, which gives a better impression of relief, and vertical, which is more useful for mapping and survey. The first aerial photographs of sites like Stonehenge were taken from balloons. The scope offered by aerial perspectives for improving understanding of known archaeological sites and identifying previously unrecorded ones was appreciated during WW1 by pilots in the Middle E. Pioneer work in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s by people like O.G.S. Crawford, who had served as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps, demonstrated that new sites could be identified, even when obliterated at the surface by ploughing, due to their survival as cropmarks (differences in the growth of crops over buried ditches or stone foundations). The use of aerial photographs has become a standard approach in landscape archaeology and history. They can be used to study vegetation change or the development of landforms like gully systems. Surveys of many parts of Europe in the 1940s and 1950s capture traditional landscapes on the verge of rapid and far-reaching changes and may be the only record of many archaeological sites. Those of Britain taken by the RAF in the late 1940s form valuable records of environmental change when compared with modern images: e.g. the removal of field boundaries with the rise of agribusiness (Agnoletti 2006a, Bewley 2001, Crawford 1953, St Joseph 1977, Wilson 1982).

afforestation

The deliberate establishment of forests on land not previously covered in trees in recent history. This excludes abandoning arable and pasture and letting woodland regenerate naturally. Planting often involves exotic species, uniform in age, chosen for quick growth rather than aesthetic appearance. Afforestation creates ecosystems which are less complex and biodiverse than natural forests but generally more diverse than the land use which forestry has replaced. It produces forests which are obviously artificial but which have many of the benefits of natural ones (see deforestation).

Africa

The second largest continent and the most populous after Asia. Although reliable demographic data are rare before the mid-C20 it is clear that in the recent past Africa was underpopulated: between AD1500 and AD1900 population grew very slowly, from c.50 million to c.100 million. Between 1900 and 2000 it rose to over 800 million. Since the origins of Homo sapiens were in Africa, early human impact on the environment can be postulated. Although its environments have often been seen as pristine wilderness, Africa’s landscapes are in fact anthropogenic, shaped especially by the long-term use of fire. Human impacts on the African landscape in the past have certainly been considerable; yet its agricultural systems have been mobile, adapting to the environment as much as altering it. Thin populations scattered over great distances hindered transport and the development of states. Sub-Saharan Africa was isolated from Eurasia at various times by drought in the Sahara, yet not totally cut off like the Americas so that external influences filtered in slowly, developing distinctive African characteristics in the process. Although contacts developed between W and N Africa across the Sahara, especially following the spread of Islam, and down the E coast, for much of tropical Africa significant contact with the outside world began with the slave trade.

African environmental history suffers from a lack of early documentation: historians have had to rely on scientific, archaeological and linguistic evidence in reconstructing environmental history. Environmental historiography has focused on erosion, deforestation and desiccation under human impact. Europeans have often misunderstood African environments: the forest islands in the savanna landscapes of Guinea were seen as the result of deforestation, the remnants of a once extensive forest cover. In fact they were partly human creations in a savanna that would otherwise have had little forest. African historiography has been less keen than elsewhere to blame humans for environmental change (Fairhead & Leach 1996, Leach & Mearns 1996, Maddox 1999).

Africa’s ancient rocks, poor soils, variable rainfall and prevalence of diseases did not encourage agriculture. The dating of the development of agriculture and livestock herding (which in some areas like the N savannas seems to have developed earlier than crop growing) is difficult due to the paucity of evidence. Much pastoralism was nomadic, following seasonal patterns of moisture. Fire was widely used to modify environments, affecting the boundaries of savannas and forests.

Africa’s long history of human evolution and abundant wildlife gave it a rich, diverse disease environment, much more than in tropical America. The penetration of Europeans into tropical Africa on any scale was delayed by the range of diseases to which they were susceptible in the ‘White man’s graveyard’. Endemic diseases include malaria, onchocirciasis (river blindness), bilharzia, trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness). Major animal diseases include rinderpest and tsetse fly (passed to humans as sleeping sickness). More recently smallpox, influenza (1917–19), rinderpest (1889–92), and, from the 1980s, AIDS, Ebola and Lassa fever have been serious problems.

In the early C20 W Africa had 0.5 m/km² of coastal rainforest, which has since been heavily depleted by commercial logging and agriculture. In Central Africa 1.8 m/km² of tropical rain forest has been less affected, though logging and clearing have accelerated rapidly in recent times. In 1990 Africa still had one-third of the world’s tropical forests.

Recent work on the environmental history of Africa has emphasized African initiative in the face of European conquest and capitalist exploitation. From the early C19 especially, Africa’s landscapes have been shaped indirectly by influences operating at a global scale such as the creation of plantations for cash crops and the mining of minerals like diamonds and gold. Although some parts of E and W Africa have a long tradition of trading centres, in recent centuries is has been the least urbanized continent. More recently it has experienced rapid growth of cities. In 1950 14.5% of the population was urbanized, in 1990 28% and by 2010 over 33%.

There is a widespread view that environmental degradation has been a major feature of Africa in recent centuries, caused by deforestation, erosion and loss of soil fertility, these processes in turn being due to population growth, industrialization, agriculture, logging and urban development. This contrasted with how African peoples interacted with their surroundings in earlier centuries when there was thought to have been more harmony with nature. Desertification has been a particular problem in sub-Saharan Africa, blamed variously on local and regional human activities. Sub-Saharan Africa has long suffered from periodic drought leading to major famines in both early and recent times.

Central Africa has huge equatorial rain forests fringed with savannas covering much of the Congo and Zambesi basins. Around 8000BP people in the N savannas began to cultivate millet and sorghum and may have converted extensive areas of dry woodland to grassland. 2,000 years ago rain forest peoples cultivated bananas and yams as well as rearing livestock and hunting, affecting the composition of the forest vegetation. Histories of cultivation are linked to the spread of Bantu-speakers from W Africa over 2,000 years down to AD500–1000 through the rain forests into E and S Africa, disseminating the use of iron. The Portuguese introduced cassava from the Americas and it spread widely in central Africa over the next few centuries. In the C19 exports of manioc, palm oil, ivory and slaves developed. Colonial monopolies granted to private companies led to unregulated exploitation and environmental damage. Widespread recruitment of migrant labour spread diseases like sleeping sickness. Political conflicts over much of the Congo basin have led to modern depopulation and the collapse of infrastructure constructed during colonial times (Adams & McShane 1992, Birmingham & Martin 1983, Butcher 2008, McCann 1999a, 1999b, Anderson & Grove 1987, Giles-Vernick 2002, Richards 1996, Vansina 1990).

E Africa has a wide range of environments, most of which have been affected by varying combinations of hunting, agriculture and livestock rearing. Agriculture and pastoralism only took over from hunting and gathering within the last 2,000–3,000 years. In the drier uplands of Kenya and Tanzania pastoralism was more normal, though with some grain cultivation too. On the coast trade contacts with Asia introduced bananas, which spread throughout tropical Africa. The introduction of commercial monocultures of coffee, cotton, tea and tobacco further dislocated indigenous agriculture and extensive areas were expropriated from the native population. Colonial administrators blamed deforestation and soil erosion on African farmers. Agriculture and forestry services implemented conservation programmes which were often ill-suited to environmental conditions. Attempts to make farmers construct terraces and adopt other anti-erosion measures were more successful (Anderson 1984, Conte 2004, Ehret 2000, Johnson & Anderson 1989, McCann 1990, McClanahan & Young 1996, Schmidt 1994, Sutton 1990).

The savanna areas of the Sudan were suitable for mixed farming. This, with the exploitation of ivory and gold, provided the foundations for the rise of the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai and the development of trade across the Sahara, with gold, slaves, ivory and hides being exported (Maddox 2006, McIntosh 1988). The rise of the slave trade in W Africa, particularly in the C17 and C18, disrupted economies due to the unrest it created and may have led to population stagnating or declining in many areas.

In S Africa indigenous agricultural practices were often sensitive to fragile environments. Imposition of colonial conservation techniques often overlooked local wisdom relating to soil conservation and accelerated soil erosion. Loss of flat fertile land to the Boers, change to commercial agriculture and overuse of steep slopes increased erosion and made agriculture less effective (Singh 2000, Dovers et al. 2003).

Agassiz, Lake

The largest proglacial lake in central N America during the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet 13.7–8.2 kya. It covered extensive areas in Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Minnesota and N Dakota. It underwent major changes in volume resulting from several cataclysmic outbursts as the ice retreated and the water burst through ice lobes and moraines blocking access to the St Lawrence. In its early stages it covered up to 170,000 km² with a volume of 13,000 km³ (equal to modern L Superior). In its later stages it reached 8...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: What is Environmental History?
• Entries A–Z
• A Guide to Further Reading
• Back Cover