HISTORY AND IMPORTENCE OF ENVIORNMENTAL STUDY

The term the environment comes from the French word environ and means everything that surrounds us. Under such a broad umbrella, there is a host of ways in which environmental studies can be understood. The Faculty of Environmental Studies defines it as the study of a range of environments, from the bodies we live, to the physical structures, institutions and industries we build, to the politics, languages and cultural practices we use to communicate, and to the earth and its complex multitude of animals, flora and bio-physical elements and processes. The Faculty also adopts an inter-disciplinary approach to environmental studies where the social sciences, humanities, arts and natural sciences meet and inform each other. The Faculty encourages the use of different theoretical approaches and disciplinary and interdisciplinary ideas to explore environmental issues and options in their historical, comparative and current contexts, considering ecological, political and economic constraints and possibilities. We encourage exploration of how theoretical and practical matters intersect, and how reflexive, rigorous, critical and creative thinking can inform interpretations and policies in the wider society. From such a definition of environmental studies flows the view that culture and nature are deeply integrated and inseparable. Such seemingly artificial areas as downtown Toronto and the York University campus are as profoundly natural as apparently wild places as Algonquin Park in northern Ontario and Clayoquot Sound in British Columbia are cultural. Another set of questions addresses environmental justice and social and political equity. Who defines what constitutes environmental issues? Who is included and excluded from environmental

concerns? Who benefits and pays for environmental reform? Who suffers from environmental degradation? And what is the role of non-human natures in environmental experience and change? The roles and skills of environmental professionals are important but not sufficient in asking such questions. The Faculty thus seeks additional answers in the knowledge and views expressed by environmental groups, citizens, First Nations, and marginalized groups whose voices are often unheard in conventional deliberations Environmental history

The city of Machu Picchu was constructed c. 1450 AD, at the height of the Inca Empire. It has commanding views down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back. There is an ample supply of spring water and enough land for a plentiful food supply. The hillsides leading to it have been terraced to provide farmland for crops, reduce soil erosion, protect against landslides, and create steep slopes to discourage potential invaders. Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time. In contrast to other historical disciplines, it emphasizes the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs. Environmental historians study how humans both shape their environment and are shaped by it. Environmental history emerged in the United States out of the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and much of its impetus still stems from present-day global environmental concerns.[1] The field was founded on

conservation issues but has broadened in scope to include more general social and scientific history and may deal with cities, population or sustainable development. As all history occurs in the natural world, environmental history tends to focus on particular time-scales, geographic regions, or key themes. It is also a strongly multidisciplinary subject that draws widely on both the humanities and natural science.

The subject matter of environmental history can be divided into three main components.[2] The first, nature itself and its change over time, includes the physical impact of humans on the Earth's land, water, atmosphere and biosphere. The second category, how humans use nature, includes the environmental consequences of increasing population, more effective technology and changing patterns of production and consumption. Other key themes are the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer communities to settled agriculture in the neolithic revolution, the effects of colonial expansion and settlements, and the environmental and human consequences of the industrial and technological revolutions.[3] Finally, environmental historians study how people think about nature - the way attitudes, beliefs and values influence interaction with nature, especially in the form of myths, religion and science.

Origin of name and early works Main article: Roderick Nash In 1967 Roderick Nash published "Wilderness and the American Mind", a work that has become a classic text of early environmental history. In an address to the Organization of American Historians in 1969 (published in 1970) Nash used the expression "environmental history",[4] although 1972 is generally taken as the date

when the term was first coined.[5] The 1959 book by Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920, while being a major contribution to American political history, is now also regarded as a founding document in the field of environmental history. Hays is Professor Emeritus of History at the Historiography Main article: Historiography Brief overviews of the field of environmental history have been given by John McNeill in 1983,[7] Richard White in 1985,[8] and J. Donald Hughes in 2006.[9] Definition

. The World in 1897 British "possessions" are coloured in red There is no universally accepted definition of environmental history. In general terms it is a history that tries to explain why our environment is like it is and how humanity has influenced its current condition, as well as commenting on the problems and opportunities of tomorrow.[10] Donald Worster's widely quoted 1988

definition states: "Environmental history is the interaction between human cultures and the environment in the past."[11] In 2001 J. Donald Hughes defined the subject as The study of human relationships through time with the natural communities of which they are a part in order to explain the processes of change that affect that relationship.[12] and, in 2006, as "... history that seeks understanding of human beings as they have lived, worked and thought in relationship to the rest of nature through the changes brought by time"[13] ... "As a method, environmental history is the use of ecological analysis as a means of understanding human history ... an account of changes in human societies as they relate to changes in the natural environment.[12] Environmental historians are also interested in what people think about nature, and how they have expressed those ideas in folk religions, popular culture, literature and art.[12] In 2003 McNeill suggested that environmental history was "... the history of the mutual relations between humankind and the rest of nature".[7] Subject matter Traditional historical analysis has over time extended its range of study from the activities and influence of a few significant people to a much broader social, political, economic and cultural analysis. Environmental history further broadens the subject matter of conventional history. In 1988, Donald Worster stated that environmental history attempts to make history more inclusive in its narratives[14] by examining the role and place of nature in human life,[15] and in 1993, that Environmental history explores the ways in which the biophysical world has influenced e course of human history and the ways in which people have thought about and tried to transform their surroundings.[16] The interdependency of human and environmental factors in the creation of landscapes is expressed through the

notion of the cultural landscape. Worster also questioned the scope of the discipline, asking: "We study humans and nature; therefore can anything human or natural be outside our enquiry?"[17] Environmental history is generally treated as a subfield of history, an established discipline. But some environmental historians challenge this assumption, arguing that while traditional history is human history the story of people and their institutions,[18] "humans cannot place themselves outside the principles of nature."[19] In this sense environmental history is a version of human history within a larger context, one less dependent on anthropocentrism (even though anthropogenic change is at the center of its narrative).[20] Dimensions

General view of Funkville in 1864, Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, USA J. Donald Hughes responded to the view that environmental history is "light on theory" or lacking theoretical structure by viewing the subject through the lens of three "dimensions": nature and culture, history and science, and scale.[21] This

advances beyond Worster's recognition of three broad clusters of issues to be addressed by environmental historians although both historians recognize that the emphasis of their categories might vary according to the particular study[22] as, clearly, some studies will concentrate more on society and human affairs and others more on the environment. Themes Several themes are used to express these historical dimensions. A more traditional historical approach is to analyse the transformation of the globes ecology through themes like the separation of man from nature during the neolithic revolution

, imperialism and colonial expansion, exploration, agricultural change, the effects of the industrial and technological revolution, and urban expansion. More environmental topics include human impact through influences on forestry, fire, climate change, sustainability and so on. According to Paul Warde, the increasingly sophisticated history of colonization and migration can take on an environmental aspect, tracing the pathways of ideas and species around the globe and indeed is bringing about an increased use of such analogies and colonial understandings of processes within European history..[23] The importance of the colonial enterprise in Africa, the Caribbean and Indian Ocean has been detailed by Richard Grove.[3] Much of the literature consists of case-studies targeted at the global, national and local levels.[24] Scale

Although environmental history can cover billions of years of history over the whole Earth, it can equally concern itself with local scales and brief time periods.
[25]

Many environmental historians are occupied with local, regional and national

histories.[26] Some historians link their subject exclusively to the span of human history "every time period in human history"[19] while others include the period before human presence on Earth as a legitimate part of the discipline. Ian Simmons's Environmental History of Great Britain covers a period of about 10,000 years. There is a tendency to difference in time scales between natural and social phenomena: the causes of environmental change that stretch back in time may be dealt with socially over a comparatively brief period.[27] Although at all times environmental influences have extended beyond particular geographic regions and cultures, during the 20th and early 21st centuries anthropogenic environmental change has assumed global proportions, most prominently with climate change but also as a result of settlement, the spread of disease and the globalization of world trade. Development of the subject

Nature preservationist John Muir with US President Theodore Roosevelt (left) on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park The questions posed and themes covered by environmental history date back to antiquity: historians have always included the effects of natural phenomena on human affairs.[29] Hippocrates, ancient Greek father of medicine, in his Airs, Waters, Places, asserted that different cultures and human temperaments could be related to the surroundings in which peoples lived.[30] However, the origins of the subject in its present form are generally traced to the twentieth century. In 1929 a group of French historians founded the journal Annales, in many ways a forerunner of modern environmental history since it took as its subject matter the reciprocal global influences of the environment and human society. The idea of the impact of the physical environment on civilizations was espoused by this Annales School to describe the long term developments that shape human history[17] by focusing away from political and intellectual history, toward agriculture, demography, and geography. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, a pupil of the Annales School, was the first to really embrace, in the 1950s, environmental history in a more contemporary form.[31] One of the most influential members of the Annales School was Lucien Febvre (18781956), whose book A Geographical Introduction to History is now a classic in the field. The most influential empirical and theoretical work in the subject has been done in the United States where teaching programs first emerged and a generation of trained environmental historians is now active. [23] In the United States environmental history as an independent field of study emerged in the general cultural reassessment and reform of the 1960s and 1970s along with environmentalism, "conservation history",[32] and a gathering awareness of the

global scale of some environmental issues. This was in large part a reaction to the way nature was represented in history at the time, which portrayed the advance of culture and technology as releasing humans from dependence on the natural world and providing them with the means to manage it [and] celebrated human mastery over other forms of life and the natural environment, and expected technological improvement and economic growth to accelerate.[33] Environmental historians intended to develop a post-colonial historiography that was "more inclusive in its narratives".[14] Precursors to environmental historians include Henry Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and even Rachel Carson. Environmental history frequently promoted a moral and political agenda although it steadily became a more scholarly enterprise.[14] Early attempts to define the field were made in the United States by Roderick Nash in The State of Environmental History and in other works by frontier historians Frederick Jackson Turner, James Malin, John Muir and Walter Prescott Webb who analysed the process of settlement. Their work was expanded by a second generation of more specialized environmental historians such as Alfred Crosby, Samuel P. Hays, Donald Worster, William Cronon, Richard White, Carolyn Merchant, John McNeill, Donald Hughes, Chad Montrie, and Europeans Paul Warde, Sverker Sorlin, Robert A. Lambert, T.C. Smout, Peter Coates and Jan Oosthoek.

Frontier Frederick Jackson Turner (18611932) Current practice

historian

In the United States the American Society for Environmental History was founded in 1975 while the first institute devoted specifically to environmental history in Europe was established in 1991, based at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1986, the Dutch foundation for the history of environment and hygiene Net Werk was founded and publishes four newsletters per year. In the UK the White Horse Press in Cambridge has, since 1995, published the journal Environment and History which aims to bring scholars in the humanities and biological sciences closer together in constructing long and well-founded perspectives on present day environmental problems and a similar publication Tijdschrift voor Ecologische Geschiedenis (Journal for Environmental History) is a combined Flemish-Dutch initiative mainly dealing with topics in the Netherlands and Belgium although it also has an interest in European environmental history. Each issue contains abstracts in English, French and German. In 1999 the Journal

was converted into a yearbook for environmental history. In Canada the Network in Canadian History and Environment facilitates the growth of environmental history through numerous workshops and a significant digital infrastructure including their website and podcast.[34] Communication between European nations is restricted by language difficulties. In April 1999 a meeting was held in Germany to overcome these problems and to coordinate environmental history in Europe. This meeting resulted in the creation of the European Society for Environmental History in 1999. Only two years after its establishment, ESEH held its first international conference in St. Andrews, Scotland. Around 120 scholars attended the meeting and 105 papers were presented on topics covering the whole spectrum of environmental history. The conference showed that environmental history is a viable and lively field in Europe and since then ESEH has expanded to over 400 members and continues to grow and attracted international conferences in 2003 and 2005. In 1999 the Centre for Environmental History was established at the University of Stirling. Some history departments at European universities are now offering introductory courses in environmental history and postgraduate courses in Environmental history have been established at the Universities of Nottingham, Stirling and Dundee and more recently a Graduierten Kolleg was created at the University of Gttingen in Germany.[35] Related disciplines

The 77 km long Panama Canal, opened in 1914, connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, replacing a long and treacherous shipping route passing via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the tip of South America. Construction was plagued by problems, including disease (particularly malaria and yellow fever) and landslides. By the time the canal was completed, a total of 27,500 French and American workmen are estimated to have died. Environmental history prides itself in bridging the gap between the arts and natural sciences although to date the scales weigh on the side of science. A definitive list of related subjects would be lengthy indeed and singling out those for special mention a difficult task. However, those frequently quoted include, historical geography, the history and philosophy of science, history of technology and climate science. On the biological side there is, above all, ecology and historical ecology, but also forestry and especially forest history, archaeology and anthropology. When the subject engages in environmental advocacy it has much in common with environmentalism. With increasing globalization and the impact of global trade on resource distribution, concern over never-ending economic growth and the many human inequities environmental history is now gaining allies in the fields of ecological and environmental economics.[36][37] Engagement with sociological thinkers and the humanities is limited but cannot be ignored through the beliefs and ideas that guide human action. This has been seen as the reason for a perceived lack of support from traditional historians.[23]

Issues The subject has a number of areas of lively debate. These include discussion concerning: what subject matter is most appropriate; whether environmental advocacy can detract from scholarly objectivity; standards of professionalism in a subject where much outstanding work has been done by non-historians; the relative contribution of nature and humans in determining the passage of history; the degree of connection with, and acceptance by, other disciplines - but especially mainstream history. For Paul Warde the sheer scale, scope and diffuseness of the environmental history endeavour calls for an analytical toolkit "a range of common issues and questions to push forward collectively" and a "core problem". He sees a lack of "human agency" in its texts and suggest it be writtem more to act: as a source of information for environmental scientists; incorporation of the notion of risk; a closer analysis of what it is we mean by "environment"; confronting the way environmental history is at odds with the humanities because it emphasises the division between "materialist, and cultural or constructivist explanations for human behaviour".[38] Global sustainability

Achieving sustainability will enable the Earth to continue supporting human life as we know it. Blue Marble NASA composite images: 2001 (left), 2002 (right)

Main article: Sustainability Many of the themes of environmental history inevitably examine the circumstances that produced the environmental problems of the present day, a litany of themes that challenge global sustainability including: population, consumerism and materialism, climate change, waste disposal, deforestation and loss of wilderness, industrial agriculture, species extinction, depletion of natural resources, invasive organisms and urban development.[39] The simple message of sustainable use of renewable resources is frequently repeated and early as 1864 George Perkins Marsh was pointing out that the changes we make in the environment may later reduce the environments usefulness to humans so any changes should be made with great care[40] - what we would nowadays call enlightened self-interest. Richard Grove has pointed out that "States will act to prevent environmental degradation only when their economic interests are threatened".[41] Advocacy Main article: Advocacy It is not clear whether environmental history should promote a moral or political agenda. The strong emotions raised by environmentalism, conservation and sustainability can interfere with historical objectivity: polemical tracts and strong advocacy can compromise objectivity and professionalism. Engagement with the political process certainly has its academic perils[42] although accuracy and commitment to the historical method is not necessarily threatened by environmental involvement: environmental historians have a reasonable expectation that their work will inform policy-makers.[43]

Declensionist narratives Narratives of environmental history tend to be declensionist, that is, accounts of progressive decline under human activity. Thus environmental history, like environmentalism, is perceived as entrenched pessimism, a litany of degeneration, failure, loss, decline and decay a progressive downward spiral leading inexorably to global catastrophe, a kind of environmental eschatology often portrayed as proceeding from some halcyon golden age of the past. Along with this often comes the implication of the heroic struggle of a few wise people against the destructive powers of modern capitalism. Further, that narratives of this kind are not only boring and repetitive but also actually mislead due to their excessive simplicity.[44]
[45]

Against this it is argued that deterioration of the global environment is a fact

revealed by careful research, that good environmental history does not predict or prophesy, and that the charge of catastrophism is unwarranted.[46] Presentism and culpability Main article: Presentism (literary and historical analysis)Under the accusation of "presentism" it is sometimes claimed that, with its genesis in the late 20th century environmentalism and conservation issues, environmental history is simply a reaction to contemporary problems, an "attempt to read late twentieth century developments and concerns back into past historical periods in which they were not operative, and certainly not conscious to human participants during those times".[47] This is strongly related to the idea of culpability. In environmental debate blame can always be apportioned, but it is more constructive for the future to understand the values and imperatives of the period under discussion so that causes are determined and the context explained. [48] Presentism points out how easy is the wisdom of hindsight and the way we interprete issues of the past through the eyes of today as we attempt to put the past into perspective, not just for the past, but for ourselves and posterity.

Environmental determinism Further information: Environmental determinism and Cultural determinism

Ploughing farmer in ancient Egypt. Mural in the burial chamber of artisan Sennedjem c. 1200 BCE For some environmental historians "the general conditions of the environment, the scale and arrangement of land and sea, the availability of resources, and the presence or absence of animals available for domestication, and associated organisms and disease vectors, that makes the development of human cultures possible and even predispose the direction of their development"[49] and that "history is inevitably guided by forces that are not of human origin or subject to human choice".[50] This approach has been attributed to American environmental historians Webb and Turner[51] and, more recently to Jared Diamond in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" where the presence or absence of disease vectors and resources such as plants and animals that are amenable to domestication that may not only stimulate the development of human culture but even determine, to some extent, the direction of that development. The claim that the path of history has been forged by environmental rather than cultural forces is referred to as environmental determinism while, at the other extreme, is what may be called cultural determinism. An example of cultural determinism would be the view that human

influence is so pervasive that the idea of pristine nature has little validity - that there is no way of relating to nature without culture.[52] Methodology Main article: Historical method

Recording historical events Useful guidance on the process of doing environmental history has been given by Donald Worster,[53] Carolyn Merchant,[54] William Cronon[55] and Ian Simmons.[56] Worster's three core subject areas (the environment itself, human impacts on the environment, and human thought about the environment) are generally taken as a starting point for the student as they encompass many of the different skills required. The tools are those of both history and science with a requirement for fluency in the language of natural science and especially ecology. [57] In fact methodologies and insights from a range of physical and social sciences is required, there seeming to be universal agreement that environmental history is indeed a multidisciplinary subject.

Key works

Chakrabarti, Ranjan (ed), DoesEnvironmental History Matter: Shikar, Subsistence, Sustenance and theSciences (Kolkata: Readers Service, 2006) Chakrabarti, Ranjan (ed.), Situating Environmental History (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007) Cronon, William (ed), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995) Dunlap, Thomas R., Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment andHistory in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (NewYork/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Glacken, Clarence, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in WesternThought From Ancient Times to the Endo of the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) Griffiths, Tomand Libby Robin (eds.), Ecology and Empire: The Environmental Historyof Settler Societies (Keele: Keele University Press, 1997) Grove, Richard, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical IslandEdens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995)

Hughes, J.D., An Environmental Historyof the World: Humankind's Changing Role in the Community of Life (Oxford: Routledge, 2001) Hughes, J.D., "Global Environmental Globalizations, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2005, 293-208. History: The Long View",

MacKenzie, John M., Imperialism and the Natural World (Manchester University Press, 1990)

McCormick, John, Reclaiming Paradise: The Global Environmental Movement (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989) Rajan, Ravi S., Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial EcoDevelopment 1800-1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Redclif, Michael R., Frontier: Histories of Civil Society and Nature (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 2006). Stevis, Dimitris, "The Globalizations of the Environment", Globalizations, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2005, 323-334. Williams, Michael, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to GlobalCrisis. An Abridgement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) White, Richard, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Hill and Wang, 1996) Worster, Donald, Nature's Economy: A Study of Ecological Ideals (Cambridge University Press, 1977) Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle and Donald Theodore Sanders, Volcanoes in HumanHistory, The Far-reaching Effects of Major Eruptions (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2002)

Seminal works by region In 2004 a theme issue of Environment and History 10(4) provided an overview of environmental history as practiced in Africa, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, China and Europe as well as those with global scope. David Hughes (2006) has also provided a global conspectus of major contributions to the environmental history literature.

George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, ed. David Lowenthal (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965 [1864])

Africa

African landscape: Lesotho

Adams, Jonathan S. and Thomas McShane, The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation without Illusion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) Cock, Jacklyn and Eddie Koch (eds.), Going Green: People, Politics, and the Environment in South Africa (Capetown: Oxford University Press, 1991) Dovers, Stephen, Ruth Edgecombe, and Bill Guest (eds.), South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003) Green Musselman, Elizabeth, Plant Knowledge at the Cape: A Study in African and European Collaboration, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 36, 2003, 367-392 Jacobs, Nancy J., Environment, Power and Injustice: A South African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Maathai, Wangari, Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (New York: Lantern Books, 2003) McCann, James, Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800-1990 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999) Steyn, Phia, "The lingering environmental impact of repressive governance: the environmental legacy of the apartheid-era for the new South Africa", Globalizations, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005, 391-403

Antarctica

Palmer Station, located on Anvers Island, is the smallest of the three stations operated by the US Antarctic Program

Pyne, S.J., The Ice: A Journey to Anatarctica. (University of Iowa Press, 1986). Americas s

Artistic impression of the first landing of Columbus and the pilgrim fathers on the shores of the New World: at San Salvador, West Indies, on 12 October 1492.

Andrews, Richard N.L., Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (Cambridge, Mass. : Riverside Press, 1962) Cronon, William, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983) Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991) Dean, Warren, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) Dorsey, Kurkpatrick, The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1998) Gottlieb, Robert, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington: Island Press, 1993) Hays, Samuel, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement1890-1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959) Melosi, Martin V., Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America (Temple University Press, 1985) Melville, Elinor, A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) Merchant, Carolyn, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1980) Nash, Roderick, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989) Nash, Roderick, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) Raffles, Hugh, WinklerPrins, Antoinette, M. G. A., "Further Reflections on Amazonian Environmental History: Transformations of Rivers and

Streams", Latin American Research Review, Vol. 38, Number 3, 2003, pp. 165187

Reisner, Marc, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (Penguin Books, 1986, 1993) Simonian, Lane, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) Steinberg, Ted, Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History (Oxford University Press, 2002) Stradling, David (ed), Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts (Washington: University of Washington Press, 2004. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1999 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1993) Worster, Donald, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (Oxford University Press, 1992) Wynn, Graeme, Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007)

Asia

Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines where traditional landraces have been grown for thousands of years

Boomgaard, Peter, ed. Paper Landscapes: Explorations in the Environment of Indonesia. (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997) Burke III, Edmund, "The Coming Environmental Crisis in the Middle East: A Historical Perspective, 1750-2000 CE" (April 27, 2005). UC World History Workshop. Essays and Positions from the World History Workshop. Paper 2. http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucwhw/ep/2 David, A. & Guha, R. (eds) 1995. Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia. Delhi, India: Oxford University Press. Elvin, Mark & Ts'ui-jung Liu (eds.), Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Elvin, Mark, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) Gadgil, M. and R. Guha, This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)

Grove, Richard, Vinita Damodaran, and Satpal Sangwan (eds.) Nature & the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 1998) Hill, Christopher V., South Asia: An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2008) Menzie, Nicholas, Forest and Land Management in Late Imperial China (London, Macmillan Press. 1994) Mahong, Bao, "Environmental History in China", Environment and History, Volume 10, Number 4, November 2004, pp. 475499 Marks, R. B., Tigers, rice, silk and silt. Environment and economy in late imperial South China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Perdue, Peter C., "Lakes of Empire: Man and Water in Chinese History, Modern China, 16 (January 1990): 119 - 29 Shapiro, Judith, Mao's War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001) Shiva, Vandana, Stolen Harvest: the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (Cambridge MA: South End Press, 2000) Tal, Alon, Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) Totman, Conrad D., The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan (Berkely: University of California Press, 1989) Totman, Conrad D., Pre-industrial Korea and Japan in Environmental Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2004) Ts'ui-jung Liu, Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History (Cambridge University Press, 1998) Tull, Malcolm, and A. R. Krishnan. "Resource Use and Environmental Management in Japan, 1890-1990", in: J.R. McNeill (ed), Environmental

History of the Pacific and the Pacific Rim ( Aldershot Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2001)

Yok-shiu Lee and Alvin Y. So, Asia's Environmental Movements: Comparative Perspectives (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1999) Australasia

Aboriginal Art, Anbangbang Rock Shelter, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Carron, L.T., A History of Forestry in Australia (Canberra, 1985). Dargavel, John (ed.), Australia and New Zealand Forest Histories. Short Overviews, Australian Forest History Society Inc. Occasional Publications, No. 1 (Kingston: Australian Forest History Society, 2005) Dovers, Stephen (ed), Essays in Australian Environmental History: Essays and Cases (Oxford: OUP, 1994). Dovers, Stephen(ed.), Environmental History and Policy: Still Settling Australia (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Flannery, Tim, The Future Eaters, An Ecological History of the Australian Lands and People (Sydney: Reeed Books,1994). Garden, Don, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005) Pyne, Stephen, Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia (New York, Henry Holt, 1991). Robin, Libby, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia (Melbourne: MUP, 1998) Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: A Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000) Robin, Libby, How a Continent Created a Nation (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007) Smith, Mike, Hesse, Paul (eds.), 23 Degrees S: Archaeology and Environmental History of the Southern Deserts (Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2005) Young, Ann R.M, Environmental Change in Australia since 1788 (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Europe

Roman aqueduct and plaza, Segovia, Spain

Brimblecombe, Peter and Christian Pfister, The Silent Countdown: Essays in European Environmental History (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1993) Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Christensen, Peter, Decline of Iranshahr: Irrigation and Environments in the History of the Middle East, 500 B.C. to 1500 A.D (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993) Ditt, Karl, 'Nature Conservation in England and Germany, 1900-1970: Forerunner of Environmental Protection?', Contemporary European History 5:1-28. Hughes, J. Donald, Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1994) Hughes, J. Donald, The Mediterranean. An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005) Lancaster, Julia H., Marat Fidarov. An Environmental History of the Russian North Caucasus (New York: HHN Media, 2009)

Mart Escayol, Maria Antnia. La construcci del concepte de natura a la Catalunya moderna (Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 2004) [1] Netting, Robert, Balancing on an Alp: Ecological Change and Continuity in a Swiss Mountain Community (Cambridge University Press, 1981) Stephen J. Pyne, Vestal Fire. An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1997) Richards, John F., The Unending Frontier: Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003 Whited, Tamara L. (ed.), Northern Europe. An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005) New Zealand & Oceania

Polynesian outrigger canoe

Bennett, Judith Ann,Pacific Forest: A History of Resource Control and Contest in Solomon Islands, c. 1800-1997 (Cambridge and Leiden: White Horse Press and Brill, 2000)

Bennett, Judith Ann, Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009) Brooking, Tom and Eric Pawson, Environmental Histories of New Zealand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). James Beattie, "Environmental Anxiety in New Zealand, 1840-1941: Climate Change, Soil Erosion, Sand Drift, Flooding and Forest Conservation", Environment and History 9(2003): 379-392 Cassels, R., "The Role of Prehistoric Man in the Faunal Extinctions of New Zealand and other Pacific Islands", in Martin, P. S. and Klein, R. G. (eds.) Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution (Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 1984) D'Arcy, Paul, The People of the Sea: Environment, Identity, and History in Oceania (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006) Young, David, Our Islands, Our Selves: A History of Conservation in New Zealand ( Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2004) Star, Paul, "New Zealand Environmental History: A Question of Attitudes", Environment and History 9(2003): 463-475 Hughes, J. Donald, "Nature and Culture in the Pacific Islands", Leidschrift, 21 (2006) 1, 129-144. Hughes, J. Donald, "Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand: Polynesian impacts on Island Ecosystems", in: An Environmental History of the World. Humankind"s Changing Role in the Community of Life, (London & New York, Routledge, 2002) McNeill, John R., "Of Rats and Men. A Synoptic Environmental History of the Island Pacific", Journal of World History, Vol. 5, no. 2, 299-349

Bridgman, H. A., "Could climate change have had an influence on the Polynesian migrations?", Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 41(1983) 193-206.

United Kingdom

Beinart, William and Lotte Hughes, Environment and Empire (Oxford, 2007). Clapp, Brian W., An Environmental History of Britain Since the Industrial Revolution (London, 1994). Grove, Richard, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 16001860 (Cambridge, 1994). Lambert, Robert, Contested Mountains (Cambridge, 2001). Mosley, Stephen, The Chimney of the World: A History of Smoke Pollution in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester (White Horse, 2001). Porter, Dale, The Thames Embankment: Environment, Technology, and Society in Victorian London, (University of Akron, 1998). Simmonds, Ian G., Environmental History of Great Britain from 10,000 Years Ago to the Present (Edinburgh, 2001). Sheail, John, An Environmental History of Twentieth-Century Britain (Basingstoke, 2002). Thorsheim, Peter, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800 (Ohio University, 2006).

Future

Old and new human uses of the atmosphere Environmental history, like all historical studies, shares the hope that through an examination of past events it may be possible to forge a more considered future. In particular a greater depth of historical knowledge can inform environmental controversies and guide policy decisions. The subject continues to provide new perspectives, offering cooperation between scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds and providing an improved historical context to resource and environmental problems. There seems little doubt that, with increasing concern for our environmental future, environmental history will continue along the path of environmental advocacy from which it originated as human impact on the living systems of the planet bring us no closer to utopia, but instead to a crisis of survival[58] with key themes being population growth, climate change, conflict over environmental policy at different levels of human organization, extinction, biological invasions, the environmental consequences of

technology especially biotechnology, the reduced supply of resources - most notably energy, materials and water. Hughes comments that environmental historians will find themselves increasingly challenged by the need to explain the background of the world market economy and its effects on the global environment. Supranational instrumentalities threaten to overpower conservation in a drive for what is called sustainable development, but which in fact envisions no limits to economic growth.[59] Hughes also notes that "environmental history is notably absent from nations that most adamantly reject US, or Western influences".[60] Michael Bess sees the world increasingly permeated by potent technologies in a process he calls artificialization which has been accelerating since the 1700s, but at a greatly accelerated rate after 1945. Over the next fifty years, this transformative process stands a good chance of turning our physical world, and our society, upside-down. Environmental historians can play a vital role in helping humankind to understand the gale-force of artifice that we have unleashed on our planet and on ourselves.[61] Against this background environmental history can give an essential perspective, offering knowledge of the historical process that led to the present situation, give examples of past problems and solutions, and an analysis of the historical forces that must be dealt with[62] or, as expressed by William Cronon, "The viability and success of new human modes of existing within the constraints of the environment and its resources requires both an understanding of the past and an articulation of a new ethic for the future."[63]
DEFINITION OF ENVIORNMENTAL STUDIES

Environmental Studies is the interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with their environment. This field examines all aspects of the natural environment, social environments, politics, ecology, etc., and how they all work together. NATURE, STUDIESEnvironment is sum total of water, air and land, inter-relationships among themselves and also with the human beings, other living organisms and property. In order to study environment one needs knowledge inputs from various disciplines. At the threshold of the 21st century, we are confronted with two conflicting scenario for the future of human kind. On one hand, there are possibilities of a bright future with press button living, space shuttles, information technology, genetic engineering and such other advances in science and technology. On the other hand, a grim scenario is looming large with burgeoning population, starved of resources and choked by pollution. Faced with such imminent threat, there is a growing realization that rational utilization of environmental endowments of life support systems like water, air and soil is a must for sustainable development. Academic disciplines are created to help us understand the universe better. While nature can be understood using the disciplines, it not divided into disciplines. For instance, a certain phenomenon may be referred to as a chemical change while another as a physical one. But these categories are only perceptions. Environmental studies is about the environment. Not the environment from the point of view of any one particular discipline, but a study and understanding of the interlink-ages- the complex ways in which one phenomenon, one action, is connected to another, how the same thing can be understood from different perspectives, perspectives often rooted in different disciplines. SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL

The problems of pollution and wanton degradation of environmental resources cannot be solved without proper understanding of their causes and effects. Alongside, it is necessary to build up professional capabilities to develop and adopt policies, measures and programs for environmental studies. For the students of management schools, who are future managers of business in different sectors of economic growth and social welfare, it is appropriate to have an introduction to environmental studies. It is absolutely the truth that environmental degradation is increasingly undermining over lives. One of the most urgent tasks of our times to understand the implications of environmental damage and resource depletion that we witness today. We cannot ignore study of relationship between ecological devastation and deteriorating human conditions. We must learn how to manage our environment, resource utilization and ecosystem. The students, teachers, general public and leaders, workers and executives and government as well as non-governmental organizations, all have to be sensitive to environmental issues. Not only that, they have to be fully aware of environmental consequences, of their actions, habits and attitudes. In such a scenario, it is difficult to think of a timelier introduction of this subject in the matter of study for modern management courses. Environmental studies not only represents but also promotes the principles of environmental management.

Some of the environmental issues are perplex. It is through this perplexity, we need to bring out a comprehensive study which would be useful both for educational institutions and corporate world. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE OR STUDIES? Environmental science in its broadest sense is the science of complex interactions that occurs among the terrestrial, atmospheric, living and anthropological environments. It includes all the disciplines, such as chemistry, biology, sociology and government that affect or describe these interactions. In broadest sense, environmental science may be defined as the study of the earth, air, water and living environments and the effects of technology thereon. To a significant degree, environmental science has evolved from investigations of the ways by which, and place in which living organisms carry out their life cycles. This is the discipline of natural history, which in recent time has evolved into ecology, the study of environmental factors that affect organisms and how organisms interact with these factors and with each other. Traditionally, environmental science is divided among the study of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the geosphere and the biosphere. Environmental science is now a mature, viable discipline. The past three decades have witnessed a growing awareness of the affects of human activity upon our earths resources and during this period environmental study has emerged as a multi-disciplinary field of study to examine the interaction of the people and their environments

SCOPE: A study of environmental science is getting lot of attention not only in the field of pollution control but also to sustain the life and nature. It helps us to understand the nature of environment and its components, nature of disturbing factors and the various methods to overcome disturbing factors. The disturbing factors pressurize sustainability and natural living. The scope of environmental science and its management has increased from manufacturing pollution control equipment, sewage and effluent treatment plants, biomedical waste treatment and fly ash management. The subject is multidisciplinary in nature. It unfolds environmental issues for those who are directly or indirectly concerned with this discipline. The corporate leaders, the students of universities and colleges and the student-managers realize that environmental protection and resource conservation have to be considered as a normal part of conducting business and understanding nature. Similarly environmental concern has to a part of policy for the various governmental organizations. And same is true for public leaders whose sensitization is vital in this regard. Issues of environmental protection and Right for Clean Environment have already trickled down from educated and affluent people to the general public. Those who are not economically well off are equally affected, if not more due to environmental problems. Thus environmental concerns have to be on the agenda of all organizations. In India, we have been witnessing significant environmental degradation during the last few decades. Increasing industrialization, high-intensity agriculture, (use of

fertilizers and pesticides) deforestation, soil erosion, urbanization, transportation and population growth are the major environmental problems and these are likely to increase. If the desire to lead higher living standard also increases, then problem would be too acute to be manageable. Industry has significant role in environmental protection. More and more business executives have now identified environment as issue that affect their companies. It is believed by the scientists and the leaders in industry that if we do not come to grip with environmental issues, irreversible process would have been set in that would ultimately lead to human suffering not in the countries of South but also the North. Most of the environmental problems are well known though we may not have found solution for all. The problems are both global and national and all these pose serious challenges not only to our planet but also to our way of life. Human beings are not separate entity. They are part of the surrounding, our ecosystem- air, water, land, not only that but one cannot think of human survival if the services provided by the environment dont become available. Without a suitable habitat neither animals nor plants nor human can survive. If the habit is degraded/damaged, life would be adversely affected. Since the environment provides all the resources that are used in the process of production of goods or services, the responsibility of industry is of paramount consideration. Industry not only has to consider issues like profit, quality standards, legislation and regulatory controls but has to go a step beyond. Our natural resources are either renewable or non-renewable, the later have to be conserved and the use of former to be judicious. Besides the issue of resources, our living style, rate of consumption and disposal of waste have created problems for

manufacturing, marketing and management of landfills for wasters, air quality, water table and many other environmental problems. In short scope of environmental studies is broad based and it encompasses a large number of areas and aspects, broadly listed below:

Natural Resources- their conservation and management Ecology and biodiversity Environmental pollution and control Social issues in relation to development and environment Human population and environment

IMPORTANCE: There is a proverb If you plan for one year, plant rice, if you plan for 10 years, plant trees and if you plan for 100 years, educate people. If we wish to manage our planet earth, we have to make all the persons environmentally educated. The study of environmental science makes us understand the scientific basis for establishing a standard which can be considered acceptably safe, clean and healthy for man and natural ecosystem. Natural ecosystem includes both physical and natural science. Most environmental scientists agree that if pollution and other environmental deterrents continue at their present rates, the result will be irreversible damage to the ecological cycles and balances in nature upon which all life depends. Environmental scientists warn that fundamental, and perhaps drastic, changes in human behaviour will be required to avert an ecological crisis.

To safeguard the healthful environment that is essential to life, humans must learn that Earth does not have infinite resources. Earths limited resources must be conserved and, where possible, reused. Furthermore, humans must devise new strategies that mesh environmental progress with economic growth. The future growth of developing nations depends upon the development of sustainable conservation methods that protect the environment while also meeting the basic needs of citizens. An environmental study is the subject in which we examine important issues relating to environment as they affect our lives. It is an exploratory description of issues. Each issue can be probed more deeply. Environmental studies is very important but most neglected body of knowledge. It concerns itself with life support system and is very closely related with development and economic growth. Many a time both development and economic growth are not easily reconciled. We have to choose between environment and development. It has been the reality that the industrial countries have high level of development and decent standard of living at the expense of environment and depletion of natural resources. The real question is how long is the Mother Earth likely suffer and how long this kind of development will be sustainable? Developing countries on the other hand are still struggling to achieve a minimum standard of living though they are also equally contributing to environmental damage.

Both, industrialized and underdeveloped or developing countries, damage, deplete and pollute the environment. Developing countries want accelerated growth to fulfill their basic needs and real question is should they follow footsteps are their big brothers, yes Developed countries? This is a bear fact that both the consumption and life-style of people have direct relations to environmental problems. Therefore, living habits and attitudinal and ethical questions have now cropped up which are main concerns for Environmental Studies. These issues are controversial and need deep study to help us understand the environmental problems. The most important questions that bother every developing country is what should be the ideal combination of pattern of growth and development, which Model of development as well as of business should be followed so that we do not ignore the principle that underlie sustainability. For the above, we need change at local, national, regional and global levels together with an economic and social transformation at the levels of individuals and communities. This subject forms part of Business Environment. Business Environment is divided into two categories viz. External and Internal Environment. External environment include political, economic, social, legal, technological, international and natural environment. On the other hand, Internal Environment includes people, culture, work ethics and attitudes.

Weather cycles erratic, rising temperatures, towns flooded and depletion of natural resources. With unorganisiert growing and uncontrolled development, environment, science has become an important channel for students today. In recent years, the environment, science as an important discipline, offer solutions to environmental problems, said Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Andhra, Byragi Reddy. Several scientific disciplines as biochemistry, physics, mathematics, biotechnology, chemistry, botany, toxicology, remote sensing and engineering have an inter-face with the scientific environment. Environmental science is important for economy and welfare of human society. It helps us in careful handling of the issues like pollution, overexploitation of natural the balance. It demonstrate how man can derive benefits from environment without destroying It trains us to conserve ours fast depleting natural resources. It helps to understand different food chain and ecological balance in nature. resources, food security ecological and sustainable development. balance. Excessive use of agrochemicals has degraded the environment and has disturbed Environmental science helps us to find ways and means to maintain the ecological

It directs attention towards the problems of population explosion, depletion of natural resources Importance of Environmental Science I Photo:

K.R.

Deepak

SHOW SOME CONCERN: Take care of the environment and it will take care of you. Erratic weather cycles, increasing temperatures, flooded cities and depleting natural resources. With increasing unorganised and uncontrolled development, environmental science has become an important course of study for students today. "In recent years environmental science has emerged as an important discipline that can offer solutions to many environmental problems," said Associate Professor at the department of environmental sciences in Andhra University, Byragi Reddy. Several scientific disciplines like biochemistry, physics, mathematics, biotechnology, chemistry, botany, toxicology, remote sensing and engineering have an inter-face with environmental science.

Closely linked with ecology, environmental science is primarily concerned with how humanity affects and in turn is affected by other living organisms and the nonliving physical environment. "Students get an exposure to varied subjects such as biodiversity, microbiology, pollution control methods, disaster management, environment impact studies and conservation of natural resources," he added. In India, these basic disciplines of science have taken strong roots over a period of several decades but environmental science is now an emerging field through interdisciplinary collaboration. Environmental science is offered at the undergraduate level at Delhi University, University of Mysore, Pune University and Bharathiar University - Coimbatore. Apart from theory and practical sessions, the course also involves field trips and surveys. After graduation, interested students can also pursue their masters and research programme in the same field. Comprehensive M.Sc. programmes are offered at Andhra University, Annamalai University Tamil Nadu, Centre for Ecological Research at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Centre for Environmental Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, Indian Institute of Ecology and Environment in New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, Delhi University and Cochin University of Science and Technology. Like most Masters programmes students have to pass an entrance examination and should have completed their graduation in a science stream. Increasing public awareness on the importance of conserving the environment has led many universities to adopt the programme into their curriculum. Job opportunities "Any course of development today requires the guidance of an environment specialist," said Dr. Reddy. Environmental Science has become an important part

of urban planning including the construction of houses, sanitation, water management and waste disposal. Apart from the routine study and research options environmental science students today can secure jobs in pollution control boards, public health laboratories, irrigation and agriculture department, chemical industries, research industries such as Central Drug Research Institute, Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Environment Protection and Training Research Institute and Tata Energy Research Institute and students can also develop their own laboratories for analytical work in nongovernmental sectors. "The Supreme Court judgement has made the study of environmental science compulsory for all students from school to postgraduate level," he said. This has also opened numerous teaching options for environmental science students. Students also have avenues in wildlife conservation. The `green' science has also found its way into engineering programmes and institutions such as Andhra University College of Engineering, Delhi College of Engineering and L.D. College of Engineering, Gujrat University offer specialisation in environmental science engineering.