Reports

Report on the Third EH Workshop at Academia Sinica (July 16, 2010)
By Yi-tze Lee, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh; Visiting fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica

We had four scholars presenting at the third workshop of Environmental History.The first presenter was Prof. H. H. Michael Hsiao, director and research fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica. Prof. Hsiao took his own experience and research on environmental movement in Taiwan to illuminate the transition of environmental movement to environmental research and education.He listed three waves of environmental sociology researches in Taiwan since 1983. The first wave was to observe the public awareness at the time due to massive pollution, and was the period of documenting local environmental protest movement. The second wave was from 1990 to 2000, which was the period that sociologists made efforts on establishing and analyzing Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).The third wave was the continuing calling of anticipatory and integrative research.Prof. Hsiao provided a concentric model to expand local and individual experiences to Taiwan/Asia-Pacific, and from pressing environmental issue to long-term environmental history.

The second presenter was Dr. Chi-szu Chen, Assistant Professor of English at TamkangUniversity.He compared two types of environmental-tribal novel writing of American and Taiwanese indigenous societies. He first pointed out the transition of environmental/ecological writing, drawing a spectrum of environmental writing along with the concern on land value, sovereignty, ethnic identity, and impact of colonialism and modernity.His example of American Indian writer was Linda Hogan, who mixes the ideas of myth, legend, and personal narratives in her writing. Such strategy resonates to the effort of reversing the relationship between center and margin by the writing of Tongku Saveq, a Bunun Indigenous novelist in Taiwan.Environmental awareness, in both writings, is intertwined with mythical genesis and individual revitalization in modern societies.The recognition of marginal plants in indigenous societies reflects how environment has been changed due to the introduction of cash crop or staple crops for colonial regimes.

The third presentation is given by Dr. Ya-wen Ku, Assistant Professor of History at National Changhua University of Education.She summarized the book entitled “Miasma and Disease: Public Health and the Environment in the Pre-Industrial Age” by Carlo Cipolla. This book reviews the concept of “Miasma” and examines how the attribution of contagious diseases is constructed via local investigation by the humoral miasmatic paradigm.The research is mainly based on the data from Florence Health Magistracy of the 17th century.Prof. Cipolla illustrated how the public environment felt and looked like by detailed description of pre-sewage system, the way of house destruction in order to increase ventilation, as well as the treatment and report on acute symptoms.It is an interesting example on learning the interaction between the recognition of epidemics and local social-economic condition, the action of public health further provides the initiative on the change of economic background.

The last presentation was by Dr. Shi-yung Liu, Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History.His presentation is on the book “Human Frontiers, Environment and Disease,” by A. J. McMichael.It is a comprehensive study on the interaction of human ecology and evolution of pathogen and epidemics.The author applies three elements in Darwinian theory: variation, competition, and differential reproductive success.He also refers to the method of epidemiology on mixing the population dynamics and complex theory.The author also reviews the impact of biosphere by human activities, which results in three major changes of human ecology: industrialization, urbanization, and the ability to control (or lack of it) of reproduction. The conclusion shows that the overloaded exploitation of land results in the doubt of affordability. Scientists also need to be cautious on the conflict between reductionism and holism.However, as Dr. Liu pointed out, the conclusion of the book seems to be resembled in the statement of Club of Rome in the 1970s. WHO also provides different approach of seeing the global burden of diseases, which is not incorporated in the discussion of the book.

All the four presentation provide very diverse views on environmental thinking and research, from sociology, comparative literature, to world history.In the workshop format, it is fruitful to have different discipline dialogue with each other. We also need more discussion on each presentation in the end of each session, which can lead to better integration from various ways on environmental thinking.

A brief report on the second workshop of environmental history held on April 30, 2010 at Academia Sinica
By Ts’ui-jung Liu

We had four speakers at this workshop. Dr. Su-Bin Chang, Professor of the Department of History at National Normal University, gave a report on her study of opening up the mountain area and the water control works along the Cho-shui River in Central Taiwan from the Ch’ing period to the present. She pointed out that the water control works along the Cho-shui River had been the largest in Taiwan since the Ch’ing period, and 90% of electricity supplies in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period were from the power-plants built along this river. The impacts of opening up the mountain area at the middle and upper reaches of this river had produced rather different landscapes on the north and south banks.

Dr. Kwang-Tsao Shao, Research Fellow of the Biodiversity Center at Academia Sinica, introduced Charles Clover’s The End of the Line -- How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat. He not only showed and explained the film to the audients but also discussed issues related to management of ecosystem, the future of aquaculture, and recovery of fishing resources. He pointed out the importance of “slow fishing” and establishment of protection areas.

Dr. Kuo-tung Chen, Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, comments on the Environmental History in the Pacific World, edited by John R. McNeill. In addition to present an overview of the book which consisted of many important articles, Dr. Chen also discussed his own insights about environmental history in the Pacific area.

A Repot on the First EH Workshop at Academia Sinica
By Yi-tze Lee, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh; Visiting fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica

The first Environmental History Workshop at Academia Sinica was held on January 29th,2010 at the Institute of Taiwan History.This workshop, organized by Prof. Ts’ui-jung Liu, aims to draw attention and facilitate discussions among scholars on issue of environmental history.This event was open to the public, and the process of workshop was in the form of research reports and reading reports with discussions.The total number of participants was 35, including members and non-members of AEAEH group.

The first presentation was delivered by Dr. Chung-ho Wang, Research Fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica.Based on the cases of extreme weather, including more frequent draught and devastating typhoons in Taiwan, Dr. Wang shows the condition of “polarized” weather condition that Taiwan is facing.Such polarized condition has several features: unpredictable visits, smaller intervals of extreme cases, and irreversible rise of sea level.However, due to the gradual drying weather of Taiwan, the over-access of underground water is a major threat to the coastal land and farms.In the worst scenario, there will be about 25% of flat land mass of Taiwan underwater if the sea level rose 1 meter more than it is now in the near future due to climate change around the world.The report is both realistic and scary.It also triggers a discussion on the rate of scientists and politicians who believe in the theory of global warming.The audience agrees that the information should be distributed more widely in order to raise certain alert.

The second presentation was given by Dr. Tsuo-Ming Hsu, Associate Professor at the Center for General Education, TamkangUniversity. Dr. Hsu presented his newly published article entitled “Sustainable Development and Life Rights of Animals: the Transformation of Taiwan’s Fishery from an Environmental- Ethical Perspective” He discusses the concepts of sustainable development and ecological equilibrium and examines their applications in Taiwan’s fishery industry.Based on theoretical debate between sustainable development by Aldo Leopold and Peter Singer’s idea of animal liberation, Dr. Hsu suggests that the idea of life rights of animal should be a key element in the program of sustainable development. His argument is further discussed on the exhaustion of fishery resources against tourism promotion in Taiwan, the meat-vegetable eating dilemma, and the blurring line of animal right regarding human survival.

After lunch break, the third presentation was given by Prof. Ts’ui-jung Liu, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica.She introduced the new book by Micah S. Muscolino entitled Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China.This is the first book on Chinese fishery from the perspective of environmental history.In addition to introduction and conclusion, the book consists of six chapters, each deal with specific time period from maritime life under late Qing to the fishing wars at Zhejian and Jiangsu border during 1935-1945.The discussion centers on the issues of how fishing resources were gradually incorporated into national interests, and how social organizations of local fishermen, such as fishing lodges, resolved conflicts between fishermen, pirates and the states. In the early years of nationalist China, scientific management has been suggested in order to have sustainable development of the fishing industry. Competition between mechanized Japanese vessels and Chinese fishing boats as well as those between using nets or bamboo cages for catching cuttlefish also involved new types of conflicts.In general, the fishing industry of late imperial and modern China was a continuous yet punctuated process of transition regarding its impact on local fishing groups and environmental resources.

The fourth presentation was carried out by Prof. Hua-Pi Tseng, Professor at the Center for General Education, NationalChiao-TungUniversity. Prof. Tseng presented Ramachandra Guha’s book entitledEnvironmentalism: A Global History. This book not only delineates the history of environmentalism from the perspective of the North, but also compares what the South had encountered or developed in reaction to the environmentalism of Euro-American perspective.The history of the environmental ideas is divided into two waves, generally by the Second World War.Guha’s book is not a documentation of scientific environmentalism, but rather a trace of thoughts and processes of environmental movements and social impact. Before the WWII, the environmentalism was represented as thoughts from elites.After the WWII, the environmentalism was carried out by social awaken movement. From the age of affluence as well as the “age of ecological innocence” to the ecology of affluence, environmentalism moves from advocacy on nature to the reflection of life style and environmental damage by industrial age. Based on the cases of the South, Guha proposes the “environmentalism of the poor.” In developing countries, the burgeoning of environmentalism is deeply connected with social justice.

In general, the discussion at the first EH workshop not only sheds light on redefining the boundaries of nation states and social organization on the constitution of environmental resources, but also practical aspects on the rise of environmental consciousness and local environment protection movements.The workshop creates a platform for further discussions and anticipates dialogues and suggestions on East Asian environmental conditions.The second EH workshop at Academia Sinica will be held on April 30th at the Institute of Taiwan History as well.

Brief on WCEH2009 by Ts'ui-jung Liu

The First World Congress of Environmental History (WCEH2009) was held during August 4-8, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden. The program consisted of 10 parallel sessions with 126 panels and 2 plenary poster sessions in addition to keynote speeches and roundtables. A very wide range of topics were included in the program with emphases roughly in the following order: forest, landscape, water, agriculture, rivers, climate, animal, urban environment, environmental sciences, ecology, hygiene, war, colonialism, justice and politics, and so on. Papers related to East Asia were presented in the following sessions:

Plenary poster session: 2 of 30 posters

• Disease and Environment: Implications of Clonorchiasis Infection in Taiwan and Mainland China; Ts'ui-jung Liu
• The Relationship between Human Being and Wild Animals in Chinese History; Zhihong Cao

Session 2.3: Water: intellectual histories, research and policies: Examples from Japan, China, India and Ghana; Chair: Ts'ui-jung Liu; 2 of 4 papers

• A transnational intellectual history of water culture in Japan; Satoshi Murayama
• Water shortages as consequences of the past history; Masayoshi Nakawo

Session 3.3: Using and abusing wild animals: Terrestrial and aquatic case studies; 2 of 4 papers

• Cultural Behavior and Animals' Life: The Relationship between the Tribute and Asiatic Lions' Crisis (1400-1600); Lei Kang
• Wild Animals and Humans in Asia before 1900; Peter Boomgaard

Session 4.11: Of coasts and harbours: Transcontinental perspectives; 1 of 4 papers

• The History of Taiwan's Fishing Ports and the Imagination of the Sea along the Number 2 Road of Taiwan; Tsuo-Ming Hsu

Session 5.5: Ecological Imperialism Redefined: Agricultural Landscape Transformations in Response to Distant Markets; 1 of 3 papers

• Ecologically unequal exchange, landesque capital, and landscape transformations: On the historical-political ecology of Kinmen Island and Orchid Island; Eric Clark and Huei-Min Tsai

Session 7.3: The Environment in the Making of Modern China – Changes, Continuities, and Connections; Chair: David Pietz; 3 papers

• Refugees and the Environment in Wartime China: Henan Province, 1938-1945; Micah Muscolino
• Water Calamities and Trauma: Towards a Consolidated Community; Yan Gao
• Social transformation, Environmental change and the acculturation of Oroqen in China (1858-1945); Bao Maohong

Session 8.1: Disposing of Cumulative Assumptions; 1 of 3 papers

• Turning Waste into Treasure: the Practice and Ideology of Waste Utilization in Chinese Agricultural History; Lihua Wang

Session 8.10: Water, Grasslands, and NGOs: The Transformation of the Chinese Vision of Nature; Chair: Susan Flader; 3 papers

• The Rise, Development, and Influence of the Environmental NGOs in China; Xueqin Mei
• The Chinese and Mongolian Perception of Grasslands in the Late Qing Dynasty; Guorong Gao
• The Pursuit of Harmony: The Dujiangyan Irrigation System and the Traditional Chinese Vision of Nature; Shen Hou (absent)

Session 8.13: Environmental history and social justice: the case of Japan Chair: Mika Mervio; Commentator: Kuninobu Kitao; 3 papers

• Japanese environmental history: narratives of sustainability; Mika Mervio
• Environmental justice and ecological modernization in Japan – contrasting urban and rural communities; Mutsuko Takahashi
• Environmental Social Justice Norms in Japan; Miranda Schreurs (absent)

Session 9.3: Single Paper Session; Chair: Micah Muscolino; 3 papers

• Spatial frameworks of land use and development: the environmental history of the Kanto Plain, Japan; David S. Sprague and Nobusuke Iwasaki
• Taboo, Hunter Philosophy, and Land Ethics in Taiwanese Indigenous Fiction; Chi-szu Chen
• Distant powers and socio-environmental processes in mountain forests and logging towns – The case of Taipingshan, Taiwan; Huei-Min Tsai

Session 9.10: International Waterways and Management; 1 of 4 papers

• An inter-continental comparison between the environmental histories of two lake catchment systems in mountain environments of France and South West China; Darren Crook

Session 10.5: National Parks on two continents; Chair: Ts'ui-jung Liu; 2 of 3 papers

• Political Impacts on the Establishment of National Parks in Taiwan; Hua-pi Tseng
• Taiwan's National Parks Development since World War II; Chang-yi Chang

It is hoped that the above information will be helpful for concerned scholars to prepare for the second world congress of environmental history scheduled for 2014.