After a long wait during the pandemic, the second lecture titled “The Anthropocene Concept for Humanists: From the Perspective of Energy” was successfully held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on June 4th. Professor Hannes Bergthaller from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in National Chung Hsing University provided a brief but inspiring map showing the developing history of human societies and the use of energy.

He opened up his lecture with the challenge raised by the concept of Anthropocene to humanists. The challenge is how to connect cultural and social history with the history of human energy use. Human beings, as omnivores, lack a clearly defined position in the trophic pyramid. In addition, they supplement the energetic needs of their organic body with external sources of energy other than food, such as the use of fire, agricultural tools, coals and petroleum. The use of energy impacts human life and societies.

Following, he briefly reviewed the history of this energy interpretation toward history: this discourse with a “progressive theory of history” was proposed by Herbert Spencer in the middle of the 19th century, and was abandoned after the World War II. Although the old fashion concept was abandoned for a while, the Great Acceleration made scholars aware of the considerable impact of the fossil fuels. Professor Bergthaller indicated that if one wishes to understand how fossil fuels have profoundly and comprehensively shaped the culture of modernity, he/she should look back at history, and understand the dynamics of social development with reference to their energetic base.

Hence, on the basis of scientific research, Professor Bergthaller divided history into three regimes from the perspective of energy: hunter and gatherer regime, agrarian regime and fossil energy regime. During hunter and gatherer regime communities moved around frequently, which held back their population growth and opportunities to develop technologies. When people started to rely on agriculture due to climate change, they had more energy to grow their population and to develop technologies such as heavy machinery that for hunters and gatherers would’ve required too much energy to carry around. However, in agrarian society, sources of energy and population growth were constrained by the cultivated lands, which had only made a small change of human’s life in ten thousand years. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was the use of fossil energy that profoundly broke through the restriction of lands and agriculture, emancipating people from lands, but simultaneously dragging them into a paradoxical life that has no scarcity and autarky. Last, he suggested that the only way to maintain our life in a world with finite fossil sources is “to decouple out notions of liberty from a life-style centred on liberal dissipation and of energy,” and that is also the responsibility of environmental humanists.

Discussant Dr. Hung Kuang-chi (洪廣冀) from Department of Geography in National Taiwan University questioned the value and effect of “Big history” Professor Bergthaller mapped for linking cultural history and history of energy use. Other scholars also indicated that this huge historical framework of energy use seems to be a western one, which overlooks the diversity of human communities and civilizations. Professor Bergthaller clarified that the theoretical framework was not meant to erase the difference between various groups of people, but to inspire “a fruitful dialogue between environmental history and the ecocritical study of literature.”

Academia activities of environmental history in 2020 have been changed from four workshops into six lectures and two workshops. The first lecture was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on Feb. 4th, and its topic was “Farming Knowledge and the Ming Discourse on Military Colonies: From the Perspective of Song Yingxing’s Yeyi (An oppositionist’s deliberations)”.

It is our honor to invite Dr. Masato Hasegawa (長谷川正人) from National Taiwan University to share his latest research about farming knowledge of “military colonies” (so-called “tuntian 屯田”) in the late Ming period. Dr. Hasegawa first pointed that research of tuntian usually focuses on its system and collapse; however, according to the perspective of Dr. Terada Takanobu (寺田隆信), the decline in farms we’ve seen from the official data may misguide us, since it was only based on official agricultural outputs.

Dr. Hasegawa argued that during the Japanese invasions of Korea from 1592 to 1598, tuntian in the Sino-Korean borderland was proposed by Ming military planners as well as Chosŏn (朝鮮) officials, showing that despite its “collapse” in the late Ming China, the tuntian system was still considered not only as a practical solution for food supply of garrisoned troops, but also as an expeditious measure to address the urgent need to provision Ming and Chosǒn soldiers fighting against the Japanese. He then investigated some historical materials on tuntian, including an essay written in a book called Yeyi by Song Yingxing, to explore local knowledge accessed in tuntian, the working period of tuntian, and the time division between military training and cultivating. His goal is to build the link between war, farming, and the environment in the late Ming China, and to give research of tuntian a new perspective.

As a discussant, Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶) suggested paying attention to the environmental impacts of tuntian, because she discovered their impacts on plants and animals in Xinjiang in the Qing dynasty, and would like to see this examined in Dr. Hasegawa’s research. She also proposed to locate tuntian fields on map by GIS, which could further research, such as the influence towards population of tuntian, and water source as the necessity of tuntian, and the difference between tuntian in the northeast of China and that in the northwest.

The third workshop of environmental history in 2019 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on Jul. 26. Two reports were presented.

The first paper titled “The Trade-offs between Air Pollution and Sustainability in Taiwan“. The author Prof. Hurng-jyuhn Wang 王鴻濬 (Department of Public Administration, National Donghwa University) attempts to present air pollution issues in Taiwan and discusses the control measures and trade-offs between air pollution and sustainability. He uses statistical data to analyze the air pollution and energy consumption situation, and also discusses strategies and efforts to combat the pollution issues.

Subsequently, Dr. Yawen Ku 顧雅文 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a working paper titled “The Environmental Change of the Old Ai-Liao River”. She examines how the regulation of the Ai-Liao river in the 1920s alleviated the flood but created another problems of water lacking, and discusses how the local people and government responded to the changing water environment.

The second workshop of environmental history in 2019 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on May 24. Two research reports were presented.

Dr. Pin-Tsang Tseng 曾品滄 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented his recent study. He first introduced the history of food consumption investigation in Taiwan during the colonial and early post-war period. Then he focused on pork, a highly consumed food, and pointed out the cultural meanings of pork consumption in the Taiwanese traditional agricultural society. Finally, he discussed the social and agricultural policy change changes since the 1960s, as well as their impact on pork consumption and production.

Dr. Shao-li Lu 呂紹理, Professor of the Department of History, National Taiwan University, gave the second report. The just started study discussed the plan surveys of medicinal plants in colonial Taiwan, the establishment of agricultural and forestry experiment stations, and the transplantation or cultivation of these plants. He also pointed out his continuing research on the relationship between academic or official medical botany and local knowledge of medicinal plants, as well as the environmental impacts of the alien invasive species.

The First Environmental History Workshop held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, on 22 March 2019 presented three research papers.

The first paper by Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu 劉翠溶 of Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, discussed problems of marine resource decline and pollution in Taiwan, as well as the increase awareness and actions for marine sustainable development in recent years.

The second paper presented by Prof. Shiuh-Shen Chien 簡旭伸 of Department of Geography, National Taiwan University is titled ‘Infrastructural Elements and Subterranean Insecurity- Case of Gas Explosion of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’. He examined the historical context of 2014 gas explosions in Kaohsiung municipality, and put forward a conception of ‘infrastructure-elements’ which provides a better understanding of risk society.

The third report was presented by Dr. Joan C. Lo 羅紀琼, Adjunct Research Fellows of Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica. She briefly introduced the use of cost effectiveness analysis for cancer prevention and control policy in Taiwan.

The Third Environmental History Workshop held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, on 19 October 2018 presented two reading reports.

The first report by Dr. Chonghao Pio Kuo (郭忠豪) of Center of General Education, Taipei Medical University, discussed the book edited by Bruce Makoto Arnold, Tanfer Emin Tunc, and Raymond Douglas Chong, Chop Suey and Sushi From Sea to Shining Sea: Chinese and Japanese Restaurants in the United States (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, June 2018), 320 pages. This book consists of 14 chapters. Dr. Kuo gave a detailed discussion on Chapter 5, “The Rise of Chinese Restaurants,” which presented the development of Chinese restaurants in the United States since the 1920s. In addition Dr. Kuo briefly introduced the content of other chapters of the book.

The second workshop of environmental history in 2018 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on August 8. Two reports were presented.

Dr. Liwan Hung 洪麗完 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, an historian of Taiwanese plains indigenous peoples, gave her first environmental history study as the first report. She discussed the land reclamation of the Han immigrants in 18th-century Hengchun Peninsula of southern Taiwan, and pointed out that the development of charcoal industry had changed the forest landscape. Since the late 19th century, the intervention of State power and the “conquest” of aboriginal people in mountain areas had brought greater impacts to the environment.

Subsequently, Dr. Shiyung Liu 劉士永 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a book review on John L. Brooke’s Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). The book was composed of four parts and twelve chapters. Dr. Liu mentioned some problems of this book, such as the lack of the use of first-hand historical materials, and some defects when describing Asia history. But it is still an inspiring work and an excellent textbook of environmental history.

The workshop of environmental history in 2018 reschedule to Wednesday morning to meet most members’ convenience. The first one was held on June 6 at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica. Two research papers were presented.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu 劉翠溶 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a talk about “Food consumption and its environmental impact in Taiwan”. She first discussed some statistics related to food production and consumption in Taiwan and the decline in the food self-sufficiency ratio by the 2010s. Then she pointed out the increasing preference of Taiwanese people in regard to eating out more and the related problem of food wastes, as well as the food safety scandals caused by chemistry additives and soil pollutions since the late 1970s.

Prof. Hurng-jyuhn Wang 王鴻濬 of the Department of Public Administration, National Donghwa University, gave the second report, “A munition industry of Taiwan Government General: Nanpang Forestry Co.,Ltd.,” which is a chapter of his forthcoming book. He traced the establishment and development of the Nanpang company in the context of wartime period in colonial Taiwan, and explained why Taroko in east Taiwan became their forest farm. Finally he discussed the large-scale, mechanized logging project of the company, and its impact on natural resource and landscape in East Taiwan.

The Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH) had its biennial conference, The Forth Conference of East Asian Environmental History, held from October 26 to 30 at Nankai University, Tianjin.

The first day, October 26, was the day for check-in.

The second day, October 27, started with the Opening Ceremony chaired by Professor Lihua Wang 王利华, the president of the AEAEH, followed by welcome address by Ke Gong 龚克, the President of Nankai University, and a speech by Xinyuan Lu 陆新元, Vice-president of Chinese society of Environmental Sciences. After taking the group photo, there were two keynote speeches. First, Yuqing Wang 王玉庆 delivered a speech on “Ecological Civilization: Our Thinking and Action”, and second, Donald Worster presented a speech on “Rim and Chasm: Down the Trial to a Larger Sense of History”. In the afternoon, there were two parallel sessions each consisted of six parts. Together, 47 papers were presented. In the evening, there was a multidisciplinary communication on the theme of food and environment in history Organized by Wang Lihua and chaired by Siming Wang and Micah Muscolino.

The third day, October 28, in the morning there were three keynote speeches. First , TaoHu胡涛, delivered a speech on “Environmental Impacts of Industrialization: Historic Perspective”; following the speech was a detailed comment by Robert Mark. Second, Ts’ui-jung Liu 劉翠溶 gave a speech on “Practices of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction in Coastal Southeast Mainland China and Taiwan”; following the speech Yixin Zhang 張一心 gave a brief comment. Third, Daniel Guttman delivered a speech on “Comparative Environmental History in the Making: the Rapid Development of Environmental Law and Policy in China and the U.S.”; following the speech, Jian Ke 柯坚 gave a detailed comment. It should be noted that originally Professor J. Donald Hughes was to deliver a keynote speech on “The Anthropocene in Environmental History, East and West: Human Evidence Versus Nature’s Power”, but he got sick in the first day and thus was not able to give his speech as scheduled. In the afternoon, there were two parallel sessions each consisted of six parts. Together, 46 papers were presented. In the evening, there was a multidisciplinary communication on the theme of localizing the Anthropocene organized by Cameron Muir and chaired by Lisa M. Brady.

The fourth day, October 29, there was a mid-conference study tour. Participants were guided to visit a modern scientific green-house at Shuigao Zhuang 水高庄, an excursion on the Haihe River 海河, and Tianjin central city.

The third workshop of environmental history in 2017 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on Sep. 15. There were four presentations at this workshop: two research reports and two reading reports.

Dr. Szu-Wei Tsai蔡思薇, the post-doctoral fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented the first paper. She discussed the scientific practice of botany during the Meiji-period in colonial Taiwan, and explored the relationship between science and empire.

Dr. Er-jian Yeh葉爾建, Assistant Professor of National Dong Hwa University, gave the second report. He examined the historical process and geographic change of the activities of Chinese merchants during the American Colonial Period in the Philippines, especially focusing on the relationship between their economic activities and environment.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu 劉翠溶 of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented the first reading report on Ulrich Beck’sThe Metamorphosis of the World (UK: Polity Press, 2016), discussing how climate change is transforming our concept of the world.

Dr. Shu-Min Huang黃樹民, Hou Chin-tui Chair Professor & Director of the Institute of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua University, gave another reading report on Emily T. Yeh’s Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development (Cornell University Press, 2013), which revealed how the Chinese government consolidated state space and power in Tibet through several development projects.

The second workshop of environmental history in 2017 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia SInica on June 16. There were four presentations at this workshop: three research reports and one reading report.

Dr. Su-Bing Chang (張素玢), professor of the Graduate Institute of Taiwan History, National Taiwan Normal University, gave a report on her study of Chukou River (濁口溪) meandering among the treacherous mountains in the south Taiwan. She pointed out that, between 1903 and the 1930s, the specific environmental characteristics of the Chukou valley, such as those of topography, geology, and hydrography, helped the local indigenous to fight against Japanese invasion. The Japanese were enhanced with modern weaponry but less efficient in that area. It was why the local indigenous people, the Wan-Dou-Longs (萬斗籠社), became the last one in Taiwan to succumb to the Japanese rule.

Dr. Pin-Tsang Tseng (曾品滄) of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented his study on “A social history of a lake: water use and social conflicts surrounding Ho-Pao-Yu Lake(荷苞嶼大潭) during Qing Dynasty.” He discussed the evolution of the political economy of the Lake when it was shrinking during the Qing period. The partial propriety right of the Tax-farming households of the Lake (港戶的不完全業主權) had caused series of conflicts among them and the nearby farmers who legally irrigated their fields with water from the Lake. These enduring conflicts had formed identities of various local communities.

Dr. Hurng-Jyuhn Wang (王鴻濬), Dean to the School of Humanities and Social Science, National Donghwa University, gave the third research report on “the Comparing perspectives on the Ecological Civilization.” Focusing on the ideas regarding human and nature under different cultures of the East and the West, and the difference of such ideas between philosophers and scientists, Wang proposes a new synthesis of environmental ethics in order to consolidate the ecological civilization.

Dr. Chung-Hao Pio Kuo (郭忠豪), Project Assistant Research Fellow of the College of Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, gave a book review on Gregory M. Pflugfelder & Brett L. Walker’s JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005). This is an essay collection introducing the edge-cutting animal studies in Japan. Interactions between Japanese and animals, such as deer, snakes, birds, boars, dogs, insects, and whales, as well as zoology, were examined respectively in each chapter.

The first workshop of environmental history in 2017 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on March 17. Three research reports and one reading report were presented.

Prof. Shao-li Lu (呂紹理), Professor of the Department of History, National Taiwan University, gave a research report on “The Agricultural Experiment Stations in Taiwan during the Japanese Colonial Period (日治時期臺灣農試試驗場: 資源交換與控制的平台)”. Basing on the re-examination of the concept of “biologie (biology)” in the 19th century, his paper argued that the agricultural experiment stations established in colonial Taiwan were served as platforms of resource exchange and control.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), Adjunct Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented preliminary research work entitled “From a Fertilizer Factory to a Business Park: A Site of Industrial Archaeology Located at Nangang District, Taipei City”. She investigated how the Nangang District in Taipei City has been transformed from a “black country” with many factories producing various industrial goods such as flour, tire and fertilizer to a business and software park in the recent decades. She also examined the effect of development on population, economy and environment.

In the afternoon, Ms. Liang-yu Yep (葉梁羽), a graduate student of master degree at the School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University, gave the third research report on “The Paradigm of the Wetland Conservation Act (混地保育法的典範分析)”. She discussed the history of the conservation area policies, and argued that the Wetland Conservation Act expresses a new paradigm.

The fourth workshop of environmental history in 2016 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on Nov. 18 and three reports were presented.

Dr. Shu-Min Huang黃樹民, Hou Chin-tui Chair Professor & Director of the Institute of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua University, gave a book review on Judith Shapiro’s China’s Environmental Challenges (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012). Based on long-term observation of China, Shapiro showed the rapid economic development and serious environmental deterioration after the reform and open policy in the late 1970s. Shapiro argued that many western researchers have simplified the causes of China’s environmental problems, which are in fact more complicated than expected. This book provided five key analytical concepts, including globalization, governance, national identity, civil society, and environmental justice.

Dr. Ya-Wen Ku 顧雅文, Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented the second report titled ‘Medical History from a Perspective of Environmental History’, a paper included in a handbook of the history of medicine which will be published next year. By analyzing existing literatures, she illustrated how the medical and disease issues have been integrated into the study of the environmental history, and argued how the environmental issues have provided different perspectives on the study of medical history.

Dr. Tsuo-Ming Hsu 徐佐銘, Associate Professor of the Center for General Education and Core Curriculum, Tamkang University, gave a research report on “Rachel Carson’s three books about the Ocean”, by analyzing Carson’s Under the Sea Wind、The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea from a philosophical Perspective.

The third workshop of environmental history in 2016 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on August 19. There were one research report and three reading reports.

Dr. Chia-San Shen沈佳姍, Assistant Professor of the Department of Liberal Arts, National Open University, presented her working paper on the livestock management under Japanese Colonial Period. She reviewed the Taiwanese traditional way of taking care of livestock health, and traced the establishment of animal quarantine system and related training system for technicians in the colonial period. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the modernization of livestock management as well as the subsequent influences.

Dr. Marlon Zhu 朱瑪瓏, Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, gave his reading report on Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920 by Shellen Xiao Wu 吳曉 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). The book contains six chapters. He focused on discussing chapters two to four, which illustrate how the Western scientists, missionaries and engineers investigated coal resource in China, and introduced modern geology in the late Qing. In the process, coal was reconceptualized, from just a commodity to be taxed, to a most important fuel which was the key factor for China’s wealth and power.

Dr. Pin-tsang Tseng 曾品滄, Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, introduced a Japanese monograph titled稲の大東亜共栄圏：帝国日本の緑の革命 by Fujihara Tatsushi 藤原辰史 (東京: 吉川弘文館, 2012). The book discusses the history of the breeding for high-yield rice in Japanese Empire, including inland Japan, colonial Korea and Taiwan. Dr. Tseng suggested that the development of breeding technology in Taiwan deserves more attention than historians usually gave it, for it had played an important role in East Asia or even in the world. He also introduced the history of agriculture has been “reborn” in recent years by new research approaches, such as combining the viewpoint from the study of food history or environmental history. This book could be seen as one of the best example.

Dr. Paul Jobin 彭保羅, Associate Research Fellow of the Institute Sociology, Academia Sinica, gave the last reading report on L'évènement anthropocène by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (Paris: Seuil, 2013). Written by a historian of science and a historian of environment, this book received great noticed especially in the field of STS research. The authors argue that the concept of "Anthropocene" proposed by some scientists was Western-centered and too simplified. This book thus suggests a more thorough investigation into the history of the human impact on the earth.

Dr. Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin (林冠慧), Post-doctoral Fellow of the Center for Sustainability Science at Academia Sinica, gave her research report on the “Spatial-temporal analysis on climate variation in early Qing dynasty (17th-18th century): Using China’s chronological records.” The report is based on a three-year multidisciplinary research project conducted by Academia Sinica. Dr. Lin introduced the work of the project and the database. She made an initial analysis of the flood damages in Qing dynasty on the basis of what have accomplished at the first year.

Prof. Hurng-jyuhn Wang (王鴻濬) of the Department of Public Administration, National Donghwa University, gave the second report, “Endless discovery: A century history of forestry in Haron.” Prof. Wang traced the exploitation of Taiwan’s forest since the late nineteenth century and focused his discussion on the forestry in Haron, which could represent Taiwan’s forestry. By examining the case of Haron, Prof. Wang pointed out forest management in Taiwan achieved modernization under the rules of Japanese imperial government and National government. Along with the social development in Taiwan, the forestry policy changed in the past hundred years. After World War II, Haron forestry had been run under Hualian County for 12 years, which brought enormous influence over local development. Through thorough examination of government documents, newspapers, magazines, journals and interviews with officers, workers, businessman and scholars, Prof. Wang brought insight into a history of Taiwan’s forestry.

Dr. Shi-yung Liu (劉士永) of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented the third report. He gave a book review onEffects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2010), edited by Richard S. Ostfeld, Felicia Keesing, and Valerie T. Eviner. Dr. Liu pointed out the main argument of the book was that we all as humans stay at the parasites’ place which in turn reside in us. Vector-parasite interactions need reconsiderations in two ways: (1) Parasites may adapt on multiple vector species en route for transmission and vectors may support multiple pathogens. (2) Parasites are not killers, not at the center of Earth ecosystems organization, but constitute an important component of biological diversity and organization. New ideas and theories was brought as well, including development of adequate models to deal with complex systems, extension of the Red Queen hypothesis at a community-scale level, and resilience theory to socioecological systems.

Dr. Chunghao Pio Kuo (郭忠豪), Visiting Assistant Professor of University of Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign, introduced E. N. Anderson’s Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). Dr. Kuo introduced the book with food system theory which could be applied to history interpretation, for instance, the Mongol Empire expansion or the Discovery of the New World. Anderson brought a new issue: what were the key factors of the successful food policy in Chinese history? Dr. Kuo pointed out that biological technology, agricultural policies, religion, and the worldview which value farming instead of commerce were the crucial elements Anderson suggested. However, Dr. Kuo added, certain materials were translated mistakenly thus cause some wrong historical interpretation.

Dr. Der-Ching Horng (洪德欽), Research Fellow of the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, gave a research report on “Constructing Food Safety Institutions in Taiwan: Model from EU.” Dr. Horng started with food safety incidences in Taiwan in recent years and introduced methods and regulations taken by EU in food safety, suggesting that these institutions might be useful to remedy food problems in Taiwan. These institutions include (1) establishing an independent European Food Safety Authority (ESFA, 歐盟食品安全局), which is responsible for risk assessment and the alleged policy making; (2) the European Union Reference Laboratories(EU-RLs, 歐盟食品安全實驗室); and (3) the food safety police (食安警察). Horng compared these with corresponding institutions in Taiwan, and offered proposals for reforming food laws for the authorities.

Mr. Ming-Kuang Chung (鍾明光), a PhD candidate of the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, gave a research report on “Water Governance on Cho-shui River (濁水溪): with the approach of STS analysis.” Mr. Chung explored the history of this longest river in Taiwan from the 18th century, interpreting it with the Actor Network Theory (ANT) proposed by STS researchers. Interests of human and non-human actors, such as governments under different regimes, local residents, sugar cane refinery, agriculture, hydrology and engineering knowledge, embankment technique, methods and ideology of water resource management, all acted heterogeneously to shape the landscape along the River in different periods till the late 20th century.

Dr. Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌), Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica and his research team including Prof. Wen-ling Tu (杜文苓), Prof. Chun-chieh Chi (紀駿傑), Prof. Shih-Jung Hsu (徐世榮), Prof. Keng-ming Hsu (許耿銘) and Prof. Hsin-hsun Huang (黃信勳) gave an introduction of their book titled The Lessons of Taiwan’s Local Environment (Kaohsiung: Chu-Liu Book Company, 2015). The book showed how the central and local governments, in collusion with interest groups, have promoted the environmental degradation in Taiwan since the 1950s. They also indicated that the non-government social force has played a vital role in protecting our environment.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶) of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a book review on Susannah Hagan’s Ecological Urbanism: the nature of the city (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), focusing on the content of Chap.1 and 6. In Chap. 1, the author traced the origins of the term “ecological urbanism” and tried to give it a definition. In Chap. 6, the author discussed the similarities and differences between the ideal city and the eco city.

The Third Conference of East Asian Environmental History (EAEH 2015) was held on October 22-25 in Takamatsu, Japan. The conference was jointly organized by the International Consortium for Earth and Development Sciences (ICEDS), Kagawa University, Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH), and Japanese Association for Environmental History. On the general theme “Beyond borders. Oceans, mountains, and rivers in East Asia”, the conference consisted of 2 keynote speeches, an open symposium, 2 plenary sessions and 51 parallel sessions of paper presentation, along with 3 book sessions, 2 network meetings, and 2 round table discussions. More than 200 scholars from Japan, China, Taiwan, USA, Germany, UK, France, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines were brought together for the conference.

On October 22, an open ceremony was held at Hi-un-kaku (披雲閣) in the morning. One keynote speech and two plenary sessions was held at Kagawa International Conference Hall in the following afternoon. In the two plenary sessions afterward, there were 8 paper presentations on the theme “Circulating Natures: Air and Water”. The keynote speech entitled “Natural and Unnatural Disasters: 3/11, Asbestos, and the Unmaking of Japan’s Modern World” was delivered by Dr. Brett L. Walker, Professor of History at Montana State University, Bozeman.

The conference arranged four mid-conference study visits took place on October 23. The destinations were Ya-shima (屋島), Shōdo-shima (小豆島), Te-shima (豊島), and Nao-shima (直島), and the participants enjoyed the unique landscape of the islands of the Seto Inland Sea by learning the history and current challenges of the surrounding area. In the evening, an open symposium on “Wildlife Protection and Broken Environment” was held at Sunport Hall Takamatsu. Two keynote lectures were onside. The first one on “Living with ‘Broken Landscapes‘” was presented by Cameron Muir, Professor of Australian National University, Australia. The second one entitled “Emerging Local Challenges in Kagawa, Japan” was given by Yuichiro Takao, Assistant Manager of the Nature Conservation Division, Environment and Forestry Department, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The parallel sessions, book sessions, network sessions, and round table discussions were held on October 24-25 at Kagawa University. The 51 parallel sessions covered various topics such as aquatic animals and human societies, agriculture and forestry, lake and river water, disasters, fishing communities, environmental humanities, imagination and transformation of landscape, social engagements in art and ecology, national parks, extreme weather events and history records, environmental policies, land use, food security, and climate change. Altogether, 176 papers were presented and discussed. In book sessions, two books and one book series were discussed. They were Cultivating Commons. Joint Ownership of Arable Land in Early Modern Japan by Professor Philip C. Brown, Economic History of the Environment: Forestry-Market-State by Professor Osamu Saito, and book series: Climate and Culture edited by Carmen Meinert and Claus Leggewie.

The first round table discussed a project “Societal Adaptation to Climate Change” carried out by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan. In the second round table, a keynote speech entitled “Borders and Mosaics, East and West: Landscape Organization in Environmental History” was given by Dr. J. Donald Hughes, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Denver. After the keynote speech, there was a round table discussion about the issues for further research and for the Association for East Asian Environmental History.

Finally, at the General Meeting of the Association, the active member of the Association elected Professor Lihua Wang (王利華) to the new President of AEAEH for the following two years (2016-2017). They also voted seven members, Professor Philip Brown, Professor Tatsushi Fujihara (藤原辰史), Professor Andrea Janku, Professor Shiyung Liu (劉士永), Professor David Pietz, Professor Akihisa Setoguchi (瀨戶口明久), and Professor Li Zhang (張莉), for the Council of AEAEH. In addition, they also agreed to set up an advisory board, and the board members included Professor J. Donald Hughes, Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), Professor Satoshi Murayama, and Professor Donald Worster.

The 2015 EHWorkshop (3) was held on August 28, 2015 at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica. There were four presentations, three on research works and one on reading.

Dr. Ya-wen Ku 顧雅文, Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented a recent study entitled, “River, Land and Society- the Ever-changing Zengwen River from 19th to mid-20th Century,” co-authored with Chung-hsin Li 李宗信 (Associate Professor of the Graduate Institute of History, National Changhua University of Education). This study shows that the Zengwen River (曾文溪) changed its course at least five times from the 19th to mid-20th century. The unstable environment resulted in social conflict surrounding submerged and emerged lands. And the river regulation during Japanese colonial period unintentionally settled the long-running dispute.

Dr. Chin-Yi Li 李進億, Project Assistant Professor of the Graduate Institute of History, National Changhua University of Education, presented his study on “Formation and Transformation of Water Conservancy Order: A Case Study of the Dakekan River Basin”. He discussed the order of water distribution in Hòu Cun irrigation system (後村圳) during the Qing dynasty and its change during Japanese colonial period.

Dr. Huang Shu-Min 黃樹民, Corresponding Research Fellow and Academician of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, presented his report on the book China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (2008, Cornell University Press) written by Andrew C. Mertha, an assistant professor of political science at the Washington University. The author argues that China’s political process has become less authoritarian and more diversified since the “Reform & Open” policy in the 1980s. Policy change has been expanded to incorporate new dynamics including policy entrepreneurs, issue framing as well as coalitions and broad-based support. Mertha analyzes two significant cases of hydropower forces development in China to clarify the complicated relations among economic development, resettlement, cultural heritage and environmental issues. Cases of the Reservoir of Pubugou (瀑布溝水庫) and the Dam of Dujiangyan (都江堰) reveal the turn from economic development to cultural heritage. In the concluding chapter, Mertha suggests that the fragmented authoritarianism allows more participants in policy-decision making, such as subprovincial officials, the media, NGOs, academics, and individual activists. Along with the struggles of some activists who argued to change the system from within, the expanded field of social protests also plays an important role.

The second workshop of environmental history in 2015 was held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on May 29. There were two research reports and one reading report.

Dr. Chang Chi-ying 張繼瑩, Post-doctoral Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, presented his case study of hydraulic system in the middle part of Shanxi Province during the Qing dynasty. He focused on analyzing thebenefit of irrigation system and the practices of risk prevention by dry farming method at localities such as Shouyang 壽陽 and Yuci 榆次.

Dr. Yeh Er-jian 葉爾建, Assistant Professor of the Department of Taiwan Culture, National Dong-hwa University, presented his study on the telecommunication network and meteorological observation in the Philippines under the rule of USA (1898-1935). He traced the development of meteorological observation in the Philippines and concluded that after 1902 the telecommunication network covered most part of Luzon Island and most observatories were newly established.

Dr. Chiang Chu-shan 蔣竹山, Associate Professor of the Department of History, National Dong-hwa University, gave a general review on writing the history of rivers with a focus on a new book, Three Hundred Years of the Zhoushui River: History, Society, and the Environment [濁水溪三百年：歷史．社會．環境], (New Taipei City: Acropolis Publisher, 2014) by Chang Su-Bing 張素玢. He pointed out that each chapter of this book has a special theme and yet it is possible to find overlapping among chapters.

Due to the fact that there were only three presentations instead of four, there was plenty of time for discussions from the audience.

Dr. Der-Chin Horng (洪德欽), Research Fellow of the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, presented his study on “The Amendment Proposal of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation: The Inspiration from the Food Safety System of the European Union (EU).” A chain of serious food safety problems recently in Taiwan has revealed the emergent need to amend the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation. Prof. Horng’s study introduces and analyzes the food safety system of the EU, aiming to provide a reference structure or an example to deliberate the amendment proposal in the future. Prof. Horng explained the background and key concepts of the food safety system of the EU, laying significant stress on the legal basis, the Law and its practice. Among the others, the roles and functions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU Reference Laboratories were highlighted. The EU had also built the mechanism of risk analysis. The experiences of the EU provide important directions and concrete suggestions for the legal amendment in Taiwan.

Dr. Marlon Zhu (朱瑪瓏), Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, presented his study on “The Failure of the Machine Dredging on the Woosung Inner Bar in the 1880s.” Instead of “successful” stories of the introduction of western technologies in Treaty-port China, Zhu introduced a doomed case of the dredging of a bar in the Whangpoo River (黃浦江) that had interfered the shipping access to Shanghai. There were professional surveys suggesting sound plans to improve the situation of detention other than mere dredging. Nonetheless, the Qing government still, under the persistent pressure from the mercantile community in Shanghai, ordered and employed a single hopper dredger from Britain to dredge the Bar without other necessary measures. This proved to be in vain in the early 1890s.

Dr. I-Chiao Wang (王一樵), a PhD from the Department of History, National Taiwan University and current serves as an assistant of Humanities Lectures Course of Academia Sinica, gave a presentation on his ongoing research titled “The Water Resources Management and City Flood Disaster Control of Beijing City in the Qing Dynasty”. The purpose of his research is to examine the policy and civilian response to flood and the problems of water resources in Qing capital Beijing. He challenged the previous statement which said that the relatedhistorical materials were too limited to support the research, and introduced some useful materials such as official archives, local choreographies, gazetteer of rivers, historic maps, novels and newspapers.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), an adjunct Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave her reading report on China’s New Urbanization Strategy, edited by China Development Research Foundation (London and New York: Routledge, 2013). The editor of this volume is one of the leading economic think tanks in China. Dr. Liu’s report focuses on Introduction, Chapters 1, 8 and 10. Chapter 1 provides an overall discussion on process, trends and challenges of urbanization in China since 1949; Chapter 8 points out a “green path” toward urbanization, and in the last chapter (chapter 10), the editors came up with 14 policy recommendations for implementing the strategy of urbanization in China.

At this workshop, there were four presentations: three research reports and one reading report.

Dr. Hurng-jyuhn Wang (王鴻濬) of the Department of Public Administration, National Donghwa University, gave the first report, “Community-based Sustainable Forestry in Taiwan: Policy Foundation and Implementation.” Dr. Wang traced the exploitation of Taiwan’s forest since the late nineteenth century and focused his discussion on the community forestry program implemented since 1989 in three stages. In the first stage, the aim was to convey the importance of forestry to thousands of communities involved. In the second stage, eight communities were selected to create community-based forestry with subsidies provided by the government. And in the third stage, the plan of private-public co-management was initiated.

Dr. Shi-yung Liu (劉士永) of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, presented the second report, “The Impact of Population Growth on the Environment after World War II: A preliminary inquiry from global perspective.” Dr. Liu discussed the urban development since the World War II in the United States of America and the situation of the newly industrial economies in Asia with an emphasis on the efficiency of energy utilization and its impact on the environment.

Dr. Shao-hua Liu (劉紹華) of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, presented her study on “Waterscape and Social Transformation: The case of Mudan Reservoir.” She discussed this topic from three aspects: (1) The history of constructing the Mudan Reservoir from 1981 to 1995; (2) The environmental changes in Taiwan from the perspective of water resources; and (3) The interpretations and memories of various social groups involved in the construction of the Mudan Reservoir.

The last report is a reading reported given by Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶) of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica. She introduced the book, Shrinking Cities: A global perspective, edited by Harry W. Richardson and Chang Moon Nam (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). This book consists of 21 chapters, but only chapters 1, 11, 13, and 21 were discussed in details in this report.

The 2014 EHWorkshop (3) was held on August 29, 2014 at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica. There were three presentations, two on research works and one on reading.

Dr. Yeh Er-Jian 葉爾建, Assistant Professor of National Dong Hwa University, presented his research on agricultural exchange in northwest Pacific area in the 20th century. This study focused on the effects of importation of vegetables, fruits, and cattle into the Philippines from China. Based on materials available in the Philippine Agricultural Review and the reports of public health, Dr. Yeh traced the history of importing these agricultural products and the establishment of quarantine system in the Philippines.

Dr. Ku Ya-wen 顧雅文, Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a report on the cinchona cultivation program in Japan Empire during 1912-1945. She introduced botanical nature of cinchona and the planting of cinchona in southern Taiwan by Japanese private enterprises and Japanese experts during the Japanese colonial period as well as the establishment of Kina-ology in Japan in the early 1940s.

Mr. Lameru 藍姆路, PhD candidate of the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, gave a reading report on Resilience and the Cultural Landscape: Understanding and Managing changes in Human-shaped Environment by T. Plieninger and Claudia Bieling (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). He discussed the subject of this book with topics of landscapes, resilience, and the linking between cultural landscape and resilience. In addition, he introduced a case of cultural landscape concerning Cihalaay 吉哈拉艾 of the Ami aborigine 阿美族 in Hualien, Taiwan.

The International Academia Workshop on “Ethnic and Environmental Change in China’s Southwestern Frontier: A Global Perspective” 全球化视野下的中国西南边疆民族环境变迁国际学术研讨会 was held at the Yunnan University on August 18-20, 2014. This conference was organized by Dr. Zhou Qiong 周琼 and sponsored by the Department of History, Yunnan University. Scholars attending this conference came from America (3 persons), Germany (3), Taiwan (2), and various places in China (68). In addition to two sessions of keynote with 4 reports, there were three parallel sessions with a total of 49 reports. The themes of the sessions include the regional environment, theory and method of the environment, disease and the environment, disasters and the environment, the water environment, and world environmental history. In the closing session, in addition to closing remarks, there were also summary reports for six sessions by six scholars. The third day of the conference was a field trip to see the Karst landscape at Jiuxiang 九鄉.

The Second World Congress of Environmental History (WCEH2014) was hosted by University of Minho and The International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations (ICEHO) and was held on 8-12 July 2014 in Guimarães, Portugal.

In addition to some sessions (the opening ceremony and opening plenary on July 8, the ICEHO Presidential Plenary on July 10, and the closing ceremony on July 12) which all participants are supposed to attend, the program consisted of panels of paper presentation (479 accepted papers) and 6 roundtables arranged in 8 or 9 parallel sessions in the two time slots in each morning and afternoon. Except for presenting his/her paper at assigned time, one can only go to sessions with choices.

More than 20 AEAEH members, of them 7 were from Taiwan attended this conference. Here, I am not intended to report on individual member’s presentation but to focus only on the ICEHO Presidential Plenary in which I represented AEAEH to give a perspective of the association. My report can be summarized as follows:

After tracing briefly the founding of AEAEH, I reported on number of AEAEH members: “The number of the AEAEH member increased from 198 persons at the end of 2009 to 333 persons by 4 July 2014. The regional distributions are as follows: Taiwan 76, China 71, Japan 70, North America 51, Europe 20, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand 14, Hong Kong 9, Korea 9, and Philippine 7 persons.”

I also mentioned the biennial conferences of AEAEH. The first conference (EAEH2011) was held in October 2011 at Academia Sinica, and the selected papers were published in a volume by Routledge in early 2014. The second conference (EAEH2013) was held at the National Dong Hwa University, Hualian, Taiwan; and the publication of the selected papers is in preparation. The third conference (EAEH 2015) will be held on 22-25 October 2015 at Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan, and the deadline of submitting proposals will be 31 August 2014.

According to the bylaws of AEAEH, the new President elected at the biennial conference should take up the responsibility of organizing the next conference. Thus, we expect that future EAEH conferences will take place at different places. Moreover, according to the bylaws, Academia Sinica will take up the responsibility of paying annual ICEHO membership fee and maintaining the AEAEH website. We expect that the field of East Asian environmental history will be kept in progress in the future together with the general trend of world environmental history.

Dr. Peter Lavelle (羅繼磊), Post-doctoral Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, delivered a report titled “Empire of Trees: the Matter and Meaning of Trees in the Late Qing Northwest.” Focusing on the willow trees planted in the 1870s by Qing soldiers in the east part of Gansu Province (甘肅省), namely the “Willows of General Zuo (左公柳),” Dr. Lavelle argued that those trees (originally amounted 3.5 millions in numbers) could be considered not only as resources that provided to the natives, they further represented the Empire’s overcoming of a harsh environment where used to be no trees. The trees simultaneously served as fuel or building material to the natives; and, symbolically, they were significant as signs of state power and national unity.

Dr. Shao-li Lu (呂紹理), Professor of the Department of History, National Taiwan University, gave a report on the “Blight in Modern Taiwan and its Remedy (近代臺灣的「蟲害」及其防治工作).” Focusing on the introduction of pesticide residue to Taiwan in the Japanese colonial period in the early twentieth century, Professor Lu argued that the prevailing usage of these chemicals in agriculture in contemporary Taiwan could be counted as one of the colonial “legacies”. By knowledge on entomology and inorganic chemistry in the Japanese Empire, accompanied with new local official institutions in agriculture such as “Inspectors against Pest (害蟲巡視員)” from the Schools for Agriculture Promotion (農業講習學校), and the employment of the system of Baojia (保甲制度), there witnessed in Taiwan a great expansion of the usage of pesticide residue, both in variety and numbers, until the 1940s.

Dr. Shu-min Huang (黃樹民), Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, gave his review on John Connell and Eric Waddell’s Environment, Development, and Change in Rural Asia-Pacific: Between Local and Global. With this collection of essays in honor of Harold Brookfield, a professor in micro-geography, the two editors advocated a bottom-up perspective to examine globalization. In contrast to any monolithic narrative of the globalizing process, this new approach upholds the “cultural ecology,” which puts emphasis on local voices, local knowledge, local empiricism and local practice. Case studies dealing with examples, such as the agricultural dilemma in a Western Pacific island (Kiribati) and the changing production strategies of smallholders in oil palm plantations in Papua New Guinea, illustrate the new approach.

Dr. Chunghao Pio Kuo (郭忠豪), Post-doctoral Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, introduced Rachel Landan’s Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. Landan has reiterated the world history with a “culinary” perspective. Chapters were arranged chronologically from the mastering of grains as staple food in ancient world from 20,000 to 300 B.C.E., to the globalization of middling food in the twentieth century. The rise of “modern cuisine,” the author argued, had reflected the fall the hierarchical principle in the middle age and in confluence with the rise of republicanism, liberal democracy, and socialism in modern time. The British Industrialization had created the “middling cuisine,” such as the easy-carrying white bread. In the end, Dr. Kuo gave some suggestions to the study of the food history.

Professor Huei-Min Tsai (蔡慧敏), of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal University, gave a report on “The Transformation of Social-Ecological System and Commons on Ponso-no-Tau (Orchid Island)” (蘭嶼「社會生態系統」與「共有財」機制的變遷). She shed light on the resource management of the Tau people on the Orchid Island, a Pacific island that close to the southeast coast of Taiwan. Following the insight of some anthropologists, Professor Tsai questioned the assumption by economists that “commons” (resources without personal property-right claim) in a society would be exploited to its maximum. Professor Tsai observed that Tau people had constructed and constructing sustainable ways of managing their fishing resource, land use and others, in face of recent challenge of intensified tourism and other capitalist economy.

Dr. Pin-tsang Tseng (曾品滄), Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a report on “The Beginning of the Trade of Hogs: Environmental Change in Agriculture and Life in Nineteenth-century Northern Taiwan” (生豬貿易的展開──十九世紀末期臺灣北部的農業與生活環變遷). He explored the historical origin of hog husbandry and its significance in the daily life of Taiwanese. Pork served not only as a source of meat consumption but also major sacrifice to god and gift to families. Tseng pointed out, in comparison with coastal provinces of China, the hog-raising in Taiwan in the late nineteenth century was more popular in terms of the average number of hog raised in a household.Hog became the third major product in Taiwan next only to rice and tea. Moreover, the relatively high price of hog in Taiwan since the 1880s and the amount of imported-hog from Fujian (福建) and Zhejiang (浙江) represented a higher pork consumption in Taiwan than other places. Hog husbandry and consumption, therefore, was a key factor in the economic as well as environmental histories of Taiwan.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), Adjunct Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, introduced the concept and the journal of “Anthropocene” (人類世). According to geologists, we are now in the age of Holocene (全新世), which started since 8000 B.C. Some scholars proposed in recent years that the great extent of human impact on the environment had called for a need to distinguish our time as a distinctive era named as “Anthropocene”. Despite of various debates among researchers over the validity or the beginning time of the Anthropocene, most of them agreed that we need a far more extensive framework, or alternative thinking to deal with new problems we had encountered such as global warming or extreme weather. Dr. Liu then introduced the Journal Anthropocene by sharing extract of each essay in the first two issues of the Journal. She concluded with the new idea’s significance to the study of environmental history. The cross-disciplinary practice, the ever-wider scope in time and space, would be very useful to future studies.

The Second Conference of East Asian Environmental History (EAEH 2013) was held on Oct. 24-26, in Hualien, Taiwan. This conference was co-organized by the Association for East Asian Environmental History, Academia Sinica, and National Dong Hwa University. With the general theme, “Transformation of East Asian Environment in Historical Perspective: Local Reality and Global Connection”, the conference consisted of 3 keynote speeches, a special session on GIS (Geographic Information System), 21 parallel sessions of paper presentation and a round table discussion. More than 100 scholars from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Europe, North America, and Taiwan were brought together for the conference.

The three keynote speeches were respectively delivered in three days. The first one entitled “Sustainable Empire, An Oxymoron?” was delivered by J. Donald Hughes, Professor Emeritus at University of Denver. The second one on “Listening to Bamboo: The Literati’s Attitude and Behavior to Nature Sounds in Pre-modern China” was given by Lihua Wang, Professor of Nankai University. And the third one entitled “Two Types of ‘Industriousness’ and Changing Attitudes toward Nature in Early Modern Times: an International Comparison” was delivered by Satoshi Murayama, Professor of Kagawa University. The three keynote speeches covered a long temporal span from ancient to contemporary periods and a wide spatial sphere from Europe to East Asia.

The 21 parallel sessions covered various themes such as conceptual view of environmental history, attitude toward nature, environmental policy history, nature Hazard, disaster and prevention, disease and health, marine resources, forest management, biological resources and imperialism, land use, water resources, pollution, nature in 20th century East Asia, Taiwan’s post-war local environmental history, and American environmental legacies in the Philippines. Altogether, 67 papers were presented and discussed. Furthermore, a special attention was given to the use of GIS. In this special session, I-chun Fan, the Executive Director of Center for GIS, introduce the historical maps and GIS databases established in Academia Sinica.

On the last day, the conference ended with a round table discussion chaired by Prof. Hughes and five introducers including Phillip Brown, Andrea Janku, Shiyung Liu, Satoshi Murayama and Lihua Wang. They summarized the main achievements of this event and suggested some important issues for further research in the future.

Finally, at the General Meeting of the Association, the active members of the Association elected Professor Satoshi Murayama (村山聰) as the new President of AEAEH for the following two years (2013-2015). They also elected seven members,Professor Lihua Wang (王利華), Dr. Andrea Janku, Professor Michael Shiyung Liu (劉士永), Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), Professor Philip Brown, Professor Donald Hughes, and Professor David Bello, for the Council of AEAEH.

In addition, two separate field trips were arranged in the afternoon of the third day. At the visit to Cidal Hunter School (吉籟獵人學校) participants learned how to make a crown with the leave of shell-flower (Alpinia zerumbet) and some techniques for living in the wild such as making ropes, setting a trap and lighting a fire. At the guided tour of the Dong Hwa University Campus, participants enjoyed the beautiful scene and biodiversity in the campus.

Professor Bor-wen Tsai (蔡博文), Associate Professor of the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, gave a report on “The Change and Adaption of the Agricultural Landscape of Bu-nun People along the Chen-yu-lan River. With tool of Public-Participation Geographical Information System (PP-GIS) and fieldwork in Wansian (望鄉部落) and Shenmu (神木聚落) in the mountainous area in central Taiwan, Professor Tsai analyzed and compared the change of land use between the two villages, which mainly comprised of Bu-nun and Han (more specifically, Hakka) people respectively. In both villages, the alluvial lands in the valleys, instead of hillsides, were their major area of agriculture. The Actor-Network Theory was employed to explain the change of major crop. Different networks for every major crop with specific feature were established with and “translated” various actors such as the water resources, churches, clans, families, communities and the trade middlemen (行口) from lowlands, and the policies of central and county administrations.

Dr. Ya-wen Ku (顧雅文), Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a report on “Catastrophic Floods: The Flood Disasters and the Enterprise of Flood Regulation in the Japanese Colonial Period of Taiwan.” Contrary to the prevailing narratives on the “successful” and “modern” achievements under the Japanese Colonial Government, Ku argued that the embanking projects by concrete (混凝土) under the Japanese administrative was making more problems than mitigating the risk of flood. The cost of such project was high and not affordable for the whole riverbank of a flooding river. Petitions from residents along different section of the river had always haunted the colonial administrators and burdened the governmental finance. In contrast, “dispensable construction” of embanking in the Qing period, such as the “snake-shaped wired basket” (鐵線蛇籠), was the adequate technology to most occasions. Furthermore, modern institutions and regulations employed by the Japanese government gave less flexibility to the flood than the Qing period, while in the former period there was a loose regulation of land and tax which could adapt easily to the changing landscape after each flood.

Dr. Shao-hua Liu (劉紹華), Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, gave a reading report on Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer’s Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health: Emerging Crises and Systemic Solutions (2009). The authors argued that the solution for the global warming was not “green capitalism,” which was calculating on the cost-effect of various remedy and engaging in winner-and-looser analysis. Those neo-liberal approaches were too superficial and partial to deal with the global issue. Instead, the authors advocated, a radical reflection on the global capitalism, which emphasized in the analysis on the world system in an “eco-socialist” perspective, by examining comprehensively the core (the trans-national corporations, the wealthy countries), the semi-periphery (“developing countries”) and the periphery (the “global south”).

Mr. Jia-lun Chan (張家綸), Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, National Taiwan Normal University, gave a reading report on Jeffrey K. Wilson, The GermanForest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871-1914 (2012). Wilson connected the construction of the image of German forest with the formation of the German nationalism. An agricultural romanticism, rather than idea of modernization, which permeated in various genres of contemporary writings, upheld the forest as a national symbol. Wilson analyzed with cases which concerning the making of the Field and Forrest Law in 1880, the conservation of the Grunewald Woods near Berlin, the annexation of Tuchel Health of Poland, as well as the contemporary ideas of socialists and liberal reformists. The forest discourse in German even continued to explain the rise of Fascists. By comparison with other European countries, Wilson observed that the Nazi member also embraced of the image and value of the forest, which was typical among the German middle class.

Professor Hui-Min Lai (賴惠敏), Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, gave a report on “Qing Court’s Population Management and Its Change in Kulun (庫倫).” Focusing on Qing’s policy towards the seasonal immigrants of Han merchants in Kulun, a trade entrepôt, Professor Lai pointed out the significance of the policy; for it was a key for the Qing Empire to cope with the multilateral relation with Mongols, Tibetans, and the Russians. To ensure the coming back of the Han merchants after trading season, several regulations were made. For instance, women were not allowed to enter Kulun. However, Lai observed, there still existed illegal Han residents who stayed in Kulun and engaged in agriculture and other business, which might change the environment of the town. Following this report are two studies by members of the archival reading group led by Professor Lai.

Mr. Shih-Ming Wang (王士銘), a Ph.D. student of National Tsing Hua University, presented several types of cases regarding these illegal Han immigrants in Kulun from official archives. Focusing on details regarding merchant immigrants’ land-tenure in the eighteenth century, Wang pointed out that Qing’s regulations had their limit to entirely exclude the Han immigrants from Kulun.

Dr. Hua-Yen Lee (李華彥), who just earned her doctoral degree from National Tsing Hua University, examined the official cases of these merchant immigrants and echoed Professor Lai’s point that the Court’s immigration policy of Kulun corresponded to the strategic scheme of the Qing Empire in Mongol. Lee pointed out that the key to maintain a territorial unity of the Empire was the close relation between the Mongol rulers and the Qing Court. Banner system was adapted to Mongol societies in which the Court gave subsidies to them differentiated by rank and hierarchy; and the regular presenting of Mongol rulers to the Court also played an important role.

Professor Chung-Lin Chiu (邱仲麟), Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, gave a reading report on Hai You Feng Qian: Huang Bo Hai De Yu Lei Yu Huan Jing Bian Qian (《海有豐歉：黃渤海的魚類與環境變遷》), 1368-1958 (2011), written by Yu-Shan Li (李玉尚). In this collection of essays, Li demonstrated his comprehensive knowledge in the fishery over the north China coasts with a long historical perspective. Detailed pieces of evidence, both physical and documental, were insightfully integrated into his enquiry of the interaction of human society and the marine environment. The change of the amount of specific school of fish, such as herrings (鯡魚), Li proposed, served as the indication to fathom environmental impact in different historical periods. He argued, not only human and institutional but also natural factors, such as the global climate change in temperature, counted for the growth or decline of fish in numbers.

Dr. Marlon Zhu (朱瑪瓏), Post-doctoral Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a reading report on Greg Bankoff’s Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazards in the Philippines (2003). By reviewing previous disaster studies, especially those dealing with “vulnerability”, Bankoff criticized that they were based on a dominant western discourse of otherness, which considered the non-western environment as dangerous. This discourse had its long tradition from “topicality” in the nineteenth-century medical ideas to the developmentalist theories in the mid-twentieth century and the vulnerability theories in recent decades. These Western ideas and perspectives were, Bankoff argued, inadequate to describe Filipinos’ life experience of frequent disasters. Instead, Bankoff proposed a holistic approach to examine various aspects of the disaster impact on the Filipino society, including retrospect on the interaction of disasters and the people from the Spanish colonial period. This “cultural” approach, Bankoff opined, to a great extent, could only be enhanced by the craft of historians.

Dr. Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin (林冠慧), Junior Visiting Scholar at the Center for Sustainability Science, Academia Sinica, gave her research report on the “Environmental History Studies of Global Change: An Vulnerability Perspective.” With the field research in two aboriginal villages at Hsinchu County (namely, Yu-feng 玉豐部落 and Shiu-luan秀巒部落), Dr. Lin argued that the environmental studies would be largely enhanced by a historical approach. This was duly exemplified by her calculation of different vulnerability of the two villages under nearly the same condition of environmental hazards caused by recurrent typhoons and landslides. Dr. Lin pointed out that there was a progression of vulnerability of the two villages in different historical periods. In which the changing penetration of state power and the capitalist accumulation (market) played different roles in the adaptation of the local people to their environment.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶) gave a report on her research, titled “Human Activities and Environmental Changes along Taiwan’s West Coast,” which can also be found in Storia e futuro, No.29 (June 2012). Dr. Liu gave an overview to the changing landscape by comparing maps of different time period since the early twentieth century. She pointed out that the reclamation of tidal land (海埔地開發) along Taiwan’s west coast was made by various governmental and private develpoment projects. The reclaimed tidal lands were used to establish industrial parks, new towns and for aquculture. The projects caused negative effects upon the environmentally sensitive coastlines. Consequently, pollution as well as subsided stratum called for regulations made by several official ministries within the government, such as the (former) Taiwan Provincial Government, county governments, Water Resource Agency of Ministry of Economic Affairs, and EPA, etc. It was, however, too many administrative offices to ensure an aggregate and effective coast management. Draft of the Coastal Law had still been pending in Legislative Yuan since 1991, but never went through the procedure of legislation.

Dr. Chu-shan Chiang (蔣竹山), Associate Professor of the Department of History, National Dong Hwa University, gave his reading report on Environmental Histories of the Cold War, edited byJ. R. McNeill and Corinna R. Unger (2010). Dr. Chiang began with an overview of recent writings in global history. He argued that environmental history might contribute to this new trend as exemplified by the reviewed essay collection, with topics from governmental scientific project in weather control for military purpose, the global spread of dames construction, nuclear testing, to chemical warfare in Vietnam.

Dr. Huei-Min Ts’ai (蔡慧敏), Associate Professor of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal University, introduced briefly the theme of power asymmetries and social inequality highlighted in Ecology and Power edited by Alf Hornborg, Brett Clark, and Kenneth Hermele (London and New York: Routledge, 2012) and then reported on chapter 4 of the book, “Islands: Ecological Unequal Exchange and Landesque Capital”, which she coauthored with Eric Clark. She pointed out that islands have been key scenes in the generation of global biodiversity and cultural diversity. With three case studies on islands around Taiwan: (1) Kinmen Island, (2) Penghu Archipelago, and (3) Pongso no Tau, she traced the history of development on these islands involving ecological unequal exchanges in landesque capital. She pointed out that the experiences of these islands showed increasing destruction and devaluation and emphasized that future island development should be in the hands of islanders.

Dr. Er-Jian Yeh (葉爾建), Assistant Professor of Department of Taiwan and Regional Studies, National Dong Hwa University, gave a report on his recent research on “Kanehira Ryozo金平亮三 (1882-1948) and the Formation of Knowledge on Tropical Flora”. He pointed out that the establishment of knowledge of flora usually required a collective work which had comprehensive botanical survey and adequate determination. The materials he used to study this topic consist of official documents and academic works of Kanehira Ryozo. With these materials he was able to trace field works done Kanehira Ryozo during 1908-1928 in Japanese colonial Taiwan and in Japanese Mandate in Southeast Asia. He also pointed out that American botanist, Elmer Drew Merrill (1876-1956), was an important collaborator in establishing knowledge of tropical flora by Kanehira Ryozo. This knowledge system was an important reference for Japanese colonial management in tropical area.

Dr. Su-Bing Chang (張素玢), Associate Professor of Graduate Institute of Taiwan History, National Taiwan Normal University, gave a report on her study of problems related to the Chuoshui River (濁水溪) in central Taiwan. She pointed out that the development in the past 300 years along the Chuoshui River revealed several problems including: (1) the differences between the north and south banks, (2) the agreements of sharing or conflicts in obtaining water, (3) the exploration and utilization of groundwater and its consequences, (4) from supplying water for agriculture to supplying water for industry, and (5) the conflict between industry and agriculture. She pointed out that as most studies on the Chuoshui River had focused on the north bank, further studies should be done for the south bank in order to obtain more comprehensive understanding of this river basin.

Dr. Shao-li Lu (呂紹理) , Professor of the Department of History, National Chengchi University, gave a reading report on Edmund Russel’s book, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). He pointed out that the main idea of this book was that there were overlapping and interacting relationships between war and nature. These relationships could be explored from three aspects: (1) the pattern of ideology, such as civilization vs. barbarism, war vs. peace; (2) the pattern of organization, such as civil vs. military, soldiers vs. common people; (3) science and technology, such as cooperation of different disciplines vs. turning chemical military equipment to pesticide in peace time. He introduced briefly the subjects of each chapter and then discussed with some details of impacts of World War I on the USA, the role of chemical military equipment in the war time and the contribution of Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), as well as the transformation of CWS into Chemical Pease Service after the war.

Dr. Shaw Chen Liu (劉紹臣), Distinguished Research Fellow at the Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, gave a report on the “Holocene Climate Optimum and the Chinese Civilization (全新世氣候最佳期與中國文明)”. With ancient global climate data, Professor Liu argues that the rising of Chinese civilization along the Yellow River (黃河) in North China was due to a warmer and temper climate in the Holocene era (around 12000 years ago). Based on paleoclimatological and historical records, Dr. Liu suggests a more temper pattern of precipitation in the area due to the globally cooler temperature in the low-latitude ocean. Therefore, the Yellow River had much less flood than it was in the later period. A more reliable Yellow River and a more pleasant (warmer) climate might together give rise to the ancient Chinese Civilization.

Dr. I-Chun Fan (范毅軍Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica) and Dr. Ching-Hsiu Lin (林靖修Post-doctoral Fellow in the Center for Geographical Information Sciences, Academia Sinica) presented their research on “Disaster, Water Supply, and Development: an Ethnographical Studies of Water Management in a Bunun (布農) Community along the Chenyulan River (陳友蘭溪).” Based on eighteen-month field research at a Bunun village in central Taiwan, Fan and Lin introduced the process of constructing water supply system and shaping of water management in a Bunun community from 1996 onwards and explored the social, cultural, political, and economical meanings of the current mode of water management in the community. They contended that the formation of water management was a result of a long-term process of Bunun people’s interaction to environmental, political, and economic transformation. Bunun culture, local knowledge, and social organizations were crucial to the establishment of the rules of water management and operation of water management institute.

Two book reviews were then given in turn in the afternoon. Dr. Ya-wen Gu (顧雅文), Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica gave a report on Peter Rogers and Susan Leal’s Running out of Water: the Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). The authors had introduced various new solutions around the world regarding the conservation and protection of water supply. From new methods for removing contaminants from water to new incentives for encouraging a more active public involvement in water management, the authors argued that we might protect this precious and finite resource in our changing environment with new challenges such as global warming.

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), Distinguish Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, introduced The World’s Water: the Biennial Report of Freshwater Resources, Volume 7, edited by Peter H. Gleick (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2012). The first chapter focuses on the “trans-boundary” attribute of the water resources, including both surface and underground, in face of new questions of global climate change. New institutional policies and technical device crossing the national boundary should be taken to deal with the new challenge. Chapter 2 examines the role of private company in water management. It argues that the new environmental, political, and social reality in the 21st century had forced these companies to be more socially responsible for not only moral reason but for ensuring their business viability and reducing business risk. Chapter 3 highlights a long ignored issue in the quality of water, both surface and underground. Industrialization and urbanization had added various contaminations in waters. Increases in water temperature and changes in the timing and amount of runoff are likely to produce unfavorable changes in surface-water quality, which in turn affect human and ecosystem health. Chapter 4 analyzes the water used in the extraction process of fossil fuels, which serve as the essential to the global economy. Almost every step in the extraction had the unfavorable impact to water, especially in the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of the unconventional natural gas. Chapter 5 discusses the impact and responses of Australia’s “millennium drought”. The Australian “big drought” at the turn of the centuries had changed Australian society in many ways. It had reduced the output of agriculture and livestock industry. Moreover, the drought had also increased Australians’ awareness of climate change and the fragility of their country’s ecosystem. Chapter 6 investigates the environmental impact of China-made dames in China proper and other countries. Even though dam was considered less beneficial in terms of its great environmental and social costs, China is still pushing forward with a new era of massive construction of dams, both domestic and abroad. The consequences are still poorly understood right now. Chapter 7 deals with the new water policies in the United States. The authors suggest several points to be considered. (1) Clarify institutional roles and responsibilities; (2) Decentralize water management and increase stakeholder participation; (3) Collect more comprehensive water data; (4) Apply modern economic principles; (5) Integrate changing climate conditions; and (6) Transition from a focus on increasing water supply to reducing water demand.

Professor H. H. Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌), Director and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, gave an introduction to the first report on “the local environmental history and the problem of sustainable development in different localities at Taiwan”. Assuming that policies did matter in environmental changes, four questions were inquired into in the context of different administrative areas. Namely, (1) what and when was the key event that hindered the environmental sustainability; (2) was there any significant environmental movement in those cities and counties? (3) was such movement had its impact on the sustainability? and (4) what were the environmental policies made by the local governments and their impact. In conclusion, Hsiao found that under-regulation in environmental issues was common in the local scenarios. Urbanization and industrialization without plan by the local administrations, accompanying with the developmentalist policies made by the central government, had caused various environmental problems in local Taiwan.

Two research papers were then read to support Professor Hsiao’s argument. Professor Shih-jung Hsu (徐世榮), Department of Land Economics of National Chengchi University, gave his report on “The Marginalized Land Policy and the Missing Farmland”. Hsu pointed out that the year 1960 was the watershed of land use in Taiwan. It was the year when the central government made the “Regulations for Encouraging Investment” (獎勵投資條例). Land was accordingly considered as mere a factor for economic development. Moreover, the exchange or trade of land itself became greatly lucrative and played a significant role in the scenario of local politics. More and more farmland became the new land for industrial area and for the expansion of cities. Land was thus marginalized as a supplement to above non-agricultural activities. Pollution was made from the new industrialized and urbanized land and endangered their adjacent farmland. Professor Wenling Tu (杜文苓), Associate Professor of the Department of Public Administration, National Chengchi University, gave a report on “The Environmental History of Local Taiwan and the Environmental Governance”. With the case study of the Science and Industrial Park at Hsinchu (新竹科學工業園區), a counterpart “Silicon Valley” of Taiwan, Professor Tu argued that the “high-tech” industry had never made less pollution than traditional industries as claimed by authorities. Many agencies were responsible for such cover-up, including the local government, the industrial park office, and proprietors. Dr. Tu concluded that the pollution caused by the high-tech industry needed a systematic solution, including a third-party institute, in addition to several local environmental activist groups, to monitor the pollution; resources for researchers; and a recognized protocol or criterion which could figure out the extent of pollution.

Dr. Kuo-tung Chen (陳國棟), Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, gave a research report on “Snowing, Flood, Earthquake, and Tsunami: Abnormal Nature in the History of Taiwan”. With breathtaking stories regarding the above natural disasters, Professor Chen introduced several monumental natural events from the seventeenth century when documents revealed a snow in southern Taiwan, a tropical area where was supposed never to witness such a phenomenon. Then Professor Chen turned to the silting up of the Taijiang Inner Sea (台江內海) in 1823. Heavy flood with mud had dramatically changed the landscape of the place, a significant site in the early history of Taiwan. By examining historical records of the cases of earthquake and tsunami in Taiwan, Dr. Chen doubted of the possible contribution of historians to the study of environmental history. The lack of other tools except documental and archival research could only allow historians to study events which had been recorded when it was abnormal such as the above cases. Nevertheless, the knowledge of forecasting or mitigating those disasters might be noteworthy. For instance, historical documents had revealed that the coastal people had already know that mangrove forest (紅樹林) could help to lessen the power of devastating tsunami.

Two book reviews were then read in the Workshop. The first was given by Professor Shu-min Huang (黃樹民), Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. Dr. Huang reviewed Gregory Button’s Disaster Culture: Knowledge and Uncertainty in the Wake of Human and Environmental Catastrophe. Four pollution cases caused by the fossil-fuel industry were introduced in turn. They were (1) Exxon-Valdez oil spill case in Alaska in 1989, (2) ShetlandsIslands oil spill in Scotland in 1993, (3) Hurricane Katrina and the oil emission of the Murphy & Co., and (4) Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston fossil duel plant in 2008. With these examples, Button had related the disaster culture to the “uncertainties” (模糊空間 in Dr. Huang’s translation) brought about by the scientism in the modern society. To the sufferers of the disasters, the corporations, the government, and the press, the lack of necessary information to deal with the disasters had caused new challenges.

Professor Shi-yung Liu (劉士永), Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave a reading report on John R. McNeill’s Mosquito Empire: Ecology and War in the Great Caribbean, 1620-1914. Dr. Liu pointed out the main argument of McNeill’s was the “mosquito determinism” and its limits in explaining the rise and fall of the British and Spanish Empires in Caribbean. Contrast to previous emphasis on the geopolitical factors in explanation for the British predominance in the Atlantic world, Liu indicated, John McNeill turned to focus more on the biological impact. Mosquito which served as the vector of yellow fever, malaria and other diseases had caused an inequality in disease susceptibility. Accompanying with different practice in “public health” among different settlements, differential immunity to different group of people among colonial powers seemed to become obvious. Mosquito-caused diseases killed off some settlers while other survived. Nonetheless, McNeill denied being an environmental determinist with such argument by emphasizing the human agency in public health.

Three presentations of this workshop include two research reports and one reading report. Dr. Shian-Chee Wu (吳先琪), Professor of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, NationalTaiwanUniversity, introduced his research on “The Development of Preventing Soil and Groundwater Pollution in the past 20 Years in Taiwan.” He profiled the history of the relative law-making process in Taiwan. From which the regulation against pollution of soil and groundwater was combined jointly by the EPA authority after the suggestion by Professor Wu and his colleague. He reviewed several monumental cases regarding pollution prevention in the United States, such as “Superfund,” and the “LoveCanal.” And then he turned to the cases in Taiwan. From the cadmium pollution in the area for the “Chong-Fu” plan (中福計畫) and that from the RCA, to the mercury pollution at Shin-chuang (新莊) by a chemical factory, specific data were compared to illustrate their patterns and the corresponding amending by regulations.

Dr. Chung-ho Wang (汪中和), Research Fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, demonstrated his recent research on the new methods of prediction of the large earthquake in Taiwan. He curiously found that the level change of groundwater and the inverse of average GPS-azimuth difference in central Taiwan could possibly foretell the coming of a large earthquake before one month or so. Dr. Wang has been able to find out significant enough patterns of changes before and after the catastrophic Chi-Chi earthquake (921集集地震) in 1999 by analyzing the data of several wells collected by the Water Resource Agency (水利署) and the data of GPS positions in several spots from other governmental office. He then predicted the most possible area to have a large earthquake is southern Taiwan. Quite astonishingly, two days later, on February 26th, a large earthquake outbreak in Pin-tung (屏東), the most southern county of Taiwan!

Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu, Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, reviewed The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale by Oran R. Young (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002). She introduced this book in some details chapter by chapter.

The First Conference of East Asian Environmental History (EAEH 2011) was held on October 24-26 at Academia Sinica, Taipei. It was hosted by the Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH) and the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica. About 120 scholars, including 89 members of the Association, came from China, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, North America, Philippines, and Taiwan, attended the Conference. Three keynote speeches were delivered by Professors Mark Elvin, Susan Flader and Ranjan Chakrabarti. There were 49 papers presented at six parallel sessions with 15 themes, such as environmental thought, landscape, political ecology, environmental policy, environment and ethnicity, climate history, war and environment, disaster and prevention, marine life conservation, pollution, land use, water resources, ethics and justice, health and diseases, as well as forest. There were also two Ph.D. roundtables with 5 papers and a plenary poster session with 7 presentations. In addition, a special film session presented Green Fire: Aldo Leopold’s legacy, with Asian commentary.

At the end of the Conference, there was a roundtable to discuss themes for the next conference and about 20 themes were suggested. Finally, the draft of the AEAEH bylaws was discussed at the General Meeting of the AEAEH members, and Professor Ts’ui-jung Liu was elected as the first President of the Association. A journal proposal prepared by Professor Andrea Janku was also discussed at the meeting, but a decision was made to postpone the issue which needed further considerations. The President elected announced that the next conference scheduled two years later would be organized by Academia Sinica in cooperation with a university in Taiwan.

Four presenters gave reports at the third EH Workshop of 2011. Dr. Amy Ruey-meng Huang (黃瑞萌), Associate Professor of the Department of International Trade, ChineseCultureUniversity, gave her report under the title of “Trade in an Ecological-Economic Integrated Model.” Huang constructed a linear model, which added LAND as a simplified indicator, to simulate the intricate enough ecology in the economical development. From which the nature could thus be integrated into the calculation of sustainable development.

Mr. Er-Jian Yeh (葉爾建), Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK, introduced his ongoing dissertation, titled “Territorialising Colonial Environments: A Comparison of Colonial Sciences on Land Demarcation in Japanese Taiwan and British Malaya.” By examining the genealogy and material discursive practices of territorialisation as they interacted with local environments and peoples, Yeh’s thesis offered a comparative account of the logics of different empires and the construction of territorial administration. It examined the political ecology of how colonial nature was produced as a resource, with the commodification of forest areas. It unpacked the two cases by studying the role of colonial science, especially cartographic practices, in demarcating and defining territories and peoples. It contrasted the state-run surveys in the colonial Taiwan with the networks of knowledge production in British Malaya.

Mr. Te-chih Chen (陳德智), Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, National Taiwan Normal University, reviewed Yoshitaka Takahashi (高橋美貴)’s book, titled The Age of Resource Reproduction and the Fishery of Japan (「資源繁殖の時代」と日本の漁業). Takahashi got his Ph. D in history of fishery from Tohoku University in 1995, in consequence this book was one of his field research in the surrounding areas of North-eastern Japan. He investigated the traditional fishing methods. With nuanced details which told the different modes of fishery in each streams and rivers, the author argued that the enactment of laws and regulations of protecting fishery resources in Meiji period was not only affected by the international trends, but also due to the indigenous customs of reservation which could be traced back to the Tokugawa period.

Dr. Kuo-tung Chen (陳國棟), Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, discussed the corn cultivation in Shanxi, Hunan and Yunnan during the Qing dynasty. Corn was widely cultivated on marginal land in China in the eighteenth century. However, mandarins at that time considered corn cultivation as a disaster for three reasons. Firstly, it was deemed as conflicting with the traditional thought of physiocracy, which encouraged the cultivation of regular staple food (重農貴粟). Secondly, the Shed people (棚民) who cultivated corn in mountainous areas might threaten the local security and social order. Finally, corn cultivation might result in environmental impacts. Corn harvest was criticized as the major factor causing landslide. Especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, the accusation became more and more explicit. At the end, Dr. Chen also shared his insights and comments in general on environmental history study.

As usual, four presenters presented at the Workshop’s second meeting of 2011. First report was given by Dr. Shi-yung Liu (劉士永), Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History. His report, titled “Colonial plague and modern bacteriology in Japan,” aims to reveal the technical difference and political environment in the debate of finding plague pathogen between researchers from 1894 to 1897. The plague epidemic of 1894 inHong Kong was an important arena for bacteriologists of various colonial powers. Controversies between Kitasato Shibasaburo and Alexandra Yersin had been revitalized in later days of 1897, in another colony: Taiwan. The interconnection between the pioneer research and the latter outbreak of plague in Taiwan, however, received little attention from international scholarship of medicine. With specific argument, Liu had demonstrated the methods identifying plague pathogen not only reaffirmed Yersin’s discovery, but also embarked modern bacteriology in colonial Taiwan.

Dr. Jeng-Di Lee (李政諦), Assistant Professor of the Institute of Marine Affairs, National Sun Yat-sen University, delivered a research report on the human adaptation in the sensitive coastal area of southwest Taiwan, titled as “Qiang-wuang (羌園): an inseparable coastal life of flood.” In which the local life experience in a village suffering periodical inundation was nuanced by Dr. Lee’s field research. The over-draining of the ground water had caused subsidence in surrounding countries. This subsidence further worsens the periodical flood there. Lee explained why and how the local residents, though suffered much from the flood, remained there. The highly profiting cultivation of the “black pearl” (wax apple) and grouper fish encouraged the rapid recovery after every flood. Governmental compensation after flood have also made easier for residents to stay in that sensible environment. The conjuncture of these ecological, political, and economical factors has made it urgent to figure out a sustainable solution both of local residents and the government.

Dr. Young-tsu Wong (汪榮祖), Director of the Center of the Humanities, NationalCentralUniversity, gave his review on Environmental History as if Nature existed: ecological economies and human well-being, edited by John R. McNeil et al. Professor Wong introduced the book with respective chapters. McNeil had reviewed the research of environmental history in past decades and counted the number and academic positions of researchers on this relatively new subfield all over the world with the introductory chapter. Meanwhile, McNeil suggested several agenda for further study. Asia, in McNeil’s observation, is an emerging filed of environmental history with outstanding scholars. Authors of the following chapter discussed the different types of agrarian and industrial “Socio-metabolic regimes,” and their respective impact on environment. The shift from the former to the latter rendered a new and global challenge to sustainable problems. The third chapter deals with the criticism against the so-called Environmental Kuznet’s Curve (EKC) by the economist Karl William Kapp (1910-1976). The EKC presumed a recovery from pollution by nature itself; and this had been argued as a false by Kapp throughout his life. The fourth chapter regards the modern sanitary revolution in European cities. The authors of this chapter suggested that Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory could provide a better pattern for us to map and interpret the history of sanitation in industrialized countries. The fifth chapter deals with China’s long term historical development with changing environmental resources. The origins of Chinese civilization and shifts of its political and economical centers could be explained with the relocation of environmental resources. Its painful transformation into industrialized civilization could also be illustrated by the so-called high equilibrium trap. The future development of China, in the author’s view, should take the environment into consideration. The country is in search of a development model for a “Green Rise.”

Dr. Shu-min Huang (黃樹民), Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, gave his review on Bryan Tilt’s The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China. This monograph was based on the author’s ethnographic fieldwork in Futian Township (攀枝花市仁和區福田鎮), in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Tilt tried to argue with Ronald Inglehart’s assumption of “post-materialism”, which was summarized by Tilt as: “economic wealth causes a fundamental shift in human values; as societies undergo the transition to industrial development and modernity, their citizen begin to concern themselves with needs and wants beyond the material, including gender equality, quality of life, happiness, self-expression and spiritual fulfillment.” Environmental concern was one of the post-material values pointed out by Inglehart and others. But Tilt’s case study in China proved to be a far more complicated situation. There existed the highest air-pollution while public support for environmental protection was in the upper quartile. Tilt reviewed the history of development before and after the “reform and opening up” (改革開放) policy, detailed in the shifting position in inland industrial status of Futian. The interaction between national environmental agency, provincial and the local governments, township authorities, enterprises and the local people in different social status, was examined by Tilt. Almost all factories in Futian, in the long run, were closed by environment regulations. But the air pollution, Tilt pointed out, remained. This ironic consequence was caused by the trans-boundary emission from other province.

Four presenters gave reports at the first EH Workshop of 2011. Professor Bor-Wen Tsai of the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, presented his field-research at the brink of the south-western plateau of China, titled “the Human-environment relationship of the aborigines in the Tibet-Yi Corridor (藏彝走廊).” With maps and graphs focusing on a village in the Dan-Ba County (丹巴縣), Professor Tsai illustrated how a sustainable human-land relationship was formed in that area. The social system of primogeniture and the religious practice of the Tibetan Buddhism guaranteed a steady number of households, on which efficient use of land and other natural/human resources were possible. This practice had exemplified a sustainable Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of people in that village.

The second presenter, Dr. Chung-ho Wang, Research Fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, shared his research on the abnormal meteorological phenomenon in Taiwan. His presentation was titled “Torrential rainfalls in the history of Taiwan”. Based on the observation data collected by various meteorological stations since 1897, Dr. Wang divided Taiwan into three zones and analyzed respectively their frequency and pattern of rainfalls in particular months. He addressed that in a long-term perspective, there was heavier precipitations during the month of June, while the influence of typhoons became less. The pattern of other months generally envisioned more and more drastic quantity of torrents in cases of great typhoons. Such tendency, Dr. Wang warned, should be taken into considerations of policy makers and others.

The other two presenters shared their reports on readings. Dr. Tsuo-Ming Hsu, Associate Professor at the Center for General Education, TamkangUniversity, reviewed the work of Aldo Leopold, the famous philosopher on the environmental ethics. Focusing on Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (1949), Dr. Hsu introduced Leopold’s poetic writing with specific paragraphs from the book. In which Leopold’s idea and definition of ethics of land were identified.

Four presenters at this workshop are: Dr. Shu-min Huang, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica; Dr. Hui-ming Tsai, Associate Professor of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal University; Dr. Joan Chi-chiung Lo, Research Fellow of the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica; and Dr. Yung-fa Chen, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica.

Dr. Huang discussed changes in ecological and environmental protection around the LashiLake in Lijiang City, Yunnan, China. He showed pictures along with his talk and thus to convey the beauty of landscape and activities of the NGOs, the tourists and the people in this living environment.

Dr. Tsai delivered her talk into two parts. First, she introduced the concept and studies of political ecology from historical perspectives with emphases on landesque capital, values, and ecological unequal exchanges. And then, she presented three case studies on off shore islands around Taiwan: OrchidIsland (Pongso no Tau), Penghu, and Kimmen.

Dr. Lo discussed the impact of Chi-chi earthquake on demographic behavior through event history analysis. She used administrative data provided by the Ministry of Interior to analyze the behavior of birth, death and marriage with a comparison of study group and control group and found some differences between the two groups, as well as female and male.

Dr. Chen gave his report on reading the book by Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenges t China's Future (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004). Dr. Chen gave a brief comment on experiences of the Chinese Communist Party at Yenan in the 1940s before discussed the content of Economy's book.

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.

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.

Mr. Chi-ying Chang, a doctoral student of the Department of History at National Chi Nan University, reported on his reading about Mao's War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China by Judith Shapiro. His presentation finally brought up a lively debate on the concept on relationship between human and nature from the floor.

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 entitled Environmentalism: 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.

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.