Environmental history, Historical ecology, fluvial ecology

Invasion Biology, the study of biota redistributed via human agency, has traditionally traced its founding to Charles Elton’s 1958 book The Ecology of invasions by Animals and Plants. But there were many substantial, scientific pre-Eltonian accounts and analyses of redistributed biota dating back at least to the mid-1700s; and non-Eltonian treatments appeared into the late 1950s. Elton began writing on the topic by 1925. From 1931 to 1948 he developed his ideas on conservation in association with Aldo Leopold. Their “competitive collaboration” is explored and documented, showing that each supported and contextualized the other. Elton was, in part, inspired to write The Ecology of invasions by Animals and Plants in dissatisfied response to an earlier effort by American Marston Bates. The two authors, and these works, are compared and contrasted. The Ecology of Invasions by Animals is analyzed in detail, showing how Elton framed his arguments in terms of warfare and cold-war era nuclear alarmism, making a plea for action without providing a strong theoretical basis for preventing the redistribution of biota. The republication of Elton’s book in 2000 iincited a new round of interpretation, but even while its proponents hailed the book as invasion biology’s ‘bible,’ they prepared to replace it with more modern texts. The narrative shows how a ideas about the origins of life on earth, the role of humans in nature, a sense of place and biogeographical belonging, and concerns about the unintended consequences of human agency motivated scientists to attempt to impute order to, and impose it upon, the historically contingent distribution of biota.

The debate on the existence of a sensitivity towards the harmful effects determined by productive activities on the in the Roman world  has become more and more intense in recent decades, reflected in the terrible problems that the planet is facing with the increasingly serious climate crisis underway. A significant part of the historical-legal research believes that the Romans had developed an empirically founded awareness of the harmful consequences of economic action on the livability of the environment, or at least that measures aimed at other purposes could indirectly promote their protection. Based on a careful reading of the sources, this book comes to the conclusion that, with the exception of a few minoritarian voices, the preservation of environments was never at the center of the concerns of economic operators. Not even jurists chose environmental protection as the parameter of evaluation of economic action. This conclusion does not alter the fact that health concerns have at times led legal practitioners to develop instruments for the defence of living conditions in urban agglomerations.

This book summarizes the history of how
natural resources were used at the
Araracuara Agricultural Penal Colony,
which operated from 1938 to 1971 in
southern Colombia. It is based on
documents and oral testimonies gathered
by the author in the Araracuara region and
other parts of the country. The book has
five chapters: .Introduction, Historical
Background; Economic Activities; Impact
on the Region and The Legacy.
Research for this study is based on
the historiqll processes that led to
establishment of the penal colony and
settlement of the Colombian Amazon, the
first 20 years of which afforded no
importance to knowledge of the environment,
agronomic criteria or ecological
characteristics. As of 1958, some
agricultural technology began to be used,
the area occupied by the penal colony was
organized for social and labor purposes,
and methods of cultivation and animal
husbandry were adopted.
According to this study, the penal
colony was plagued by a crisis in
agricultural production and supply
throughout most of its history. This is
contrary to the popular belief that it enjoyed
"abundance and an substantial supply
of goods and services" up to the time of its
closing.
This book is further proof of the
limits of Amazonia when managed with
systems foreign to the region, such as those
developed for the Andean zone. It is
essential thet planners and government
authorities consider past experiences, like
the Araracuara Penal Colony, when
developing projects to expand Colombia's
agricultural frontier, given their serious
ecological, economic and socio-political
implications for Amazonia
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En este volumen se hace una resefia histórica
de los procesos de utilización de los
recursos naturales en la Colonia Penal y
Agrícola de Araracuara, la cual funcionó
en el sur del país durante los años de 193 8
a 1971.
El libro se basa en la documentación
escrita recuperada y en testimonios
orales recogidos por el investigador en el
aárea de Araracuara y otras regiones del
país. Está dividido en cinco partes: introduc-
ción, los antecedentes, las actividades
económicas, impactos regionales y el
legado.
El trabajo parte de los procesos
históricos que dieron origen a la Colonia
Penal y a la colonización de la Amazonia
colombiana, en donde el conocimiento
del medio ambiente, los criterios agronó-
micos y las características ecológicas carecieron
de importancia durante los primeros
20 años. Sin embargo, a partir de 1958
se comienza a aplicar algunas técnicas
agropecuarias, se organiza el espacio social
y laboral del penal y se incluye las
modalidades agropecuarias.
El estudio demuestra que !as actividades
productivas del penal se caracterizaron,
en la mayor parte de su existencia,
por crisis en la producción y abastecimiento de productos agropecuarios. Lo
anterior es contrario a las anécdotas populares
en las que se afirma que el penal
vivió "una epoca de abundancia y abastecimiento
de bienes y de servicios", hasta
la fecha en que se cerró.
Este trabajo una vez más nos muestra
las limitantes que presenta la región
amazónica cuando se pretende manejarla
con sistemas de producción ajenos, como
son los de la zona andina. Experiencias
como la de la Colonia Penal de Araracuara
deberían tenerse en cuenta por planificadores
y gobernantes que pretenden desarrollar
proyectos para ampliar la frontera
agrícola del país, los cuales tendrían
grandes implicaciones ecológicas, econó-
micas y sociopolíticas para la Amazonia.

Sur le thème du Rhône, d’Orange à la mer, traité sur les sept derniers siècles (de 1300 à 2000), cet ouvrage est un apport à l’histoire du climat par deux historiens de l’environnement, Georges Pichard et Émeline Roucaute. L’étude hydrologique repose sur un millier d’événements (crues, étiages, glaces fluviales) qui mettent en valeur la violence de huit crises périodiques durant la période du Petit Âge Glaciaire. La première partie est consacrée à la dynamique fluviale à travers les inondations et les métamorphoses des lits fluviaux d’après les cartes anciennes. La deuxième partie étudie les pluies et les sécheresses, avec invasions de sauterelles et étiages exceptionnels, comme celui de 1639. Les grands hivers avec glaces flottantes et arrêtées y font également l’objet d’une étude statistique. Enfin, la troisième partie traite, par l’approche monographique, d’une dizaine d’événements hydroclimatiques extrêmes depuis le XVIe siècle dont l’étude s’en trouve ainsi renouvelée, notamment pour la crue centennale de 1856. L’ouvrage présente les principaux résultats d’une prospection dans les archives préparée de longue date par les recherches universitaires des auteurs. Les lecteurs retrouveront l’ensemble des sources d’archives de cette vaste enquête réunies dans une grande base de données mise en ligne(http://histrhone.cerege.fr/).

Looking at the interplay of law and revenue as a means of understanding colonial practices and policies towards diaras, this paper addresses a relatively neglected field in the agrarian-ecological history of South Asia. The constant formation and disappearance of lands due to river shifts raised several issues. among the most important from the viewpoint of the colonial state were secure revenue extraction and the fixation of proprietorial rights. Using a number of case-studies, the paper argues that, although maximisation of revenue did not necessarily mean the dilution of the idea of the Permanent Settlement, the state throughout the nineteenth century failed to arrive at a standardised set of practices because of its own structural (bureaucratic) incoherency, ideological underpinnings and the ecological settings. The concept of a secure flow of revenue from land has been central to debates in classical political economy since the eighteenth century. The search for stability was also a key feature of late eighteenth-century colonial agrarian policy in India. The implementation of the Permanent Settlement of 1793 (henceforth PS) in Bengal and Bihar has been widely explored and debated in the agrarian