_Encountering_ __the_PAst__ __in_NAture=_ =Essays_in=Environmental=History= =edited_by_Timo=Myllyntaus_and_Mikko_Saikku= ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY “This short book from a small country [Finland] is rich in imaginative, inno- vative contexts. Ranging expertly over several continents, including North America, it argues that nature is everywhere an active presence, a formative influence, in the making of human history. An excellent introduction to the kind of history most needed in the twenty-first century.” —Donald Worster, Hall Distinguished Professor of American History, University of Kansas “In a field traditionally dominated by works on the United States, the [book offers] a fresh international perspective, finding fertile ground for the study of people and nature in diverse lands.” —Economic History Review A deeper understanding of contemporary environmental problems requires us to understand the interaction between humans and nature in the past. How have human societies affected their environment and vice versa? What does history tell us about ecological change? The essays in Encountering the Past in Nature provide various approaches to the new discipline. Experts with diverse educational backgrounds tackle important issues ranging from the intellectual formation of environmental concepts to case studies of forest history and animal extinction. Most essays focus on the issue of wilderness and the various uses of forest resources. Introductory essays elaborate on the historiography and methodology of the new field of historical study. Encountering the Past in Nature is a welcome addition to the introductory texts currently available in the United States. Timo Myllyntaus is senior lecturer of economic and social history at the University of Helsinki. Mikko Saikku is assistant director of the North American Studies Program at the Renvall Institute for Area and Cultural Studies, University of Helsinki. SERIES IN ECOLOGY AND HISTORY designed by Bonnie Campbell =Ohio=University=Press= _Encountering_the_Past_in_Nature_ _Encountering_the_Past_in_Nature_ Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku, eds. Ohio ISBN 0-8214-1358-9 ,!7IA8C1-ebd58g! Encountering the Past in Nature Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History James L. A. Webb, Jr ., Series Editor Conrad Totman , The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku, eds. , Encountering the Past in Nature: Essays in Environmental History Encountering the Past in Nature Essays in Environmental History Revised Edition Edited by Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku Foreword by Alfred W. Crosby OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS Athens Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 Series Editor’s Foreword © 2001 by James L. A. Webb, Jr. Copyright © 1999 Timo Myllyntaus, Mikko Saikku, the other contributors, and Helsinki University Press First published in Finland by Helsinki University Press, 1999 Second, revised edition, 2001 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3 2 1 Cover art adapted from Mark Catesby’s eighteenth-century illustration of the “Largest White Bill’d Woodpecker and the Willow Oak,” from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731–43) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encountering the past in nature : essays in environmental history / edited by Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku ; foreword by Alfred W. Crosby. —Rev. ed. p. cm. — (Ohio University Press series in ecology and history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8214-1357-0 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8214-1358-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Human ecology—History. 2. Nature—Effect of human beings on—History. 3. Forests and forestry—History. I. Myllyntaus, Timo. II. Saikku, Mikko. III. Series. GF13 .E5 2000 304.2'09—dc21 00-057994 TM Contents Figures and Table vii Series Editor’s Foreword James L. A. Webb, Jr. ix Foreword Alfred W. Crosby xi Preface xvii Contributors xix Environmental History: A New Discipline with Long Tr aditions Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku 1 Modernization and the Concept of Nature: On the Reproduction of Environmental Stereotypes Ari Aukusti Lehtinen 29 Life in the Borderland Forests: The Takeover of Nature and Its Social Organization in North Karelia Ismo Björn 49 The Vanishing and Reappearing Tropical Forest: Forest Management and Land Use in Thailand Olavi Luukkanen 74 vi v Contents “Home in the Big Forest”: Decline of the Ivory-Billed Wo o dpecker and Its Habitat in the United States Mikko Saikku 94 Environment in Explaining History: Restoring Humans as Part of Nature Timo Myllyntaus 141 Index 161 vii Figures and Table Figures 1. Finland and the Baltic Sea Rim 6 2. The North Karelian Biosphere Reserve 51 3. Thailand 76 4. Major subdivisions of the Eastern Deciduous Forest in the United States as it existed at the time of European conquest 97 5. The original and late-nineteenth-century distribution of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States 105 6. The pyramid of orientations in environmental history 154 Table Key factors affecting the state of the environment in the North Karelian Biosphere Reserve 53 ix Series Editor’s Foreword he Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History is pleased to publish Encountering the Past in Nature, a collection of essays in environmental history by a group of Finnish scholars that was ¤rst released by the Helsinki University Press in 1999. This new edition provides a provocative and eclectic set of six readings that is suitable for adoption in both world history and global envi- ronmental history courses. Three essays deal with change over time in forested zones, in different parts of the Northern Hemisphere and in different histori- cal periods—the northernmost forests of the European taiga, from the Stone Age to the present; the subtropical lowlands of North America in the period c. 1600–c. 1940; and the wet tropics of main- land Southeast Asia, c. 1950 to the present. The other essays address topics in historiography and intellectual history—the evolution of historical writing about the environment in Finland and the United States; the contradictory concepts about the natural world that in- form We stern thinking about “nature”; and the role that the idea of the environment can play as an explanatory factor in human his- tory. There are essays in “big history” here, as well as challenging case studies. Encountering the Past in Nature also provides instructive exam- ples of how environmental historians are working with a wide vari- ety of interdisciplinary approaches to shed light on the complex T [...]... conservation in latenineteenth-century Finland At the time, their ideas were new and pathbreaking—not only in their home country but also in the rest of the Nordic countries These efforts showed at least a certain degree of environmental awareness, akin to that of Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt in the United States.22 In the interwar years, the conservation movement gained momentum In Finland as in many... Environmental History (EAEH) to continue discussions on the historical interactions between humans and the environment The founding meeting was attended also by a Finnish representative, botanist Yrjö Vasari, who has studied human-induced changes in the rural environments of northeastern Finland.35 The beginnings of the European association were promising The proceedings of the First International Workshop on... forests thinned by the ecologically unsophisticated Finns need their forests for their peace of mind, their export trade—for their futures—and therefore must learn to think of them ecologically as well as economically Finns need to harvest their forests in accordance with the intent of “sustainable yields,” but these are ambiguous words The scientists xiv v Alfred W Crosby may be able to tell what they... allied with industrialization Humans are in danger of losing their control of the development, since their minds have been captured by the rational outlook of the Enlightenment The book by Wright aroused a lot of interest not only in Finland but Environmental History v 13 also in Sweden The criticism of reason stimulated the consideration of the development of the entire Western culture from another, more... southern part of the country were genuine old growth (more than 200 years old) In northern Finland, which covers the area from the region around the River Oulu and Lake Oulu in the boreal zone to the treeless fjells in northern Lapland, the proportion was almost half of the forested area At present, 6 v Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku the percentage of old-growth forests in the southern part of the country... most Finns, or at least a plurality of such, live on or near the southern coast and travel to the countryside, as Ari Lehtinen puts it, on vacations, in ¶ight “from the repressions of modern life in the cities.” The forest is reoccupying some of the land it lost to the farmers and loggers; starlings, which depend on meadows for access to their food, are decreasing in number Minor native ¶ora, kept in. .. is prominent in the historiography of human ideas about the environment, or the study of how humans have viewed the natural world in their science, religion, art, and ethics.5 In environmental historiography, there has often been a deliberate effort to create an interdisciplinary synthesis, often by combining existing information from diverse disciplines in a new way Not surprisingly, the research topic... Finland as in many other Western countries, it was a reaction to rising industrialization and modernization The trailblazer of the Finnish conservation movement, Rolf Palmgren, criticized the “blind materialism” of his time The movement gained political support, and the parliament passed the ¤rst conservation law in 1923 In the following year, Palmgren was nominated to the new post of superintendent of conservation.23... since the 1970s At the time, the geographer Ilmari Hustich and the economic and social historian Sven-Erik Åström at the University of Helsinki were in uential in introducing modern environmental history to Finland.29 Although they were open to new ways of valuing the environment and aware of the arguments of both old and new environmentalists, Hustich and Åström did their research strictly within their... has been re¶ected by academic research Like other scholars, historians have dealt with these pivotal elements of nature in their works In Finland, the tradition of research into climatic history has its beginnings in the eighteenth century The French school of economists, Physiocrats, and the Enlightenment in general inspired scholars such as the ¤rst Finnish professor of chemistry, Pehr Adrian Gadd, . Campbell =Ohio=University=Press= _Encountering_ the_ Past_ in_ Nature_ _Encountering_ the_ Past_ in_ Nature_ Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku, eds. Ohio ISBN 0-8214-1358-9 ,!7IA8C1-ebd58g! Encountering the Past in Nature Ohio. change? The essays in Encountering the Past in Nature provide various approaches to the new discipline. Experts with diverse educational backgrounds tackle important issues ranging from the intellectual. the environment in Finland and the United States; the contradictory concepts about the natural world that in- form We stern thinking about nature ; and the role that the idea of the environment