Encountering the past in Nature: Essays in Environmental History

_Encountering_the_Past_in_Nature_

“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.

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“This short book from a small country [Finland] is rich in imaginative, innovative 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

Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku, eds.

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY

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SERIES IN ECOLOGY AND HISTORY

designed by Bonnie Campbell

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ISBN 0-8214-1358-9

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Ohio

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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 TM

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01

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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

Contents

Figures and Table

vii

Series Editor’s Foreword James L. A. Webb, Jr.

ix

Foreword Alfred W. Crosby

xi

Preface

xvii

Contributors

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Environmental History: A New Discipline with Long Traditions 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

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Contents

“Home in the Big Forest”: Decline of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker 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

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

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Series Editor’s Foreword

T

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 environmental history courses. Three essays deal with change over time in forested zones, in different parts of the Northern Hemisphere and in different historical 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 mainland 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 inform Western thinking about “nature”; and the role that the idea of the environment can play as an explanatory factor in human history. There are essays in “big history” here, as well as challenging case studies. Encountering the Past in Nature also provides instructive examples of how environmental historians are working with a wide variety of interdisciplinary approaches to shed light on the complex ix

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ecological processes of the past. Environmental historians are forging new perspectives by integrating data and insights from both the natural and social sciences in order to write environmentally informed history that speaks to our present-day concerns. It may well be that no one of us can grasp the full complexity of the historical and present-day transformations in global ecology. However, contemporary environmental history scholarship, pushed by the ecological imperatives of the early twenty-¤rst century, is leading us to seek in that direction. James L. A. Webb, Jr. January 2000

Foreword

H

istorians will always be busy—not because the past changes, but because the questions we ask of it change as conditions in our own times change. For instance, when the Romanovs and the Habsburgs ruled, we often asked questions about dynastic rivalries. Now, with the scions of aforesaid families outranked by movie stars and pollution poisoning our skies, we ask questions about past environments. Our attention shifted not because environmental degradation is new. That is not the case: Iraq’s southern reaches changed from farmland to salty desert a very long time ago, and the Mediterranean littoral lost its forest cover at least as long ago. Our attention shifted because environmental problems, once local or, at worst, regional, now loom as global. Worldwide warming of temperatures, expanding ozone holes over the poles, the denuding of tropical forests—we, historians and all the rest of us, fought hard to stay blind to such phenomena, but the problems have won and have muscled their way onto the front pages of our newspapers and into historians’ studies. Proper consideration of the environmental threat requires intellectual retooling. Scientists have to modify their predilection for the tightly de¤ned problem with high walls around it to keep out “extraneous” information. Environmental problems, ¤guratively and literally, spill over the edges of laboratory benches and of reductionist xi

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de¤nition. Environmental matters do not submit gracefully to scienti¤c rigor. The heart as well as the head is often involved because our convenience and even our lives are affected; and often the quality of the data we use to de¤ne environmental matters is miserably poor by the standards of physicists, chemists, and even ¤eld naturalists. The scientists need the help of scholars, that is, people devoted to exactitude and truth but accustomed to bias (their own included) and to wringing truth out of dubious data. Scientists need historians because historians can place environmental problems in their chronological and cultural context. The scientists sometimes seem to think that solving such problems is no more than a matter of putting things right, and they have little idea of how subjective a concept such as “right” can be. It certainly varies from society to society and from time to time. For the environmental activist it often means “natural,” that is to say, the way things would be but for the intervention of humanity. But, as Ismo Björn shows us in his chapter, humanity has shaped Finland, for instance, for a very long time, and untouched nature has not existed there since as far back as the last retreat of the glaciers. For a politician and economist, “right” may mean desalinating the west Texas farmland so that it can produce a pro¤t and support inhabitants again. To the dedicated environmentalist, ornithologist, and shotgun manufacturer it may mean letting the river re¶ood the ¤elds to reestablish fen country, providing endangered species with a home again, giving ornithologists something to investigate, and ensuring lots of ducks, and therefore duck hunters, thereby creating a market for shotguns. It is society, not science, that de¤nes “right,” and it is historians who can supply a list of alternative de¤nitions that society can usefully evaluate because it has lived with them before. On the other hand, environmental historians have a lot to learn from the scientists. A liberal arts education, which is all that most historians have, has prepared them to assess public appreciation of environmental affairs and the intricacies of environmental politics, but not to understand and evaluate what scientists have and have

Foreword

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not discerned about the environment. It is no accident, as Timo Myllyntaus points out, that Pehr Adrian Gadd, an early path¤nder in environmental history, was the ¤rst Finnish professor of chemistry. Historians have to get used to charts, graphs, statistics, and the scientists’ infuriating preference for the particular when the general is what one wants to know about. It seems likely that science is humanity’s greatest intellectual achievement, and historians have to make their peace with it—or retreat to the questions inspired by yesterday’s problems. Finnish society has a special need for environmentalists, of both the scienti¤c and historical variety. Its home is in the far north, where the penalties for not paying attention to one’s environment— for instance, whether the temperature has or has not been cold enough for long enough to make it safe to drive the snowmobile across the lake—are often immediate and irreversible. There is not, I think, a technologically advanced society in the world whose legends and literature are so full of forests, waters, and wild animals. From The Kalevala to Aleksis Kivi’s Seitsemän veljestä to the stories and poems of the current generation of Finnish writers, nature looms large. It looms as large economically as emotionally. For all the successes of Finnish technology—mobile phones, icebreakers, and all—the nation’s most important export remains forest products. As the old slogan goes, “Finland stands on wooden legs.” Her forests seem to stretch on forever and, therefore, her economic future, but so centuries ago did France’s, so a few generations ago did southern Brazil’s. Environmental historians can supply the Finns with dozens of object lessons of forests clear-cut to the ground by villains, and, as well, with true tales of bugs and beetles, rusts and fungi that have spread through 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

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may be able to tell what they mean, if all that they mean is that every year there will be some kind of ground cover in the spring. But what plants should be sustained? Factory forests with trees lined up like potato plants? The wild, variegated sort of woodlands as they existed before . . . before what? Before industrial lumbering? Before agriculture? Historians like Lehtinen and Björn can tell us about what Finns mean and have meant. Otherwise, forest policies will be driven by mythic memories alternating with prophesies of wealth. Demography and migration and, therefore, environmental change in Finland has, for a century and more, been largely a matter of industrialization and urbanization. As recently as a generation or so ago the real Finn was supposed to be tending cattle somewhere scores or perhaps hundreds of kilometers north of Helsinki. That Finn remains the classic Finn, but increasingly 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 corners and under fences by grazing cattle, advance again. Exotic plants establish themselves in reopening ecological niches. Historians can enhance general understanding of such trends by putting them in chronological sequence for us. The old industrialization of William Blake’s “satanic mills” gave rise to row on row of worker housing and to air and streams polluted with soot, sawdust, and sewerage. The historians can tell us about that and about how Finns perceived the threat and how they reacted to it. The new industrialization of shiny white factories and vast parking lots pollutes air and streams in new ways. The scientists can tell us about that. The historians can help their fellow citizens to decide not just what should be done about that (which may be obvious in the abstract: stop it), but what measures are most likely to actually work, given Finnish experience and general attitudes.

Foreword

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If experience were recorded as if by a tape machine in the brain, so it could be played back in total for reanalysis in the light of fresh events, then Finland, small though it is, would have spawned a goodly number of the better environmental historians on earth. I say that because experience has proved that the Finnish ecosystems— land, lake, and sea—are delicate, easily disrupted, and slow to heal. Historians can chronicle that at length and con¤rm that the rigors of a far northern climate have always kept the margin for survival for plant, animal, and human narrow. Clear-cut a Savo forest and you will surely be in your grave before anything resembling the ecosystem you destroyed returns. Clear-cut a forest in Lapland, and it will be centuries, even millennia—if ever.

v Finns must take care of their country, must move as carefully through their forests and fens as though through a house of cards. A northern ecosystem may take longer in actual time than a house of cards to collapse, but not in the foreshortened view of environmentally impoverished grandchildren. Finland’s historians have lessons for all peoples, for instance, those of the United States, with its relatively forgiving midtemperatezone ecosystems. Even those systems cannot survive rapid and massive change unscathed, as Mikko Saikku’s story of the extinction of the ivory-billed woodpecker illustrates. The lessons of Finnish environmental history are even more pertinent for peoples who live in the midst of similarly delicate ecosystems, Siberians and Canadians, for instance. And it is not only northern lands that recover slowly from ecological insult. Amazonia, Congo, Malaysia—these and similarly hot, wet lands are as vulnerable to irreparable environmental damage as Finland. Olavi Luukkanen tells us a tale of forest management in Thailand that may differ in its details from tales of forest management in Finland, but the lesson is the same. Forests are increasingly hostages to general cultural attitudes and to political trends.

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There seems to be only one group devoted to informing us about our environments, our environmental attitudes, and our environmental politics. This is the new profession of the environmental historians, of which Finland has already produced several, whose work you may read in the following pages. Alfred W. Crosby

Preface

T

he globe has huge temporal dimensions. For ages barren nature existed without living things. Life began on earth some 3.5 billion years ago, but modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared perhaps less than half a million years ago. Although latecomers among the living things, humans as a species have transformed the earth the most. Many of these transformations have not been bene¤cial to the other species—nor to humans. Today ecological damage is not merely a set of local phenomena. Environmental degradation is a global problem. Successive civilizations have faced environmental problems and have sometimes been aware of causal factors underlying these unfortunate changes. Considering the gravity of degradation in many cases, it is paradoxical that historical research dedicated to the study of these topics did not begin until quite recently. This book aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion in environmental history. The foundation for this collection of essays was laid during the seminars and series of lectures that we organized during the 1990s at the University of Helsinki. On various occasions, we have had the opportunity to share the enthusiasm of students of environmental issues. We are indebted to the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Social Sciences for providing us with funding for these events. We have also had the privilege of becoming acquainted with dozens of colleagues in the ¤eld and drawing on their wealth of knowledge. xvii

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Preface

We owe warm thanks to Dr. Alfred W. Crosby, Dr. Yrjö Haila, and Dr. Yrjö Vasari, who have encouraged us to devise academic coursework in environmental history and compile this anthology. We also wish to express our gratitude to several referees who provided us with constructive suggestions and valuable criticism during different stages of the writing and editorial process. In editing the text, we received substantial assistance from Dr. Frances Karttunen, Ms. Debra Rae Cohen, and Dr. Harvey Green, whom we gratefully acknowledge. In addition, cordial thanks are extended to Ms. Milla Laaksonen, our copy editor, who designed the layout of the ¤rst edition. In compiling this book, we have had the pleasure of working with a group of dedicated and patient historians who have actively participated in the editing process of their manuscripts. The chapters in this book are more products of enthusiasm, aus Liebe zur Kunst, than bread-and-butter jobs. Of course, without our academic occupations as researchers and teachers, this book would never have been completed. We have had pleasant facilities at the Department of Social Science History and the Renvall Institute for Area and Cultural Studies to do editing in addition to our daily work. We also gratefully acknowledge the fellowships and grants awarded by the Academy of Finland and the Ministry of Trade and Industry for our primary occupations. Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku

Contributors

Ismo Björn, Ph.D., Researcher at the Karelian Institute, University of Joensuu.

Alfred W. Crosby, Ph.D., Academician at the Academy of Finland, Professor Emeritus of Geography, History, and American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ari Aukusti Lehtinen, Ph.D., Professor of Geography at the University of Joensuu.

Olavi Luukkanen, Ph.D., Professor and Leader of the Tropical Silviculture Unit at the Department of Forest Ecology, University of Helsinki.

Timo Myllyntaus, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland and Senior Lecturer of Economic and Social History at the University of Helsinki.

Mikko Saikku, Lic. Phil., Assistant Director of the North American Studies Program at the Renvall Institute for Area and Cultural Studies, University of Helsinki.

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Environmental History A New Discipline with Long Traditions v Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku

E

nvironmental history has established itself in American academe since the 1970s. A similar development has taken place in Europe, where human-induced changes have a much longer and more far-reaching history. Although interaction between humans and nature has always been part of European historiography, environmental history in the present sense of the term, with explicit ecological consciousness, has been written for less than three decades. This introduction concentrates on the rise of environmental history as an academic discipline in Finland, and with reference to the United States. From the viewpoint of environmental history, these two countries have several things in common, and one reason for the similarities is that in Finland and the United States the actual takeover of nature by human populations was accomplished only during the last three centuries. What is environmental history, and what have the central 1

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themes in the environmental historiography of the past century been? Are there themes common to both American and Finnish environmental history? Furthermore, how is environmental history viewed today by academe, and what will the future of the ¤eld be? This brief prologue and the present set of essays aim to shed light on these questions by trying to de¤ne environmental history and by surveying the research and making comparisons between differing approaches to the ¤eld. Environmental history, in short, may be described as an attempt to elucidate the interaction between humans and nature in the past. How have human societies affected their environment and vice versa? In comparison with traditional historiography, environmental history emphasizes the role of humans as an integral part of their natural surroundings. Modern environmental history strives for a fuller understanding of today’s environmental issues and may even provide data for contemporary problem solving. What ecological models does history offer us? Which have been the adaptive and maladaptive human societies through history, and how did they function in their relations with the natural environment? Donald Worster and other American historians have offered useful de¤nitions and have suggested approaches to the core of environmental history.1 Important questions seem to center on the various productive strategies of human societies, their ideological backgrounds, and their consequences and comparisons across culture and place. What kind of society and environment emerge from the interaction between these forces? In his well-known essay, “Doing Environmental History,” Worster observes that there are three levels on which environmental history proceeds.2 There is nature itself and the human socioeconomic and intellectual realms as they interact with the natural environment. The most prominent approach in contemporary research is probably the study of the interaction between human modes of production and the environment. This ¤eld of study is concerned with connections between the economy and environmental change in the

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past.3 Histories of environmental policy focus on environmental change in relation to public control, especially legislation, while ecological history attempts to reconstruct natural environments and their changes in the past, relying heavily on the natural sciences and their methodologies.4 The intellectual realm 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 tends to dictate the approach, source materials, and research methods used. Thus the source materials utilized in environmental history may vary enormously, from oral histories and traditional written documents to data provided by modern science, such as dendrochronology, and pollen and sediment studies.

The Rise of Environmental History Although environmental history as a distinctive academic ¤eld emerged only during the 1970s, its roots go back over a century. Some scholars of the frontier and western schools of American historiography, such as Frederick Jackson Turner, Walter Prescott Webb, and James C. Malin, stressed the role played by the natural environment in the formation of American society.6 A similar approach can be identi¤ed in the work of their Finnish contemporaries, the historian Väinö Voionmaa and the anthropologist Helmer Smeds, who claimed that natural conditions had profoundly shaped Finnish society.7 Current Finnish research in the ¤eld has partly evolved from this earlier, “instinctive” environmental history. In the agriculturally unforgiving natural conditions of the Nordic countries, it has been a common conviction that nature has always had a distinctive

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impact on human activities; for centuries Nordic peoples have lived “at the mercy of nature.” In the agricultural Finland of the past, survival depended on the efforts of poorly connected communities. With small local stocks of foodstuffs and weak communication facilities, there was no room for large errors of judgment. Traditionally, Finns have been primarily interested in four environmental themes: climate, forest, water resources, and landscape. This outlook of the former farmer society 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, to register natural phenomena and climatic changes.8 He published widely on climatic impact on agriculture. Swidden cultivation and the dredging of rivers are other examples of the areas explored in his multidisciplinary works related to environmental issues.9 The main emphasis in the early meteorological observations was on weather conditions during the growing and harvesting seasons, as well as annual temperature pro¤les. In the nineteenth century, special attention was paid to deviations from the expected seasonal temperatures, such as early night frosts or exceptionally cold periods. In Finland, the growing season is short and unstable. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the average monthly temperature has annually been above freezing in the southern part of the country for seven months and in Lapland for only ¤ve months. Snow and frost limit the pasturing season to only a few months. For these climatic reasons, conditions for agriculture have been critical for a long time. From the late seventeenth century to the third quarter of the nineteenth century, marked harvest failures took place in Finland roughly once in a decade, and three widespread famines per century were not rare. In western Europe, the last massive harvest failure and

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consequent famine induced by poor weather was experienced in Finland in the 1860s, when over one hundred thousand people, or nearly 6 percent of the population, died within three years because of hunger and diseases related to malnutrition or worsened living conditions. Early Finnish studies on harvest failures and famines often came very close to the form of scholarship now called environmental history.10 The environmental viewpoint was even more pronounced in the geographical work of Ilmari Hustich who, during the 1940s and 1950s, explored the historical relationship between agriculture and climate in northern Finland.11 Weather conditions, temperature changes, the amount of rainfall, and their in¶uence on agriculture have also been research topics in the United States. For example, the Dust Bowl phenomenon of the 1930s has attracted considerable academic interest.12 Finland is often regarded as a small country. However, that viewpoint is based on population, which is now 5.1 million. In terms of territory, Finland is one of the largest countries in Europe—just behind Russia, the Ukraine, France, Spain, Sweden, and Germany. Its geographical features differ from the rest of the continent: there are more relatively untouched natural areas and fewer built environments than in central Europe. For example, lakes and rivers constitute a greater percentage of Finland’s surface area than cultivated land, which makes up only 8 percent of the total territory of 130,524 square miles (338,145 sq. km). In addition, the country’s forest resources are the third largest in Europe. Twothirds of Finland is covered by forest, which forms the country’s principal natural assets.13 In western Europe, Finland is the country that most recently cut its huge old-growth forests. In the late eighteenth century, nearly one-third of the forests in the 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,

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the percentage of old-growth forests in the southern part of the country is just 0.1, and in the northern part it is still more than 10.14 Traditionally, Finns have highly valued their woodlands because forests have supplied them nutrition such as game, berries, and mushrooms, as well as ¤rewood, charcoal, building materials, industrial raw materials, and possibilities for cash earnings beyond

Figure 1. Finland and the Baltic Sea Rim

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subsistence exploitation or harvesting. From the Middle Ages to the 1990s, the main export items—¤rst furs, then tar and pitch, wooden ships, and later sawn timber, pulp, and paper—were obtained from forests. Over three centuries, Finns have debated the most rational ways to utilize their forests. The fate of central and southern Europe, well-known regions that destroyed their forests and timber resources, has been a continuous menace for Finns. Generally, it has not been enough for them that most of the landed area is covered by growing trees. Only old-growth forests have been regarded as real forests by environmentally conscious Finns. Still, the need for ¤rewood and building materials, the practice of slash-and-burn cultivation, the production of tar and potash, sawn timber, and later paper led to the cutting of old-growth forests. That kind of development created pressures; traditional values were confronted with economic needs. Finnish historians in the last quarter of the twentieth century deepened their investigation of the commercialization of forest use and values of modern forest management. Although old-growth forests have been diminished to a tiny fraction of the total forested area, compared to the signi¤cant proportion that still existed some three hundred years ago, erämaa, the customary Finnish concept of wilderness, has remained a pivotal element in Finnish people’s attitudes toward their national landscape. The most worshiped icon of national scenery is that of clean blue lakes in the embrace of the thick green forest, viewed from a high granite cliff.15 However, it is worth mentioning that the concept of erämaa does not imply completely intact or virgin nature (“unberührten Natur”), although old-growth forests are a central element of the erämaa.16 In Finnish, erämaa (literally hunting ground) means a remote, very sparsely inhabited forested region endowed with game but not totally undisturbed, because Finns have traditionally believed that at least somebody should have the right and opportunity to hunt and ¤sh there. This concept stems from prehistoric times when erätalous (hunting economy), a subsistence system based on the mixture of hunting, ¤shing, and agriculture, was common in Finland. Since the small, scattered population of the traditional

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erämaa, both Sami and Finnish, was subjected to taxation, this “wilderness” was certainly a cross-cultural construct, de¤ned by the dominant culture of the southwestern coast.17 Nearly seven hundred years of Swedish rule before 1809 consolidated a centralized taxation system in Finland and classi¤ed people according their economic position in the system. Already in the Middle Ages, taxation and other economic interests in¶uenced how different areas and environments, including remote forests, were valued. Although erämaa is considered wild, untamed, and dangerous, it does not include a connotation of “untouched by humans,” as does the Anglo-American concept of wilderness. The Swedish concept vildmark sounds equivalent to wilderness. Vildmark is a wide area—not necessarily forest—that is neither used for agricultural purposes nor inhabited. Forested vildmark has a connotation of virgin forest, which is desolate, gloomy, and gruesome. Its counterparts in Finnish are korpi, salo, and sydänmaa (heart of the land); they all mean the deepest backwoods distant from villages and traf¤c routes. However, these terms denote a smaller area than erämaa, which cannot be passed through by foot in a day or two. It is important that neither vildmark nor its Finnish counterparts exclude hunting and other occasional utilization; thus those areas are remote and dif¤cult to reach but not totally outside of human in¶uence. In Swedish, another word, ödemark (desolate land), is more commonly used than vildmark to describe remote areas of the boreal zone and is often considered equivalent to the Finnish erämaa. Although both ödemark and erämaa may represent quite similar forested areas, they still have different connotations; ödemark is presumably more an administrative term meaning an uncultivated and economically inactive forested district. However, this concept describes the present situation and does not imply that the region in question has always been untouched. Former villages within ödemark may have become desolate for some reason. From the government’s viewpoint, ödemark means a forested area that is not inhabited by taxpayers.18

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In the American discourse, wilderness is de¤ned as pure and original nature outside of human in¶uence.19 Although there are dozens of expressions in Finnish to describe wooded areas, in traditional Finnish thinking, there was no equivalent to the term “wilderness.” The probable reason for this is that until the midtwentieth century Finland lacked the clear opposite to wilderness, the built environment of big cities. If we really must ¤nd the closest Finnish counterpart to the American idea of wilderness, it might be aarniometsä, primeval forest, but that is a fairly poetic expression of literary style and emphasizes the old age and density of the standing stock. In the Finnish context, entirely undisturbed, pathless wilderness is an abstract concept. Because all of the environment around us is at least in theory exploitable by humans, it is the degree of exploitation that, in fact, varies. For centuries, Finns have lived in forests and extended their hunting trips into uninhabited regions. The entire territory was used in some ways already in the prehistoric era. For a long time, it has been acknowledged that any exploitative use of forest, except for reasonable hunting, ¤shing, and collecting the bounty of nature, endangers the existence of erämaa. The utilization of erämaa by humans easily degrades wilderness to talousmetsä (“economy forest”), a forest serving primarily commercial interests. The landscape of forests and watercourses is anchored to the Finnish identity. At the same time, the use of these natural resources has been considered acceptable and necessary. From time to time, the cult of the national landscape and the use of natural endowments have been thought to con¶ict. For a long time, debates have raged about the limits of conservation and the most desirable forms of the economic utilization of natural resources. Different interest groups have had contrasting approaches to this issue, and their views have been re¶ected in the writings of historians. In early-nineteenth-century Finland, a population of approximately 1 million lived in a traditional agricultural economy, with only a minimally ef¤cient technological apparatus. If such a sparsely populated country with rather modest economic needs found it

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impossible to preserve its old-growth forests, the task to recreate them on a signi¤cant scale seems utopian for modern society, which has industrialized nearly all of its resources, both human and natural, for the service of the national economy.20 Alongside demands to conserve the remaining old-growth forests, which make up 1 to 2 percent of the total forested area in Finland, there has been discussion of returning parts of the managed economic forests to their ancient state. Although achieving a high standard of living has caused no major environmental catastrophes in Finland, the economic growth, which has been spectacular in European terms during the past 150 years, has demanded measures that have resulted in a signi¤cant environmental degradation. Awareness of that degradation has gradually increased in Finnish national consciousness and political discourse. What we can now label as environmental history was written decades ago by certain inventive economic, political, and intellectual historians and cultural geographers in both Finland and the United States. A vital difference between these “instinctive” environmental historians of the past and the environmental historians of the past three decades is their degree of environmental consciousness. Traditional historians, tangled up in the anthropocentric problems of their time, often lacked a clear understanding of natural processes, and they maintained a close connection to political and economic questions, even as they addressed explicitly environmental issues. Despite their education in the traditional anthropocentric school, there were Finnish researchers at the turn of the century who had already approached historical problems from an environmentally conscious viewpoint. For example, the historian Ernst G. Palmén critically investigated the government policy of arti¤cially lowering water levels in Finnish lakes, carried out in order to obtain more arable land. He argued that such a policy would be harmful to natural processes and often proved useless to farmers.21 Similarly, Adolf E. Nordenskiöld and Ragnar Hult, along with the Finnish learned

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societies, campaigned for natural parks and 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 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 In the spring of 1938, four academic associations decided to set up the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto). This was a relatively late development; its Swedish counterpart, Svenska Naturskyddsförening, had been founded in 1909, and in the same year the Swedish parliament passed its ¤rst law directed at the conservation of natural resources.24 In both Sweden and Finland, the national societies for conservation were elitist organizations; most of their members came from among the university faculty. The ¤rst board of governors of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation was composed of doctors with one exception —Palmgren had only a master’s degree.25 The dominance of males is another characteristic of the early years of the Finnish conservation movement. In contrast, Britain’s actual conservation movement was headed by women, who opposed the feather trade and defended the protection of wild birds. Before that movement began, concern for animal welfare had led to organized conservation activity as early as the 1820s, eventually resulting in the Sea Birds Preservation Act of 1869.26 The outbreak of World War II hampered the activities of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. Nevertheless, it began to publish a yearbook, Suomen luonto (Finnish Nature), in 1941.

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After the war, the yearbook gained popularity, and from 1956 on it was issued as a quarterly journal. The association emphasized its educational and ethical goals of stimulating public debate and mobilizing citizens to protect nature as a patriotic duty. To recruit young people to the ranks of the conservation movement, the association founded a youth subsidiary, Luonto-Liitto (Finnish Nature League), during the war in 1943.27 In the 1960s, a movement with a broader outlook on current environmental issues emerged in various countries. In addition to the traditional conservation of nature, the new movement concerned itself with the larger social and structural issues behind environmental changes in highly industrialized society. The new environmental movement provided the impetus for the rise of modern environmental history and for a new way of looking at the past. This is evident in the work of contemporary American historians, such as Alfred Crosby, Donald Worster, Richard White, and William Cronon.28 On the eastern side of the Atlantic, interest in the new discipline has increased steadily 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 traditional academic disciplines.30 In intellectual history, criticism of Western rationality and resource utilization was boosted by the book Science and Reason by philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright.31 The book argues that the belief in reason, a basis of natural sciences, has not at all been particularly prudent. Science and technology are at war against nature, and that antagonism has been sharpened because science and technology have been 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

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also in Sweden. The criticism of reason stimulated the consideration of the development of the entire Western culture from another, more environmental viewpoint. In Finland, a politically signi¤cant environmental movement emerged in the spring of 1979, when a group of young activists demonstrated and organized passive resistance in order to prevent the lowering of the water level in Lake Koijärvi, famous for its abundant bird life. Political activism ensued, and in 1983, the same year as did Die Grünen in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Finnish Greens won their ¤rst seat in parliament.32 Alongside its Belgian, Swiss, Austrian, and German counterparts, the Finnish Vihreä Liitto has become one of the most notable green parties in Europe.33 Since 1995 it has also held the post of the minister of environment in the Finnish government.

The Institutionalization of Environmental History In the United States, the new environmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s stimulated interest and research in environmental history. Historians in the ¤eld joined together and established an organization, The American Society for Environmental History (ASEH), in 1975. The following year, the society began publishing the journal Environmental Review. In addition, the biennial (later annual) meetings of the ASEH have provided a forum for discussion and opportunities to establish social and research contacts among American environmental historians. Scholars in the ¤eld have also organized panels at the national conventions of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. One reason for the fairly late rise of organized environmental history as an academic discipline was the lack of communication between social and natural sciences, impeding the wholesome understanding of ecological problems.34 In postwar Europe, some branches of environmental history

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have developed within certain older disciplines. Earlier historical research related to the environment was carried out under various other disciplinary paradigms, such as economic history, anthropology, and geography, because concepts such as environmental history, ecological history, ecohistory, histoire de l’environnement, historische Ökologie, Umweltgeschichte, historische Umweltforschung, milieugeschiedenis, miljöhistoria or ympäristöhistoria were unknown at the time. The great variety of new terms re¶ects the diversity of points of departures and approaches. In the 1980s, environmental history received a great deal of publicity in Europe. New interpretations were published in various countries, such as West Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain. For example, Cambridge University Press began to publish the series Studies in Environment and History. At least at ¤rst, however, it concentrated on printing books containing a clear emphasis on American topics. Among the ¤rst books in the series were Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas by Donald Worster, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansions of Europe, 900–1900 by Alfred W. Crosby, and Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography by Michael Williams. Nevertheless, many of those works followed the traditions of the French Annales school, which had since the interwar years promoted the “geographication” of historical research. The school’s emphasis on anthropological and regional approaches was re¶ected in the works of the environmental historians of the 1980s. In 1988 a group of scholars from eleven eastern and western European countries held a symposium in Bad Homburg in West Germany and founded the European Association for 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 European

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Environmental History were published as an impressive book.36 Furthermore, the association began to publish a yearbook, Environmental History Newsletter, which was edited by the Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim, West Germany. In Finland, Yrjö Vasari was active in contacting researchers in various ¤elds and encouraging the study of Finnish environmental history. As a result, a younger generation of Finnish environmental historians organized an international symposium on environmental history in Lammi in 1992.37 Some of the papers presented in this workshop were published as a special issue of the new British journal Environment and History.38 Various factors served to exhaust the enthusiasm for the EAEH.39 For instance, lack of ¤nancial support forced the Landesmuseum in Mannheim to give up publication of the Environmental History Newsletter in 1994.40 Links between European environmental historians loosened, and the EAEH was not able to organize a second symposium. However, throughout the 1990s environmental historians have kept on meeting each other under the umbrella of large international conferences. For example, environmental historians held their special sessions at the International Economic History Congresses in Leuven (1990), Milan (1994), and Madrid (1998).41 In April 1999 a fresh start was made in Europe. Representatives from eight European countries held a meeting near Munich to enhance communication between European environmental historians and to institutionalize the discipline on this continent. The organization was refounded under the name European Society for Environmental History (ESEH), and plans for a newsgroup, a homepage, and a conference in St. Andrews, Scotland, in September 2001 were launched.42 In Europe, environmental history thus has made a real breakthrough in the 1990s. The present decade has yielded plenty of prominent European books on environmental history. A case in point is A Green History of the World by Clive Ponting, which became a European best-seller.43 The scope of the ¤eld has expanded

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considerably, and new approaches have emerged. Considering the background of European environmental historians, ¤ve disciplines seem to have dominated. These are economic history (e.g., B. W. Clapp, Christian P¤ster, and Jan Luiten van Zanden),44 political history (Thorkild Kjærgaard and Clive Ponting),45 intellectual history (Sverker Sörlin and Gottfried Zirnstein),46 geography (Helmut Jäger, David Pepper, and I. G. Simmons),47 and natural science (Peter Brimblecombe).48

The Shared Traditions of Finns and Americans Some common themes in American and Finnish environmental history have become apparent. Both countries were originally on the periphery of the greater European economic system and shared common features, such as vast timber resources and a great number of sparsely populated areas. The present territory of the United States was colonized by several European powers, and the thirteen original colonies on the Atlantic seaboard gained their political independence in 1776. In the late Middle Ages, Finland, in turn, was conquered by Sweden and was governed by that country until 1809. Under Swedish rule, Finnish peasants—particularly those in the southeastern provinces, who specialized in slash-and-burn cultivation —pushed the frontier of the permanently inhabited area toward the north, penetrating to the land of the Sami people. In that way, they conquered new territory for the Swedish kingdom. Under Russian rule (1809–1917), Finnish provinces were united and managed to develop their own state apparatus. During the turmoil that followed the October revolution of 1917 in Russia, Finland declared its political independence. The peripheral status of colonial North America and Finland forced them to ship raw materials and semire¤ned products to their ruling kingdoms as well as to the rest of Europe. In the nineteenth century, they also competed with each other as suppliers of tar and

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sawn timber to Britain. Ultimately, their indigenous natural resources, such as timber and hydropower, were of vital importance in the industrialization of these two countries. Both countries also experienced a fairly late population growth, and their industrialization and urbanization took place later than in most of western Europe. Nineteenth-century Finland was predominantly an agricultural country in transition from a subsistence economy to a market economy. Until the outbreak of World War II, more than half of Finns lived in rural areas. Although industrialization had accelerated during the interwar years, it was only in the 1950s and 1960s that Finland became an industrialized country. In the postwar decades, the Finnish rate of urbanization was the most hectic in western Europe. Thus the middle-aged generation of Finnish people still feel that their roots are in the countryside. The number of summer cottages, more than four hundred thousand, is an indication of town dwellers’ longing for the countryside and a log sauna by the lake in the shelter of the forest. Finns have more summer cottages per capita than any other European nation. The idea of wilderness has played a vital part in the culture of both countries. The conservation of old-growth forests and other landscapes have been persistent issues in their environmental debates since the late nineteenth century, as agriculture and manufacturing industries exerted pressures to cut old-growth forests both for timber and farmland. In both countries, the native peoples’ (Native American and Sami) ways of life have often been contrasted with those of the expansionist Anglo-American and Finnish/Swedish cultures.49 Both the American Indians and the Nordic Sami believed that land belongs to all collectively and opposed private land ownership. This notion to a certain degree has also been shared by Finns. Central to the current Finnish land law is the so-called public right of access that allows everyone to walk, ski, camp temporarily, and pick berries and mushrooms in any—even privately owned—woodland.50 The vast environmental effects of slash-and-burn agriculture and the ef¤cient utilization of forest resources have also been popular

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research topics on both sides of the Atlantic.51 In both countries there are regions where the pivotal natural resource has been timber and where economic development has been dominated by the woodprocessing industries.52 Forest history remains a major sub¤eld of environmental history, although it is important to point out that not all forest history can be classi¤ed as environmental history. The relationship between humans and wildlife, especially large predators, has also attracted the attention of scholars in both the United States and Finland. American and European attitudes toward large predators, such as wolves, wolverines, bears, raptors, and seals, have been volatile and con¶icting.53 In central Europe, environmental historians have often focused their research on cultural landscapes, built environment, pollution in urban areas, emissions by industry, and epidemics.54 In the United States and Finland, wilderness, forests, and the problems of primary occupations have attracted more of the attention of researchers. In both countries, some environmental historians have recently claimed that disproportionate attention has been paid to issues of wild lands and agriculture and that more research is needed on social and urban issues. Greater inclusion of race, gender, and social class in environmental history has broadened its scope signi¤cantly. Recent issues of Environmental History and Environment and History, the leading international journals in the ¤eld, offer a good general view of contemporary environmental history and its research topics.55 Environmental history has sometimes been considered merely as an offshoot of “the new social history” and even an academic “fad” that will soon subside. Although at present environmentalism is recognized as an in¶uential social movement, environmental history is sometimes regarded as something of a trespasser on Finnish academe. Environmental history has often been mechanically coupled with environmental activism without paying attention to the long scholarly tradition of the discipline. When Donald Worster evaluated the contributions of environ-

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mental history, he claimed that one of its lessons is to “reject naive assumptions about a static, pristine, virgin world of unspoiled nature.” Thus the role of an environmental historian is to help people clarify issues under current debate and not simply to provide support to the arguments of environmentalists.56 William Cronon identi¤es further the role for environmental historians: to counterbalance ahistorical and antihistorical impulses within environmentalism.57 Finnish environmental historians have continued to argue that nature always changes and that humans have extensively contributed those changes—but not always in harmful ways. Although an environmental approach to history has been growing for a long time, we still lack an up-to-date general work on Finnish environmental history, which would provide an integrated synthesis of the interaction of humans and nature as well as a historical perspective to counterbalance both technocratic fantasies and utopian environmentalist visions. Environmental history has, nevertheless, been included in the curricula of various Finnish universities since the late 1980s. The 1990s has witnessed a number of master’s, licentiate’s, and doctor’s theses in the ¤eld.58 The discipline, however, does not have any teaching posts or study programs of its own. In these respects, Finland lags far behind the United States.59 However, in the European context, the country can hardly be classi¤ed as a latecomer. Finnish researchers have continued previous traditions in this ¤eld of history while at the same time opening up new directions of inquiry. Furthermore, they have not restricted their research to the environmental history of their home country but have contributed, for example, to the study of African, Caribbean, European, and North American environmental history.60 In addition to active participation in conferences abroad, Finns have also organized international meetings on environmental history in their own country.61 Today it can be claimed that the study of environmental history in Finland has had an auspicious start, and the challenges of the third millennium can be met with certain con¤dence.

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Deeper understanding of contemporary environmental problems requires us to know where we come from. The study of environmental history will help us ¤nd some common ground in that quest.

Notes 1. A good introduction is the round table panel in Journal of American History 76 (March 1990): 1087–147, with contributions from Donald Worster, William Cronon, Richard White, Carolyn Merchant, Stephen Pyne, and Alfred Crosby. 2. Donald Worster, “Doing Environmental History,” in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (New York, 1988), pp. 289–307. 3. Good examples include Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s (New York, 1979); Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York, 1985); William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York, 1983); William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York, 1991). 4. For a study with a legislative emphasis, see Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850–1980 (New York, 1986). 5. This approach is central to Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, Conn., 1982); Roderick Frazier Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison, Wis., 1989); Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (New York, 1977). 6. Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Signi¤cance of the Frontier in American History,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1893 (Washington, D.C., 1894); Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Boston, 1931); James C. Malin, The Grassland of North America: Prolegomena to Its History (Lawrence, Kans., 1947). 7. Väinö Voionmaa, Suomen karjalaisen heimon historia [A history of the Karelian tribe in Finland] (Helsinki, 1915); Helmer Smeds, Malaxbygden. Bebyggelse och hushållning i södra delen av Österbottens svenskbygd. En studie i människans och näringslivets geogra¤ [The Region of Malax: Settlement and the economy in the southern part of a Swedishspeaking region in the Province Österbotten: A study of human and economic geography] (Helsingfors, 1935). 8. Pehr Adrian Gadd, Tal om Finska Climatet och Dess Fögder i Landets

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Hushållning: Hållet för Kongl. Vetensk. Academien [Speech on the Finnish climate and its impact on the national economy, delivered at the Royal Academy of Sciences] (Stockholm, 1761); see also Jari Niemelä, Vain hyödynkö tähden? Valistuksen ajan hyötyajattelun, luonnontieteen ja talouspolitiikan suhde Pehr Adrian Gaddin elämäntyön kautta tarkasteltuna [Just for utility? Relationships between utility, science, and economic policy in the era of the Enlightenment in the context of the lifework of Pehr Adrian Gadd] (Helsinki, 1998). 9. Pehr Adrian Gadd, Oväldige tankar om jordens svedande och kyttande i Finland, Första delen försvarade af Anders Agricola; Senare delen försvarade af Pehr A. Bartholin [Just thoughts on the slash-and-burn of forests and the burn beating of peatlands in Finland, the ¤rst part of the dissertation defended by Anders Agricola and the second part by Pehr A. Bartholin] (Åbo, 1753–54); P. A. Gadd and G. N. Idman, Försök til en oeconomisk afhandling om strömresningars nytta och nödvändighet i Björneborgs län, resp. Gustav Niclas Idman [An economic research on the bene¤ts and necessity of the dredging of rivers in the Province of Pori, dissertation defended by Gustav Niclas Idman] (Åbo, 1772). 10. Selim Lemström, Om nattfroster och medlen att förekomma deras härjningar [Night frosts and remedies for them] (Helsingfors, 1893); Oscar Vilhelm Johanson, “Bidrag till Finlands klimatogra¤ enligt äldre observationer I–IV” [Contributions to Finnish climatography according to older observations], in Bidrag till kännedom af Finlands natur och folk 76, no. 1 (Helsingfors, 1913); Jaakko Keränen, On the Dependence of the Harvest upon the Temperature in the Foregoing Winter and May, Suomen valtion meteorologisen keskuslaitoksen toimituksia, no. 15 (Helsinki, 1925). See also J. V. Tallqvist, “Missväxter på 1860-talet utövade på den ekonomiska företagsamheten i landet” [Harvest failures of the 1860s and their economic impact], in Ekonomiska Samfundets Föredrag och Förhandlingar 1, no. 3 (Helsingfors, 1898); Eino Jutikkala, “The Great Finnish Famine in 1696–97,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 3, no. 1 (1955): 48–63. 11. Ilmari Hustich, “Om det nord¤nska jordbrukets utveckling och årliga produktionsvariationer” [The development of agriculture and the variations in annual production in northern Finland], Fennia 69, no. 2 (1945): 3–94; Ilmari Hustich, “Yields of Cereals in Finland and the Recent Climatic Fluctuation,” Fennia 73, no. 3 (1950): 3–32; and Ilmari Hustich, “The Recent Climatic Fluctuation in Finland and Its Consequences,” Fennia 75 (1952) [Includes a bibliography on climatic changes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, compiled by V. Erkamo, pp. 118–28]. 12. Cf. Malin (1947); James C. Malin, History and Ecology: Studies of the

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Grassland, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (Lincoln, Nebr., 1984); Worster (1979); Mathew Paul Bonni¤eld, The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression (Albuquerque, N. Mex., 1979). See also William Cronon, “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative,” Journal of American History 78, no. 4 (1992): 1347–76. 13. Statistical Yearbook of Finland 1999 (Helsinki, 1999). 14. Yrjö Ilvessalo, The Forest of Finland: The Forest Resources and the Condition of the Forests, Metsätieteellisen koelaitoksen julkaisuja, no. 9 (Helsinki, 1925), pp. 14–25; Ilkka Hanski, “Ikimetsän lajeja häviää” [Species of the virgin forest are disappearing], Helsingin Sanomat (15 April 1996). 15. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, symbolist, patriotic painters elaborated this national scenery by several paintings. Well-known examples are The Great Black Woodpecker (also called Wilderness) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, signed in 1893, and Wilderness by Pekka Halonen, painted in 1899. Torsten Gunnarson, Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven and London, 1998), pp. 260–69. 16. Joachim Radkau, “Was ist Umweltgeschichte?” in Umweltgeschichte. Umweltverträgliches Wirtschaften in historischer Perspektive, ed. Werner Abelshauser (Göttingen, 1994), p. 12. 17. Pekka Aikio, “Beyond the Last Line of Forest Trees,” in Story Earth: Native Voices on the Environment (San Francisco, 1993), pp. 193–200. 18. In the 1970s, there was a Nordic research project, det nordiska ödegårdsprojektet, that studied peasant farms that according to of¤cial registers became desolate between the early sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries. See Birgitta Odén, “Miljöhistoria i ett långsiktgt perspektiv” [A long-term perspective on environmental history], Miljö har en historia, Aktuellt om historia (Lund, 1992), p. 11; and Anneli Mäkelä, Hattulan kihlakunnan ja Porvoon läänin autioituminen myöhäiskeskiajalla ja uuden ajan alussa [Depopulation of the Hattula jurisdictional district and the Porvoo province in the late Middle Ages and in the early Modern Time] (Helsinki, 1979), pp. 14–21. 19. Yrjö Haila, “‘Wilderness’ and the Multiple Layers of Environmental Thought,” Environment and History 3, no. 2 (1997): 129–47; John Opie, Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States (Fort Worth, Tex., 1998), pp. 371–74. 20. Timo Myllyntaus, “Technological Change in Finland,” in Technology and Industry: A Nordic Heritage, ed. Jan Hult and Bengt Nyström (Canton, Mass., 1992), pp. 28–52. 21. Ernst G. Palmén, “Äldre och nyare sjöfällningar och sjöfällningsförsök i Finland” [Old and new attempts to lower the surface of Finnish

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lakes], Fennia 20, no. 7 (Helsingfors, 1902–1903); Ernst G. Palmén, “Suomessa tapahtuneista järvenlaskuista” [On lowering the surface of Finnish lakes], Valvoja 23 (1903): 365–85. 22. Adolf E. Nordenskiöld, “Förslag till inrättandet af riksparker i de nordiska länderna” [Proposal on establishing national parks in the Nordic countries], in Per Brahes Minne 1680, 12 September 1880 (Stockholm, 1880). Also published in Ragnar Hult, “Nationalpark i Finland,” Geogra¤ska Föreningens Tidskrift, no. 3 (1891): 267–69. 23. Reino Kalliola, “Luonnonsuojelusta ja sen tehtävistä” [On conservation and its tasks], in Suomen Luonto (1941): 9. 24. Désirée Haraldsson, Skydda vår natur. Svenska Naturskyddsföreningens framväxt och tidiga utveckling [Protecting Our Nature. Early phases of the Swedish Society for Conservation] (Lund, 1987). 25. Cf. Andrew Jamison, Ron Eyerman, Jacquiline Cramer, and Jeppe Læssøe, The Making of the New Environmental Consciousness: A Comparative Study of the Environmental Movements in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 16–21. 26. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded in 1824, and the Zoological Society of London (1826) had a marked impact on passing the 1869 Sea Birds Preservation Act in British Parliament. In 1889, Emily Williamson established the Fur and Feather Group that became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1904, when it received the royal charter. David Evans, A History of Nature Conservation in Britain, 2d ed., (London, 1997), pp. 33–42. 27. Niilo Söyrinki, Luonnonsuojelun käsikirja [A handbook of conservation] (Helsinki, 1954). 28. Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn., 1972); Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge, 1986); Worster (1977); Worster (1979); Worster (1985); Donald Worster, The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (New York, 1993); Richard White, Land Use, Environment, and Social Change: The Shaping of Island County, Washington (Seattle, Wash., 1980); Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman, Okla., 1991); Cronon (1983); Cronon (1991). 29. For example, Hustich participated in the ground-breaking conference that resulted in the book Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, ed. William L. Thomas (Chicago, 1956). Ilmari Hustich (1911–1982) was appointed to the Academy of Finland in 1975. Åström’s Natur och byte: Ekologiska synpunkter på Finlands ekonomiska historia [Nature and ex-

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change: Ecological aspects of Finnish economic history] (Ekenäs, 1978) is a pioneering effort in the Finnish context. 30. For more on the historiography of Finnish environmental history, see Timo Myllyntaus, “Suomalaisen ympäristöhistorian kehityslinjoja” [Developments in Finnish environmental history], Historiallinen aikakauskirja [Finnish Historical Journal, special issue on environmental history] 89, no. 4 (1991): 321–31. 31. Georg Henrik von Wright, Vetenskapen och förnuftet, Ett försök till orientering (Helsingfors, 1986; Stockholm, 1987). 32. The ¤rst green party, the Value Party, was registered in New Zealand in 1972, and during that same decade green parties were also set up in Britain, France, and Belgium. In 1979 the Swiss greens were the ¤rst to win a seat in the parliament. Timo Myllyntaus, “Ympäristöaktivismi yhteiskunnallisena toimintana” [Environmentalism as a societal activity], in Liikkeen voima—Kansalaistoiminta ympäristökysymyksen muovaajana, ed. Timo Myllyntaus, Research Reports, no. 122 (Oulu: University of Oulu, Research Institute of Northern Finland, 1994), p. 23. 33. Sara Parkin, Green Parties: An International Guide (London, 1989); Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, “Green Parties and Alternative Lists under Cross-National Perspective,” in New Politics in Western Europe: The Rise and Success of Green Parties and Alternative Lists, ed. Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (Boulder, Colo., 1989), pp. 14–19. 34. Donald Worster, “History as Natural History: An Essay on Theory and Method,” Paci¤c Historical Review 53, no. 1 (1984): 1–13; Richard White, “American Environmental History: The Development of a New Historical Field,” Paci¤c Historical Review 54, no. 3 (1985): 333–34. 35. Christian P¤ster, “Bad Homburg—Birthplace of the European Association for Environmental History,” Environmental History Newsletter 1 (1989): 13. 36. Peter Brimblecombe and Christian P¤ster, eds., The Silent Countdown: Essays in European Environmental History (Berlin, 1990). 37. J. Donald Hughes, “In the Neighborhood of the Great Bear: An Environmental History Workshop in Finland,” ASEH News 4, no. 1 (1993): 1–3. 38. Richard Grove, Timo Myllyntaus, and Mikko Saikku, eds., Environment and History 2, no. 1 [Special Lammi Symposium Issue] (1996). 39. Some of the problems faced by European environmental history have been analyzed in a previously cited article by Radkau (1994), pp. 11–28. 40. Environmental History Newsletter, no. 5 (1993), published in March 1994, was the last issue of this yearbook. 41. See Myron Gutman’s ¤nal report on the session in Madrid: http:// www.prc.utexas.edu/plains/seville/ (updated 8 December 1998).

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42. For further details, see http://www.eseh.org/ (the homepage of ESEH was made available in June 1999). 43. Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World (Harmondsworth, 1992). 44. B. W. Clapp, An Environmental History of Britain Since the Industrial Revolution (London, 1994); Christian P¤ster, Wetternachhersage, 500 Jahre Klimavaritionen und Naturkatastrophen (1496–1995) (Bern, 1999); J. L. van Zanden and S. W. Verstegen, Groene geschiedenis van Nederland (Utrecht, 1993). 45. Thorkild Kjærgaard, The Danish Revolution: An Ecohistorical Interpretation (Cambridge, 1994); Clive Ponting, Progress and Barbarism: The World in the Twentieth Century (London, 1998). 46. Sverker Sörlin, Natur kontraktet. Om naturumgängets idéhistoria, [Contract on Nature: Intellectual history of the interaction with nature] (Helsingborg, 1991); G. Zirnstein, Ökologie und Umwelt in der Geschichte (Metropolis Verlag, 1994). 47. Helmut Jäger, Einführung in die Umweltgeschichte (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994); David Pepper, Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction (London, 1996); I. G. Simmons, Environmental History: A Concise Introduction (Oxford, 1993). 48. Peter Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London since Medieval Times (London, 1987). 49. For example, see Cronon (1983); White (1980); Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln, Nebr., 1983); Ilmo Massa, Pohjoinen luonnonvalloitus: Suunnistus ympäristöhistoriaan Lapissa ja Suomessa [Conquering northern nature: An orientation to environmental history in Lapland and Finland] (Helsinki, 1994). 50. However, trespassing in private yards and gardens, as well as damaging ¤elds and trees, is forbidden. For centuries, laws and conventions have limited the rights to hunt, ¤sh, and fell trees. 51. For some hypotheses on the Finnish impact on the use of forests in the United States, see Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kaups, The American Backwoods Frontier: An Ethnic and Ecological Interpretation (Baltimore, 1989). 52. Some early examples of Finnish forest history research include G. Grotenfelt, Det primitiva jordbrukets metoder i Finland under historiska tiden: En redogörelse [Methods of primitive agriculture in Finnish history] (Helsingfors, 1899); G. Grotenfelt, Suomen polttoviljelyn historia [A history of Finnish swidden cultivation] (Porvoo, 1901); Olli Heikinheimo, “Kaskiviljelyn vaikutus Suomen metsiin” [The impact of swidden cultivation on Finnish forests], Acta Forestalia Fennica 4, no. 2

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(Helsinki, 1915); Olli Heikinheimo, “Metsänhävityksen ja polton vaikutuksesta metsämaahan” [The impact of forest destruction and burning on forest soil], Acta Forestalia Fennica 8, no. 3 (Helsinki, 1917). See also Åström (1978); Jussi Raumolin, ed., “Special Issue on Swidden Cultivation,” Suomen antropologi 12, no. 4 (1987): 183–280. The best general text on American forest history is Michael Williams, Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography (Cambridge, 1989). 53. See, for example, Oscar Nordqvist, “Hylkeen hävittäminen Itämerestä, Laatokasta ja Saimaasta” [The destruction of seals in the Baltic Sea, Lake Ladoga, and Lake Saimaa], Suomen Kalastuslehti, no. 4 (1892): 54– 60; Rolf Palmgren, Vildanden och människan: re¶exioner och kritiker i jaktlagsfrågor [Wild ducks and man: Re¶ections and criticism on issues concerning hunting laws] (Helsingfors, 1915); Rolf Palmgren, Naturskydd och kultur I–II [Nature conservation and culture I–II] (Helsingfors, 1920), also in Finnish as Luonnonsuojelu ja kulttuuri I–II (Porvoo, 1922); Rolf Palmgren, “Om naturskyddet i Finland” [Nature conservation in Finland], Danmarks naturfredningsforengs aarsskrift 1930–31 (Copenhagen, 1931), pp. 39–44. See also Erkki Pulliainen, “Studies on the Wolf (Canis lupus L.) in Finland,” Annales Zoologici Fennici, no. 2 (1965): 215–59; Jouko Teperi, Sudet Suomen rintamaiden ihmisten uhkana 1800-luvulla [Wolves as a threat to people in the densely populated regions of Finland in the nineteenth century], Historiallisia tutkimuksia, no. 101 (Helsinki, 1977) [Mit einem Auszug auf Deutsch]. Scholars in the United States have shown great interest in the history of wildlife conservation. See, for example, Thomas Dunlap, Saving America’s Wildlife (Princeton, N.J., 1988); Susan L. Flader, Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests (Columbia, Mo., 1974); Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement (Boston, 1981). 54. R. Delort, “Recherches françaises en Histoire de l’Environnement” Environmental History Newsletter 1 (1989): 10–14; F.-J. Brüggemeier and J. Sieglerschmidt, “Historische Umweltforschng in Deutschland,” Environmental History Newsletter 1 (1989): 15–20; E. E. Manski, “The Netherlands,” Environmental History Newsletter 1 (1989): 21. 55. For example, see Mart Stewart, “What Nature Suffers to Groe”: Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680–1920 (Athens, Ga., 1997); Carolyn Merchant, Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989); Martin V. Melosi, Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and Environment, 1880–1980 (College

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Station, Tex., 1981); Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1990). The American journal Environmental History has been published under that name since 1996, when the Environmental History Review and Forest and Conservation History merged. The Environmental History Review was published as Environmental Review from 1976 to 1989. Forest and Conservation History was published from 1957 to 1958 as the Forest History Newsletter, from 1959 to 1974 as Forest History, and from 1975 to 1989 as the Journal of Forest History. Consult www.h-net.su.edu/ ~aseh/membership.html# envhist. A selection of eighteen trailblazing articles in Environmental History Review and its predecessor is edited by Char Miller and Hal Rothman and reprinted in the book Out of the Woods, Essays in Environmental History (Pittsburgh, 1997). The British journal Environment and History has been published since 1995. Consult www.erica.demon.co.uk/EH.html. 56. Donald Worster, “Nature and the Disorder of History,” Environmental History Review 18, no. 2 (1994): 2. 57. William Cronon, “The Uses of Environmental History,” Environmental History Review 17, no. 3 (1993): 10. 58. As an example of completed doctoral dissertations, see Ismo Björn, Kaikki irti metsästä. Metsän käyttö ja muutos taigan reunalla itäisimmässä Suomessa erätaloudesta vuoteen 2000 [Capitalizing on the forest: Use, users, and change in the forest from the wilderness economy on the edge of the taiga in eastern Finland through the year 2000] (Helsinki, 1999), English summary, pp. 254–65. 59. Environmental history is not, however, without of¤cial recognition in Finland. The ¤eld is well represented among members of the Academy of Finland. Three historians, all showing interest in environmental history, have been granted the title of academician. The ¤rst was Finnish historian Eino Jutikkala in 1972, followed by Swedish economic historian Birgitta Odén in 1990 and the American Alfred W. Crosby in 1995. 60. For example, see Antti Erkkilä and Harri Siiskonen “Forestry in Namibia, 1850–1990,” Silva Carelia 20 (1992); Harri Siiskonen, “Deforestation in the Owambo Region, North Namibia, since the 1850s,” Environment and History 2, no. 3 (1996): 291–308; Laura Hollsten, “Global historia, miljö och sockerplantager” [Global history, the environment, and sugar plantations], in Miljöhistoria på väg: Artiklar presenterade vid Miljöhistoriskt Möte 1995, ed. Björn-Ola Linnér and John Svidén (Motala, 1996), pp. 62–70; Eeva Hellström and Aarne Reunala, Forestry Con¶icts from the 1950s to 1983. A Review of a Comparative Study of the

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USA, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, European Forest Institute, Research Report, no. 3 (Joensuu, 1995); Eeva Hellström and Martin Welp, Environmental Forest Con¶icts in Germany: From National to International Concern, European Forest Institute, Working Paper (Joensuu, 1996); Mikko Saikku, “Down by the Riverside: The Disappearing Bottomland Hardwood Forest of Southeastern North America,” Environment and History 2, no. 1 (1996): 77–95; Haila (1997). 61. See notes 36 and 37 above.

Modernization and the Concept of Nature On the Reproduction of Environmental Stereotypes v Ari Aukusti Lehtinen

People rarely perceive the irony inherent in the idea of preserving the wilderness. “Wilderness” cannot be de¤ned objectively: it is as much a state of the mind as a description of nature. By the time we can speak of preserving and protecting wilderness, it has already lost much of its meaning: for example, the Biblical meaning of awe and threat and the sense of sublimity are far greater than the world of man and unencompassable by him. “Wilderness” is now a symbol of the orderly processes of nature. As a state of mind, true wilderness exists only in the great sprawling cities.1

Nature as Wilderness The conclusion above by Yi-Fu Tuan is based on an evaluation of the two contradictory images of wilderness expressed in the Bible. 29

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The wilderness was a place of desolation, an unsown land frequented by demons. It was a land condemned by God, to which Adam and Eve were driven, and it was the cursed ground where Christ was tempted by the devil. But the wilderness was a place for refuge and contemplation, too: the land where the chosen were scattered for reasons of discipline or purgation. Thus, it was a holy ground from which to see the divine more clearly.2 The dual, oppositional meanings of wilderness were maintained in the ascetic tradition in Christianity; the wasteland and the symbol of freedom were both included as features of the wilderness. Over recent centuries, however, the meaning of vast and wild nature has changed dramatically. For the white pioneers of the western plains of North America, for example, wild nature became an obstacle to be overcome. And for the modern westerner, wilderness is seen as something that must be conquered, and as something from which one might draw one’s livelihood. Humanity has become the guardian and cultivator of nature, ful¤lling the divine task of populating the earth with humankind.3 The landscape that resulted from the white settler’s invasion of the “wilds” of North America also helped to bring the modern nature conservation movement into existence. The rapid disappearance of wild nature and the destruction of indigenous landscapes were increasingly criticized during the late 1800s. This reaction was linked to the biblical notion of nature as holy ground. Some reformers were intent upon preserving at least some holy ground “untouched by civilization” before the pioneers and their children in the industrial era completed the task of turning nature into pro¤t. The modern idea of nature conservation is based on romantic visions of wild nature in need of protection.4 The Western idea of nature, thus, has been dramatically modi¤ed by the conditions of modernization. It is still marked, however, by a thoroughgoing dualism: nature has been considered both as the raw material for industrial development and as an object to be conserved. What has been the role of the natural sciences in modernizing the older, Biblically based conceptions of nature? To what extent have we

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been liberated from medieval Christian myths? Did the paradigm shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism really point the way out of the anthropocentric misconceptions of nature? The recent initiatives to include the social sciences as a part of nature research has placed new challenges and confusions on the agenda. It may be that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in nature research, from an emphasis on abstractions about nature (celestial ideas of nature) toward studies of human-in¶uenced environments (terrestrial ideas of nature) and toward environmental histories, environmental sociologies, and human and political ecologies.

Nature as the Other Conservationists want to conserve a nature that is outside the human domain and that functions according to its own laws.5 This idea of nature, however, is problematic: how can we even conceive of a pure and wild nature, external to us as human beings, except through our human culture, through constructs of language that are ¤lled with our own prejudices? Can we even contemplate a nature that is unbounded by the cultural constraints that shape us as human beings? This chapter argues that the concept of nature as lying beyond the human realm is an abstraction that dominates our understanding of and interrelations with nature. In Western consciousness, nature is “out there,” beyond us. In de¤ning nature, however, as external to us, we remain unaware of the sociohistorical conditions that have modi¤ed and produced the nature that we see. We forget the basic anthropocentrism from which we cannot free ourselves; we forget that we ¤nd nature “out there” exactly as we have learned to know it. This point of view helps us to understand the Copernican revolution in a new light, as precipitating a shift toward scienti¤c and societal modernization. The shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism

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also was a critical step in creating a new human identity in relation to a new external reality. The project of understanding, and thereby taking control of, a new celestial natural order “out there,” laid the foundations for a new understanding of nature on earth. This new understanding had elements of the Christian idea of caring for nature and of a masculine hubris expressed in the idea of conquering the universe. Heliocentrism, thus, should be understood as a new version of anthropocentrism, one that expressed again the human subjectivity in our relations with the external and unknowable. This does not mean, of course, that the earth does not rotate around the sun. Rather, it questions whether the scienti¤c understandings of physics, at either the cosmic level or the molecular level, are of any help to us in dealing with human environmental problems. Are our research and development programs going to continue to explore worlds distant from us or will they focus on the everyday hardships faced when coping with our environment?6

Techne and Poesis The entire era of modernization—the last ¤ve hundred years—can be understood as a period of European colonization and the global diffusion of Western values. Western emphases on human reason and rationality, as well as beliefs in linear progress and absolute truth, have been successfully exported to societies around the globe. This process has been driven by developments in the natural sciences in the early modern period that paved the way for new technological and industrial applications.7 The natural sciences also created a new way to see nature—as a taxonomic system, as a system of species and ecosystems—that evolved according to its own laws. Thus the natural sciences produced a world view that dichotomized nature. With industrial progress, nature came to be considered increasingly as a resource base not yet fully utilized. With the

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rise of the science of botany, led by the Swede Carl Linnaeus (later von Linné), nature came to seem increasingly external to human culture, but it also seemed that it could be known by science. In both representations, nature was the “other.” And it could be controlled and manipulated. Early criticism of this view of nature as separate from human beings was voiced by the pioneers of “Renaissance environmentalism,” who argued against an idealized external reality known by scienti¤c method.8 They declared that empirical methods were theoretically uncertain and imperfect because they dealt with the temporal and mutable. In this view, the numbers and geometry of Descartes did not derive from empirical observation, but were pure creations of the mind.9 In this same anti-Cartesian tradition, George Perkins Marsh, in 1864, published a book entitled Man and Nature, which was to controvert the myth of earthly superabundance of natural resources.10 Man and Nature explores human history from the perspective of humankind’s destructive impacts on nature. The book was an eyeopening analysis of the dark side of Western modernization, which at the time of publication contradicted the dominant attitudes toward the bene¤ts of modern industrial progress. Marsh’s thesis was that human cultures have not been molded principally by the physical environment, and that on the contrary, humans have actively transformed nature. Humans have produced the earth as we know it, and thus, processes of the earth can be understood only as a part of social history.11 In the course of the twentieth century, some intellectuals and social scientists have attempted to polemicize the metahistories of external nature. In Finland, Eino Leino, one of the national poets, questioned the meaning of scienti¤c taxonomies as representations of nature and chose instead to rely on his own experiences of nature.12 Later, Pentti Saarikoski, the poet of the Finnish 1968 generation, elaborated on the ideas of Leino and stated: “the names of the plants, animals, and stars are not names on their own, but titles

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given by men—Linnaeus must have hated nature to be able to organize, name, and record it according to his own intuition.”13 A whole library of literature has been written under the label humaniora about the social origins and conditions of our views of nature.14 For most nature researchers and environmentalists, however, nature is still an object, an external reality, from which we can take slices either for scienti¤c study or for conservation. The late (post)modernism of the twentieth century completely challenged the idea that cultural identity can be constructed on the foundations of an externally veri¤able reality. In this sense, the construction of “nature” has become more and more “dependent” on the perspectives chosen. Yet, the earlier modern views of nature have remained in¶uential. The dominance of the (early) modern dichotomous view of nature crowds out more personal and poetic interactions with nature. At issue is our awareness of the limitations and biases in our interactions with nature that occur in the course of daily living. To become familiar with these limitations and biases requires critical and collective (self-)re¶ection: how can one avoid the blind alleys of environmental stereotypi¤cation; how can one avoid taking things for granted? Are we, as nature researchers, conservationists, or environmentalists, still hostage to this project of modernization? Are we, in this respect, part of the problem? If we were to take up the challenge to self-re¶ection, we would have to confront the historicity of our practices and conceptions of nature. For the conservationist, the following questions might be pertinent: what would nature be like if I broadened my conception of it beyond the notion of threatened species and biotopes? What would I conserve if convinced that there is no such thing as nature in its original state? If I question the relevance of treating nature and culture as opposites? For civil servants working in environmental administration, the questions might focus on the impacts of environmental decisions, that is, the unintended consequences of the implementation of nature conservation programs that occur because of the idealization of nature being in need of preservation. Can we save nature by framing it?

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Environment as Nature Bound to Culture For social scientists, the “environment” is frequently equated with “nature,” and con¶ict over the environment comes about as a result of pollution and the overexploitation of nature. This equation of the environment with nature, however, seems rather narrow and does not permit open re¶ection.15 And it is rather surprising, given the different ¤elds of the “real” to which these key concepts refer. “Environment” refers to the world around us, which is both physical and social as well as natural and cultural in character; it refers to the realms that are experienced and known by us. Environment is the real world, that is, the human environment; the part of the “real” that is socially constructed and constituted; it contains those things that we always experience as knowing subjects. “Nature” is a deeper and, simultaneously, contradictory concept: it refers to “outer reality” as well as to internal human nature. The motions of the universe are as much nature as the motions of our mind.16 The environmentalists and local action groups who have led movements against industrial “development” projects have often struggled to achieve quite different goals. Most environmentalists have been motivated by a desire to protect an idealized nature imbued with intrinsic values. By contrast, many local action groups have been motivated by their concerns about the industrial threat to local ways of life.17 Both perspectives are ¤rmly rooted and have their own truths. On the one hand, the local life-worlds for each of us are complexes in which we cannot distinguish the natural world from the one transformed by human effort. On the other hand, worries about the general ecology of the planet are based upon general abstractions, grounded in natural science, that need to be taken seriously. The ¤rst view is often expressed in categorical expressions of selfcon¤dence based on ¤rst-hand and inherited experiences: “This is the way we have lived here for centuries, and this is the way that we will do it tomorrow, too. There is no place for comments by outsiders.

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We know how to conserve nature—no advice from the outside is needed.”18 The ties between local communities and the larger society, however, must be examined critically, because local events and ideas often re¶ect general social changes. The diffusion of new values has gradually modi¤ed local practices, even though this is often unacknowledged at the local level. Indeed, sometimes relatively recently adopted practices are thought to be inherited from a more distant past. Local opinion, therefore, should be understood to be more complex than at ¤rst it might appear, because of these connections to the larger society. In addition, “local opinion” is always a programmatic vision expressed by those in leading local positions. There is rarely, if ever, a unanimous “local” opinion, although the illusion of shared interests is often used as a basis for political argumentation. There is also an element of illusion in the abstract notions of nature that are used for political argumentation. At what point do we notice the arti¤ciality of the representations of nature that we consider ourselves to be rooted in? How sure are we of the veracity of the representations of nature that are used in environmental discussions? Is it possible to accept the natural science laws as a cultural product and as one that is a more or less useful mirror of nature “out there”? To the extent that environmental activism and research are based upon an idea of an absolute nature “out there,” we are faced with the danger of losing touch with the cultural dimensions of our representations of nature. We talk about the universal truths of nature and, accordingly, the absolute necessity of nature conservation without paying much attention to culture. We talk about biocentric necessities, even though biocentricity is fundamentally a cultural construct: our own representation of the threats to nature and its needs.19 What, then, would an environmental movement look like if it re¶ected upon its anthropocentrism; if it did not separate nature from culture and society; if it based its strategy on interrelations within society and nature and if, as an essential element of civil society, it did not undermine local and culture-speci¤c practices with

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regard to the natural world; if it did not imprison itself in universalisms understandable only by professionals? To bring this imagined environmental movement into clearer focus, we would need to focus on our blindness to the elements of nature closest to us. With critical (self-)re¶ection, the environmental movement would move away from older ideas. The Linnean taxonomies would come to be considered as only one way to understand nature and would not have to be accorded priority. This environmental movement would not focus solely on the protection of nature reserves or outdoor museums but would work for the protection of biodiversity in the backwoods, and in agricultural and urban areas. If we can accept the overwhelming reality of human subjectivity and look at the natural world around us as a human environment, as a human creation, we might be able to better understand the restrictive ideas that we have inherited. The ideas of environment as nature and nature as bound to culture might gradually displace the idea of an external and controllable nature.

Landing at the Margins: An Excursion into the Finnish Forests The dualistic Christian ideas about nature (as both evil and divine) and the dichotomy of modern ideas about nature (as an obstacle to be overcome and as a cultural construct of local communities) were introduced to Finland as a by-product of the project of modernization— and quite surprisingly, by the national “awakeners” of Finland. The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, published in 1835, told the story of the smothering of the “pagan rites of primitive peoples” in the forest and the establishment of Christianity.20 Under the Swedish crown, Christian modernizers based in the southern part of the country began to take command of the natural resources of the country, enlarging their range up into the northeastern backwoods. Later, in the Grand Duchy of the Russian era (1809–1917), the timber

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resources of Finland were partly nationalized through the Isojako, the Great Division of common lands to farmers and to the government, and through the establishment of a state bureaucracy that allowed for more systematic control over the use of natural resources. From Germany, the state imported a model of modernized forest administration.21 After World War II, state programs of massive industrialization utilized the modern ideas about nature. The project of rebuilding Finland was based upon the model of Soviet industrialization in the interwar years.22 The exploitation of the northern taiga was deemed necessary for the country to emerge from the destruction of the war. The mobilization of the northern forest was presented as a national challenge; it was to be a pioneering conquest of virgin natural resources.23 In reaction to this project of state industrialization, a counter reactive project based on abstractions about wild nature and on romantic visions of local communities’ relationships with the natural world found expression in the national conservation programs that were supported by such nature conservation ¤gures as Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Reino Kalliola, Urpo Häyrinen, and Rauno Ruuhijärvi.24 The conservation movement focussed its attention on the establishment of nature reserves. Thus, various ideas about nature, originally drawn from the Bible and modernized via North American, central European, and Soviet experiences, found their way into Finnish consciousness and have in¶uenced the way local communities interact with the natural world. Some of these interactions appear contradictory, and they can be usefully explored through a consideration of some of the principal cultural metaphors that express the natural world. In the Kalevala, a mythical means of production, the Sampo, represented the wealth of the community, and the struggle over its ownership has been linked to societal confrontations over the conditions of civilization, social progress, and the division of income and welfare.25 During the twentieth century, the Sampo turned into a modernized wood pulp and paper factory, which spread wealth all

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over the country. This wealth has, in turn, opened the gates to a modern appreciation of nature as an entity that must be protected. The conservation programs, ¤nanced annually by the state budget, have helped to de¤ne this nature and its value. Today, transnational entrepreneurs and conservationists both seek to control the green gold of the north. Today a new defense of the forest, a modern Sampo, is being formulated in reaction both to the integration of the Finnish woodlands into the global paper market and to the tightening of forest conservation policy. This new criticism holds that the division of Finnish forests as either transnational resources or as nature reserves is in¶exible and does not allow for socioecological sustainability. For local communities, the setting aside of forests as nature reserves can be as incomprehensible as the destruction of the forests for paper production. Another use of the forest has emerged with the growth of urbanization. A cottage hidden in the backwoods, such as Impivaara depicted in Aleksis Kivi’s classic novel Seven Brothers, represents a Finnish dream of the twentieth century. Following the model of those young solitary brothers longing for freedom and preferring nature to society, modern city dwellers throng to summer cottages in the remote countryside to escape the repercussions of modern urban life.26 Yet this neonomadism has resulted in land speculation at the lakeshores and the motorization of outdoor recreation. The dream of having one’s own Impivaara, a private hideaway deep in the forest and free from societal pressures, is sought by a horde of nuclear families, which results in endless summer-weekend queues of private cars on the main highways out of the cities, in lake regions occupied by lines of cottages which express their occupants’ higher income and status, and in motor-driven “muscle boats” symbolizing an attempt to govern the lakescape. The Impivaara reveals our collective inability to free ourselves from the pressures of everyday life in the city. The northern forests, which at the turn of the century were sources of inspiration for the artists who were attempting to “awaken

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the nation” to seek its independence (e.g., the painters Akseli GallenKallela and Pekka Halonen and the composer Jean Sibelius), have now been transformed into timberland commodities which were brokered at the entrance of Finland into the European Union in 1995. The arguments that won Finland her independence are now used for quite different purposes. “Finland lives off her forests” today means that unstinting national support has to be given to Finnish enterprises competing for the lead in global paper markets. “Roots in Finland” sells well. The legacy of the Finnish Civil War in 1918 has, in a new form, surfaced in the aftermath of the Soviet breakdown. The fall of Soviet socialism has slowly necessitated a painful rethinking of Finnish political culture. The weakened position of the left has been re¶ected in the threats to the continuation of the welfare state. Public services have been privatized and commercialized, and yet the Finnish model of state intervention lives on in the form of support for the export industry. Thus, the Finnish version of capitalism gives a free hand to the entrepreneurs within the export sector but, through selective protectionist measures, lets the rest of society pay for their failures. The legacy of the left-wing radicalism (and deep societal confrontations) of the 1970s put a stamp on the poststructuralist era of the 1980s and 1990s. All arguments informed by socialist ideals and practices have been considered dead ends, condemned by the Soviet breakdown. It seems as if the repressions of the Finnish Civil War, so tellingly depicted by Väinö Linna in his famous novel Here Under the North Star, have returned, but without any counterculture reactions worthy of comparison to those of the early decades of this century.27 The fragmented pro¤les of today’s new social and environmental groups give no support to the idea that there is any profound reevaluation of Finnish political culture going on. The counterculture in fact has turned its face toward the shadows of the modern cities: escapism into the margins of society has been romanticized.28 It remains to be seen, however, whether the new ethical environmental concerns

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such as environmental justice, strict vegetarianism, and animal liberation will coalesce into an in¶uential social movement. The low-tech forestry of the interwar years paved the way to economic independence and political self-reliance. As portrayed by Hella Wuolijoki in her series of ¤ve Niskavuori plays written between 1936 and 1953, Finland became a forest sector society, living from the fruits of the countryside.29 In this period of steady economic growth, the dominant agrarian ideals still stressed well-being in the countryside (maausko), and when these ideals came under great stress, nature conservation programs came into being. Finns saw themselves as being rich enough to set aside the remote backwoods as memorials to the original landscape. The establishment of a network of national parks in 1938 and the ¤rst issues of the yearbook Suomen Luonto (Finnish Nature), published by the newly founded Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, underlined the importance of Finnish forests as special, “untouched” entities to be protected. The “nature” to be conserved was the nature de¤ned by the natural scientists thus engaged.30 No criticism was levelled at that time against the development of the forest sector, which integrated Finnish society and its forests into the international paper markets. Indeed, to the contrary, the new conservation programs were understood as a tangible result of the economic well-being that had been achieved.31 Today, conservation strategies are still based on the idea of completing the network of national parks and nature reserves which is highlighted in the annual political battles over the budget allotments. Nature is still seen as something that can be protected by buying and framing it. During World War II the idea of a Greater Finland stretching over Lake Onega in the east gained currency. All possible natural scienti¤c evidence was used to document the natural size and form of Finland.32 A natural science de¤nition of “nature” (i.e., a natural covering of bedrock, ¶ora and fauna as well as forest types) was integrated into the politics of Lebensraum. Here, nature was considered to be a neutral object of study, and efforts were made to assure

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that the research was done as objectively and as free from social ambitions as possible. For a while, it seemed again possible to begin scienti¤c expeditions to explore the natural world in East Karelia. The paths trod earlier by Elias Lönnrot, I. K. Inha, and Ilmari Kianto were there to be further investigated; the unknown was out there— it had only to be explored. After the war was lost, however, most of Karelia and its natural world was lost as well to the Soviet Union, including a major part of the national parks founded in 1938. The network of nature reserves was then to be completed on the basis of a different geopolitical reality. Today, the question of Karelia is open again; its natural world is still waiting to be explored, and the attitudes of natural scientists and conservationists are strikingly similar to those of sixty years ago.33 The natural world of Karelia is to be conserved by the founding of new national parks in the wilderness that has survived Soviet socialism. According to recent plans, 5 to 10 percent of the total land area in Karelia is slated for conservation.34 State-owned land can be cheaply brought under the of¤cial control of state conservation administration. The issues of economic restructuring and of the survival of local communities are beyond the interests of the conservationists.35 Finland’s postwar industrialization and economic growth were achieved by exploiting the nation’s natural resources and, later, by marketing an image of Finland as a bridge between East and West. The proudly presented image of Finland as a bridge, however, is really based on the fact that both East and West have viewed Finland as an economic threat created by the opportunistic policies fashioned by the economic elite. In Western European eyes, Finland has heavily supported its export industry and devalued the Finnish mark with apparent disregard for the country’s economic integration with Western Europe. In Eastern European eyes, Finland appears to be a “robber who has long bene¤ted from bilateral trade” with the former Soviet Union.36 Since the 1960s, the expansion of both industrial forest landscapes and nature reserves in Finland has led to several critical waves of counterreactions. The counterreactions have run the gamut from

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proposals for alternative multiple-use forestry to objections to the social relations that underlie industrial wood processing.37 The core idea, however, of two different uses of the forest—one for industry and one for nature—remains in place. This is because of the strong institutional powers that support these different uses. “Nature” for nature conservationists still exists as lists of endangered species. The principal motive for expanding the conservation programs is to assure the survival of threatened eskers, wetlands, rapids, strands, minor lakes, and peatlands.38 In the 1986–91 debate over the preparation of the Wilderness Act, challenges were posed to this idea of two different uses for the forest. One challenge emerged from a con¶ict focussed on the timberline forests, when it emerged that there were two different conceptions of erämaa, or wilderness. The Finnish word erämaa, one of the oldest words in the Finnish language, refers to hunting grounds beyond the sphere of daily village life. Erämaa, as represented in Pekka Halonen’s famous painting and as expressed in traditional hunting practices, refers to the natural world around us, to a realm in which we act. Despite this Finnish national construct of wilderness, the committee that prepared the Wilderness Act drew upon a different idea of wilderness that had informed similar legislation in the early 1960s in Australia and the United States. Thus, the idea of Finnish wilderness was bypassed in favor of an imported Western idea. The northern forest question became a conservation issue focussed on the Arctic lands north of the Lappish forest regions. The issue of taiga use was transformed into conservation of the tundra.39 The global penetration of a dualistic view of nature is evidence of the pervasiveness of the Western science-dominated culture we have adopted. The abstractions of Descartes, Galileo, Bacon, and Newton form the basis of our understanding of nature to such an extent that we feel confused when, for example, answering the innocent questions of children about the nature of the world and life. J.H. van den Berg gives an example of the cultural threats to innocence, of the domination of techne over poesis, which can be quoted

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here as a closing reminder of the world beyond the stereotypes we take for granted, of a world still open to creativity: “Why are the leaves red, Dad?” “Because it is so beautiful, child. Don’t you see how beautiful it is, all these autumn colors?” There is no truer answer. That is how the leaves are red. An answer which does not invoke questions, which does not lead the child into an endless series of questions, to which each answer is a threshold. The child will hear later on that a chemical reaction occurs in those leaves. It is bad enough, then; let us not make the world uninhabitable for the child too soon.40

Notes 1. Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values (Cambridge, 1974), p. 112. 2. Ibid., pp. 109–12; J. R. Short, Imagined Country: Society, Culture, and Environment (London, 1991), pp. 5–27. 3. Tuan (1974); N. Evernden, “The Ambigious Landscape,” Geographical Review, no. 2 (1981): 147–57; M. Heiman, The Quiet Evolution: Power, Planning, and Pro¤ts in New York State (New York, 1988), pp. 188–92. 4. See R. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, 1967); M. Heiman, “Production Confronts Consumption: Landscape Perception and Social Con¶ict in the Hudson Valley,” Environment and Planning, Society and Space, no. 7 (1989): 165–78. 5. For a detailed elaboration of these issues, see W. L. Thomas, ed., Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (Chicago, 1956); I. Hustich, ed., “A Symposium on Man’s In¶uence on Nature in Finland,” Fennia 85 (1960). 6. See, for example, S. Kaul, “Integrating an Ecological Perspective into Urban and Regional Planning—from Negotiation Ecology to LifeRenewing Practice,” in One Earth—One World: Report from a Research Policy Conference on Environment and Development in Oslo, March 22– 23 (Oslo, 1988), pp. 217–28; S. Kaul, ed., Fysisk planlegging i forvandling. Natur-struktur-hverdagsliv (Stockholm, 1990); C. Katz and A. Kirby, “In the Nature of Things: The Environment and Everyday Life,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, no. 3 (1991):

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259–71; A. Buttimer, “Woodland Polyphony,” in Society and the Environment: A Swedish Research Perspective, ed. U. Svedin and B. H. Aniansson (Dordrecht, 1992), pp. 177–98. 7. See, for example, Evernden (1981); D. Matless, “Nature, the Modern, and the Mystic: Tales from Early Twentieth Century Geography,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, no. 3 (1991): 272–86; R. Bordessa, “Geography, Postmodernism, and Environmental Concern,” Canadian Geographer, no. 2 (1993): 147–56. 8. See D. Cosgrove, “Environmental Thought and Action: Pre-modern and Post-modern,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, no. 3 (1990): 344–58. 9. Quoted, for example, in Cosgrove (1990); C. J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, 1967). See also T. Kaila, Bruno (The Story of Giordano Bruno) (Helsinki, 1990). 10. Georg Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature: Or the Physical Geography Modi¤ed by Human Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). 11. Ibid.; D. Lowenthal, Introduction to Man and Nature, by George Perkins Marsh (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). 12. Eino Leino, Elämäni kuvakirja (Helsinki, 1979), pp. 187–98. 13. Pentti Saarikoski, Euroopan reuna (Helsinki, 1982), pp. 104–5. See also P. T. Karjalainen, Geodiversity as a Lived World: On the Geography of Existence (Joensuu, 1986); P. T. Karjalainen, Ympäristön eletty mieli (Joensuu, 1987), p. 25. 14. These include, for example, N. Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (Oxford, 1984); K. R. Olwig, Nature’s Ideological Landscape: A Literary and Geographic Perspective on Its Development and Preservation on Denmark’s Jutland Heath (London, 1984); D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels, eds., The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge, 1989); D. J. Porteous, Landscapes of the Mind: Worlds of Sense and Metaphor (Toronto, 1990); “Geojournal: A Special Issue on Cultural Variations in Concepts of Nature,” Geojournal, no. 2 (1992): 99–172; W. Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York, 1996); R. Peet and M. Watts, eds., Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements (London, 1996); E. Berglund, Knowing Nature, Knowing Science: An Ethnography of Local Environmental Activism (Cambridge, 1997). 15. See, for example, K. Eder, “The Rise of Counter-culture Movements

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against Modernity: Nature as a New Field of Class Struggle,” Theory, Culture, and Society 7 (1990): 21–47; Ilmo Massa and Raimo Sairinen, eds., Ympäristökysymys: Ympäristöuhkien haaste yhteiskunnalle (Helsinki, 1991); G. Spaargaren and A. Moll, “Sociology, Environment, and Modernity: Ecological Modernization as a Theory of Social Change,” Society and Natural Resources, no. 3 (1992): 1–24; Bordessa (1993). 16. See Karjalainen (1986); K. R. Olwig, “The Nordic Environment: Identity and Symbolism: The Insider’s and Outsider’s View of the Landscape,” in Built Environment, Identity, European Integration, ed. N. Vakkilainen (Helsinki, 1991), pp. 127–37. 17. Compare, for example, L. Vilkka, “Onko luonto ilman ihmistä arvoton?” Suomen Luonto, no. 10 (1991): 10–11; and T. Lindholm, “Aarniometsäkartoituksesta metsien suojeluun,” Ympäristönsuojelu, no. 2 (1992): 34; with P. Vartiainen and H. Vesajoki, “Ekologisen maantieteen haasteista,” Saimaalta Kolille (Joensuu, 1991), pp. 169–96; and P. Rannikko, “Paikalliset ympäristöristiriidat: ympäristösosiologinen näkökulma,” Alue ja Ympäristö, no. 2 (1991): 34–41. 18. Ari Lehtinen, “Northern Natures: A Study of the Forest Question Emerging within the Timber-Line Con¶ict in Finland,” Fennia, no. 1 (1991): 132–35; see also Rannikko (1991). 19. See, for example, Ilmo Massa, “Suunnistus ympäristösosiologiaan,” in Ympäristökysymys: Ympäristöuhkien haaste yhteiskunnalle, ed. Ilmo Massa and Raimo Sairinen (Helsinki, 1991); Bordessa (1993). 20. Elias Lönnrot, “1. matka v. 1828,” in Matkat 1828–1844 (Espoo, 1980), pp. 11–115. 21. E. von Berg, Kertomus Suomenmaan metsistä 1859 (Helsinki, 1988); J. Raumolin, The Problem of Forest-Based Development as Illustrated by the Development Discussion, 1850–1918 (Helsinki, 1990). 22. Urho Kekkonen, Onko maallamme malttia vaurastua? (Helsinki, 1952). 23. I. Hustich, Råvaruförsörjningen i en värld som förändras (Helsingfors, 1954). 24. A. E. Nordenskiöld, Per Brahes minne, quoted in R. Hult, “National park i Finland,” Geogra¤ska Föreningens Tidskrift 3 (1891): 267–69; R. Kalliola, “Luonnonsuojelusta ja sen tehtävistä,” Suomen Luonto 1 (1941): 15–20; U. Häyrinen, “Luonnon rikkauden ja monipuolisuuden turvaaminen—luonnonsuojelun ydin,” Luonnonsuojelu, ed. R. Taro and U. Häyrinen (Helsinki, 1971), pp. 15–36; J. Laurila, “Vierastan suoraa toimintaa. An interview with Rauno Ruuhijärvi,” Suomen Luonto, no. 8 (1990): 12–15. 25. The Kalevala, originally compiled by Elias Lönnrot and published in Finnish in 1835, translated by Keith Bosley (New York, 1989); A. Jar-

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venpa and M. G. Karni, Sampo the Magic Mill: A Collection of FinnishAmerican Writings (New Brighton, Minn., 1989). 26. Aleksis Kivi, Seven Brothers, 1st edition in Finnish, 1870, trans. Alex Mattson (Helsinki, 1978). 27. Väinö Linna, Täällä pohjantähden alla, 3 vols, 1st edition (Helsinki, 1959–62). 28. See, for example, an analysis of Finnish society through the ¤lms of the Kaurismäki brothers by R. Connah, A Couple of Finns and Some Donald Ducks: Cinema in Society (Helsinki, 1991). 29. J. Ammond, Niskavuoren talosta Juurakon torppaan: Hella Wuolijoen maaseutunäytelmien aatetausta (Helsinki, 1980); P. Lounela, Hella Wuolijoki (Helsinki, 1979). 30. K. Linkola, “Luonnonsuojelumme kehityksestä,” Suomen Luonto 1 (1941): 7–12; N. Söyrinki, “Suomen Luonnonsuojeluyhdistyksen perustaminen ja ensimmäiset toimivuodet,” Suomen Luonto 1 (1941): 71– 76; Kalliola (1941). 31. Linkola (1941), 15–17. 32. “Terra: A Special Issue on Geopolitics with Contributions by Pentti Eskola, Kaarlo Linkola, Ilmari Välikangas, Väinö Auer, and Leo Aario,” Terra, no. 4 (1941); see also A. Paasi, “Political Geography around the World VIII: The Rise and the Fall of Finnish Geopolitics,” Political Geography Quarterly, no. 1 (1990): 53–65. 33. Cf. the issues of Suomen Luonto above. 34. Ari Lehtinen, “Questions on Environment and Democracy within the Northern Boreal Forestry: The Finnish Forest Con¶ict Becoming an International Issue,” in The Environment and International Security, ed. S. Lodgaard and A. Hjort af Ornäs (Oslo, 1992), pp. 75–84. 35. See, for example, M. Paavilainen, “Suojelualue ainoa keino säilyttää Karjalan uhanalaiset lajit. Kalevalan runokyliä herätetään henkiin suomalais-karjalaisin voimin. Akonlahden kylää elvytetään luonnonsuojelu-alueelle,” Ympäristönsuojelu, no. 2 (1992): 30–33. 36. S. Saarikoski, “In Doubt Do Nothing,” Ydin, nos. 7 and 8 (1992): 2–3. 37. See, for example, O. Saastamoinen, “Problems of Multiple-Use Forestry in the Northern Boreal Zone of Finland,” in Resources and Dynamics of the Boreal Zone, ed. R. W. Wein and I. R. Methven (Ottawa, 1983), pp. 1–6; Y. Haila, T. Ryynänen, and M. Saraste, Ei vettä rantaa rakkaampaa: Puunjalostusteollisuus vesistöjemme pilaajana (Helsinki, 1971); J. Donner-Amnell, “Metsäteollisuus yhteiskunnallisena kysymyksenä Suomessa,” in Ympäristökysymys: Ympäristöuhkien haaste yhteiskunnalle, ed. Ilmo Massa and Raimo Sairinen (Helsinki, 1991). 38. See, for example, E. Joutsamo, “Luonnonsuojelulaki ja metsien

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suojelu,” in Tämä vihreän kullan maa, ed. K. Elo (Helsinki, 1983), pp. 78–87; Lindholm (1992). 39. Lehtinen (1991), pp. 135–42. 40. J. H. van den Berg, The Changing Nature of Man: Introduction to a Historical Psychology (New York, 1975), cited in N. Evernden, The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment (Toronto, 1985), p. 19.

Life in the Borderland Forests The Takeover of Nature and Its Social Organization in North Karelia v Ismo Björn

T

he takeover of the taiga ecosystem by humans can be portrayed by several different narratives, all having a beginning and an end. One narrative could be reduced to the control of the solar energy stored in the forests by an ever-decreasing number of human workers. Another could relate the history as the growth of external input. One method of depicting the history of the region would be to describe the changes in demand; that is to say, what was sought in the area at a given time. Successively, items most demanded from eastern Finland were fur, grain, tar, iron, timber, and wood pulp. Today the most attractive resource of the region consists of the values of nature. This chapter examines humankind’s takeover of nature in a taiga ecosystem and its ecological consequences. The observed changes in the environment are always compared to something that previously existed, so the changes are seen only historically. Not all 49

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changes occurring in the environment are noticed, nor can the signi¤cance of the observed changes be assessed with certainty. The changes are localized, thus making locality the only means of ¤nding answers. Local solutions are always signi¤cant in the broader sense as well. This chapter focuses on the North Karelian Biosphere Reserve,1 situated in the easternmost corner of Finland and the European Union in the area of the municipality of Ilomantsi and the town of Lieksa (see ¤gure 2). The bases of the study are the region’s natural resources and their availability. The magnitude of human takeover of nature and its ecological effects are chie¶y dependent on the forms of energy now employed, the technological level they are based on, and directions governing their use. Technology enables trees, animals, and stones to be transformed into natural resources. The concept of resource includes more than simply that signi¤ed by the concept of natural resource. The notion of what a resource is varies according to time and culture. Resources are dependent on technical development, social, and cultural changes. Resources can be created and destroyed according to technical development and the ability of each to be constructed. Lake ore lost its signi¤cance as a resource when rock iron became cheaper to mine. Peat achieved resource status when the price of crude oil rose in the 1970s. Changing lifestyles and social values determine what objects are resources. The triumph of the timber processing industries has turned the socalled virgin forest into a resource.2 As the level of the takeover of nature has increased, the external factors concerning the region’s natural resources have intensi¤ed, and the control of this takeover has shifted from the local to the supralocal level, which means that decision making has moved outside of the region. Of course, it must be remembered that the local level is not uniform but has, for example, terminals linked to supralocal organizations that are at the same time parts of the local. These include, for instance, workers for enterprises, the Frontier Guard, schools, and so on. The individual has added another element to the cycle of na-

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Figure 2. The North Karelian Biosphere Reserve

ture: a new time frame—human time. Human beings seek to follow their own schedules and divorce themselves from the natural rhythm, for example, daily changes and the change of seasons. The harvesting/slash-and-burn and casual-laborer/smallholder year and day were clearly different from that of the lumberman/forest tractor driver’s year. Humans have introduced alien ¶ora and fauna to the region.

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Some species cannot survive without human care. In their attempts to control nature humans have taken on and been forced to take on tasks that nature previously carried out alone. The human economy, to an ever-increasing degree, has supplanted the natural economy. The changes in the human economy have in general been caused by certain supralocal factors. The bond of the local inhabitant to the utilization of the region’s natural resources has lessened. Today the greater proportion of the region’s inhabitants are no longer directly connected with the acquisition of natural resources of the region. The local response to the altered conditions has ranged from clear expressions of opinion to silent annoyance. Squabbling has been one method employed by inhabitants of remote areas, but as the old patrons have disappeared, concrete dialogue with the decision makers is no longer possible. The local residents have various coping strategies at their disposal. As the possibilities to earn a living have decreased, some have left to seek for their fortunes elsewhere, while others have changed occupations. The history of the North Karelian Biosphere Reserve is examined here by periods. The most signi¤cant periods and factors of change in the environmental history of the North Karelian Biosphere Reserve have been selected and presented in table 1. The focus of this periodical analysis is directed to the prevailing economic form during each epoch, and from this perspective the most important natural resource is examined. Alexander S. Mather has developed a model for the use of a single resource, the forest. He divides forest use into three periods: preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial.3 One danger of an examination based on the changes in the form of economy is its similarity to the theory of evolution in cultural research: in cultures, the levels of development follow one another with the distinctive inevitability of the law of nature, and the weaker give way to the stronger.4 No society is so static, nor are its principles governing the use of nature. The linear concept of history is too simplistic. Environmental history is not linear, nor does it progress in jumps.5

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Table 1. Key factors affecting the state of the environment in the North Karelian Biosphere Reserve Period

Main Economic Form

Stone Hunting, fishing, Age, Iron and gathering Age 1400– Slash-and-burn cultivation, hunting, and fishing 1750– Slash-and-burn cultivation and cattle raising

1900–

1960–

2000–

Human-Induced Changes in Environment Scattered settlements

Small clearings and meadows, forest fires more common Cutting of most oldgrowth forests, forest fires, lakes’ surfaces lowered, clearing of fields and meadows Forestry and small Cuttings, construction farming of waterways and road network Wage labor mainly Swamp draining, roads in the service sec- for forest vehicles, peat tor production, construction of hydroelectric power plants Wage labor mainly Restoration of swamps in the service sec- and streams, ecological tor forestry, management of traditional landscape

State of Nature

“Virgin”

Small changes in forest nature Younger forests, cultural landscapes

Treated areas expand, change in stream and river landscape Drained swamps, regulated waters, conserved and economically used nature Ecologically managed nature

The takeover of nature has been organized in different ways at different times. Village communities have been social organizations for utilizing nature. The villages in the biosphere reserve can be grouped as different production communities by periods according to the most important natural resource involved: for example, agricultural villages, lake ore villages, and lumbering villages. The life spans of villages developed through the exploitation of different resources have been different.

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Hunting and Gathering Economy Approximately ¤fteen thousand years ago, the climate of the globe began to warm; this led to the gradual melting of the glaciers. The new land supported plant, animal, and human life. No actual migratory wave took place, as human beings over time simply spread out on the land opening before them. The slow abatement of the glacial edge led to marked changes in human lifestyles as the game-¤lled grasslands gave way to the less abundant forests. Human beings arrived in northern Fennoscandia about the eighth millennium before present via two routes: from the west along what is now the Norwegian coast and from the east through what is now Finland. The human effect on today’s biosphere reserve thus began over eight thousand years ago. Humans earned their living by utilizing their immediate environment. Early discoveries re¶ect adaptation to the local environment as well as similarities to human settlements in the east and south. These humans hunted, ¤shed, and gathered what was edible directly from nature. Characteristic of the period was the acquisition of many products from the forest. In addition to food, the forest provided fodder, wood for building and fuel, and tools for work and the economy. The effect of the human being on the environment was negligible; we cannot speak of a real takeover of nature at this time. The human economy, rather, sought to adapt to the natural economy. During the period of the wilderness economy, humans lived according to what was available in nature during different seasons to accumulate and enjoy. They used only the solar energy bound to plants and animals. The family gaining its subsistence directly from nature required a large area and an annual cycle to survive. Since nature, in principle, remained the same, and the essential nourishment and other necessities of life were available only in certain places, hunting and gathering locations and dwelling places had to be changed continuously. However, these changes always occurred in the same manner from year to year inside the framework of the annual cycle.6 The forests, mires, and watercourses of the biosphere reserve

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were extremely suitable to the needs of the wilderness economy. This is indicated by the abundance of settlements from the stone, bronze, and early iron ages. Thirty-six Stone Age settlements have been found throughout Ilomantsi; about thirty are located in the biosphere reserve. The wilderness economy—hunting, ¤shing, and gathering, or the so-called Lappish occupations—required a great deal of space and movement. Family size is calculated to have been 5.5 to 6 persons. There was no vacant land at the time, as in principle all land was either used or owned. The term “Lappish” is not primarily bound to an individual’s ethnic origin but rather to the nature of the occupations engaged in. People may change their occupations; hunters may become slash-and-burn cultivators, but their ethnic origins naturally remain the same.7

Agricultural Wilderness Economy Beginning in the eleventh century a.d., new settlers arrived in the region from the south, the shores of Lake Ladoga. Pollen samples from early cultivated plants describe the new forest use forms, and perhaps at the same time a conscious shaping of nature. By means of wilderness cultivation it was possible to increase the production of game in the region. Small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation added to the complexity of the landscape by increasing the proportion of deciduous trees. The forests were cleared by burning the foraging land for moose (Alces alces) and other game animals. Along the hunter’s path, clearings of different ages offered different types of excellent hunting sites. The settlers were slash-and-burn cultivators whose form of economy in itself destroyed the ecological balance of the Lappish occupations of the wilderness economy.8 The life of the ¤rst permanent villages was based on a combination of small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation and wilderness economies. Fixed settlement and distant hunting were effective environmental strategies. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the focus of

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settlement centered around lakes: Ilomantsijärvi, Mekrijärvi, Nuorajärvi, and Sysmäjärvi, as well as the shores of Lake Koitere.9 As the demand for the region’s furs grew in the south, present North Karelia was tied in part to a greater supralocal economy. Gradually the region came under the control of Novgorod, a commercial town and administrative center in Western Russia. At the same time taxation based on the fur trade was a handy supralocal form for exploiting a natural resource. The ancient Karelian fortresses at Havukkakallio and Linnalampi symbolize the competition for the region’s natural resources.

Slash-and-Burn Cultivation Economy Slash-and-burn cultivation was directly based on the use of the standing stock. Whereas solar energy derived from plants and animals had previously been employed, it now became possible for humans to harness the energy stored in biomass. Through ¤re the forest could produce grain. In the ¤rst centuries of the second millennium a.d. a new strain of swidden rye, adapted to the acidic earth, was developed; as a result the time required after clearing the land decreased and the ¤rst harvest could be obtained in three or four years. After cultivation, clearings were left to be afforested naturally. However, derelict swiddened glades also had some other uses: cattle grazed in the grassy meadows, which became lands for berries and game animals. Consequently, the slash-and-burn cultivators had created new types of landscapes, which gradually changed to deciduous forests. The technique of slash-and-burn cultivation permitted the spread of settlement into stark, acidic coniferous forests. The Savonians, a Finnish tribe, spread from the Mikkeli district to other regions after surpassing the limits of sustainable forest use by their overintensive swidden cultivation. Savonian expansion toward the north and northwest ¤rst crossed the border between Sweden and Novgorod set by the 1323 Peace of Pähkinäsaari, then the 1595 border

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of the Täyssinä treaty. One of the consequences of this spreading settlement was that the area of present-day North Karelia was transferred to Swedish control. Swedish domination over the region was con¤rmed by the Peace of Stolbova in 1617. The majority of the region’s earlier inhabitants, the Karelians, another eastern Finnish tribe who were members of the Orthodox Church and who had accepted the rule of Novgorod, moved to the eastern side of the SwedishRussian border. Others continued their journey as far as Tver, a region northwest of Moscow. Not all Karelians, however, left their settlements; some continued to live in the eastern and southeastern sections of Ilomantsi. Nonetheless, the departure of the majority of Karelians opened the region to new settlers. Newcomers from Savo on the Swedish side arrived in Ilomantsi as early as the sixteenth century, but only after the region had come under Swedish domination did greater immigration occur.10 The western slash-and-burn technique employed by the Savonians supplanted the time-consuming eastern Karelian gradual clearing technique, which converted pine forests ¤rst into deciduous forests and then into burned ones. The Savonian settlers engaged in productive slash-and-burn cultivation and established new farms in the region’s predominantly coniferous forests. The improvements made by the Savonian cultivation technology allowed more extensive cultivation than that of the Karelians.11 Reasons for the change in settlement include, for example, religious persecution, changes in the climate, and the lure of Russia. Another explanation could be the better slash-and-burn technique of the Savonians as well as the quick-growing swidden rye. The slash-and-burn cultivators were largely at the mercy of weather conditions and annual grain yields since variations in the size of the harvest were great and other options for earning a living were limited and uncertain. In rainy summers it was not possible to burn the clearings at all. According to Reijo Solantie, the new strain of clearing rye, korpiruis, which was obtained from Russians in the seventeenth century, was the archetype for the Karelian folk poem Sampo, the source of wealth. The Savonians, armed with the new

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slash-and-burn technique and rye strain, ranged as far as the border of the frost risk area, where the failure risk for clearing rye rose to 20 to 25 percent.12 A speci¤c frost risk border existed beyond which settlement based on slash-and-burn was too uncertain. That the advance of the Savonians stopped at this point does not, however, mean that the use of slash-and-burn methods were unknown beyond it. The few risk-free locations were settled ¤rst. The Savonian attempt to settle Hattuvaara in Ilomantsi in the late seventeenth century failed. The village was deserted in the early eighteenth century. Later, Karelians coming from Russia sought to settle the village. They succeeded, in part due to their obsession to make Hattuvaara a vibrant and tax-paying village.13 The explanation for their success may be that the Karelians, in comparison to the Savonians, utilized a wider variety of natural resources. The frost risk border offered space for those whose culture was based on hunting and ¤shing; the border can thus be seen as one dividing the slash-and-burn and hunter cultures.14 The failure of the Savonians was also affected by an exceptionally cold period, the so-called Small Ice Age, which lasted from the mid-sixteenth century until at least the nineteenth century. The coldness reached its lowest level at the end of the seventeenth century. The cooling and instability of the general weather patterns increased the risks of cultivation.15 The slash-and-burn forest was a limited—though renewable— natural resource. Extensive slash-and-burn cultivation changed the environment. The proportion of coniferous forests decreased as birch and alder gained additional growing space. Slash-and-burn agriculture was a pro¤table form of growing grain as long as suf¤cient land suitable for it existed. Ilomantsi still produced enough grain to sell in the latter half of the eighteenth century, but in the early nineteenth century a shortage of unburned forest arose. The slash-and-burn crisis was followed by con¶icts leading to legal suits on rights to swidden. The lack of land for slash-and-burn cultivation also had social consequences. The freeholders attempted to acquire permanent use of their grazing lands. The peasantry and the crown joined forces. In the resulting accords, the bailiff distrib-

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uted the land held commonly by the village among the landowners; the landless were enjoined from the use of slash-and-burn lands and forced to move to more distant and risk-prone forests.16 The class division, which formed the basis for landownership in the peasant villages, ¤nally came about following the “Great Division” of the common land.17 The upper class comprised the owners of large farms; then came the freeholders, the sharecroppers, and the landless. Thereafter, social position was determined by landownership—no longer by the use of the axe, that is, personal labor. The quantitative peak of slash-and-burn production had not, however, yet been reached. In Lieksa slash-and-burn cultivation achieved its highest output in the early 1890s; its signi¤cance as a form of cultivation then decreased rapidly. As a cultivation method, it still continued into the twentieth century. Pastures and meadows created by slash-and-burn cultivation were then given over to grazing. Forest grazing continued even past this point, from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Cattle Raising and Field Cultivation The crisis in the slash-and-burn economy did not surprise the freeholders, who shifted to ¤eld cultivation and cattle raising. The change from extensive to intensive land use was possible only through the exploitation of manure-producing cattle. The ¤eld farmer had to improve the growing conditions of the land and change the environment. Income was dependent on how the crops were to be cultivated and the animals related to the local conditions. For this reason local breeds of farm animals were developed. The ¤eld cultivator maintained the cycle of local energy. The plow brought cultivation from the forest to the ¤eld. Since the ¤elds and the cattle constituted a total entity, the number of animals multiplied. The farmers were soon faced with a production ceiling, since the production of fodder could not be increased because of the shortage in natural meadows. New meadows had to be cleared from mires and banks of water-

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courses. The meadows suitable for producing fodder were scattered in small areas around the settlements. Some were situated tens of kilometers away from the farm. A ¶ourishing meadow economy meant the use of the forests as well as the takeover of natural meadows and the expansion of the strong human in¶uence along the watercourses. The cattle enabled people to participate in the bene¤ts provided by the meadows. In addition to the meadow economy, the picking of leafy fodder also left its mark on the landscape. In the forests the grazing cattle ate the leafy fodder and the young trees near the villages, thus opening up the landscape. The focal point of settlement gradually shifted to the hilltops in the vicinity of good ¤elds. In comparison with slash-and-burn, ¤eld cultivation was less risky. The farmers’ year was the harvest year. Work in the summer season was largely regulated by the start and end of hay harvest. The end of slash-and-burn cultivation and the shift to animal husbandry is generally examined in respect to the freeholder. In this respect, former historical research has ignored the landless population. What were the possibilities of the landless in the new situation? They had to ¤nd a livelihood somewhere and somehow; they could either defy the prohibition on slash-and-burn or conform to the new occupational model. Some of them became wage laborers. For many, the answer was found in lake iron works or the jobs offered by the forest companies.

Supralocal Takeover of Lake Iron Despite their apparently limited quantity, the utilization of iron deposits found in lakes and mires represented an epochal change. Under the wilderness, slash-and-burn, and meadow economies, individuals had still been dependent on the local ecosystem. Now they were able to dissociate themselves from the energy supplied by local production. Food had to be brought to the area from the outside; this represented a transition to industrialized society.18

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There was an abundance of ore in the lakes and mires of eastern Finland for the manufacture of iron. The local bene¤t derived from iron has long traditions. Written reports of its production date from the seventeenth century. The kindling of supralocal interest was linked to the new political situation. As a result of the war of 1808–9, Sweden was forced to cede all of Finland to Russia. The conquest increased Russians’ interest in Finland’s natural resources, and Russian prospectors charted the ore reserves in eastern Finland. The Möhkö ironworks in Ilomantsi were built with Russian capital provided by the markets in St. Petersburg. The small ironworks in Ilaja, Käenkoski, and Pankakoski functioned chie¶y to satisfy domestic demand. Deep in the distant forests, powered by local energy sources, the Möhkö ironworks used charcoal from the area and harnessed the rapids at Möhkönkoski to process the ore mined from sixty-one lakes and the mire at Ilaja. The most important source of the ore was Lake Koitere, where almost 20 percent of the ore required by the ironworks was mined in the years 1870–81. The Koitere ore was rich and pure, its iron content averaged 42 percent, and the phosphorus content was extremely low, about 0.1 percent. From 1870 to 1881 ore was mined from ¤fty-nine lakes, but threefourths of this came from the twelve most important lakes. The work was dif¤cult and dangerous. Women and children were involved, for example, in the mining and charring. The mining, charring, and transport of lake and mire iron provided work for the local residents, but processing the ore required vocational skills these persons did not possess. Thus the ¤rst skilled workers at the Möhkö works came from Russia.19 The mining of lake and mire iron ¶ourished between 1830 and 1910; some of the landless people who had been denied slash-and-burn cultivation found employment in the ironworks. The lifting of ore from lakes and mires affected several socioeconomic levels. On one hand, it led to the establishment of ironworks villages where the income was based on wage labor and the necessities of life were brought in from the outside. The ships carrying iron from the area returned with cheap Russian grain. On the other

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hand, the works required massive amounts of charcoal and ¤rewood. The lifting and transport of lake ore and the supply of mill communities in turn demanded the construction of waterways. Local water power was mainly employed for grinding. The water power was ultimately harnessed for supralocal use. The operations of the ironworks were totally dependent on supralocal demand, chie¶y from the Russian markets. As the demand subsided, the economic basis of mill communities crumbled. Skilled labor moved elsewhere, and the death of the villages appeared to be imminent. The mills controlling large forest areas were then taken over by the forest company W. Gutzeit & Co. in 1909, and the mill communities began to earn their livelihoods from lumbering. The Pankakoski works was converted to the production of cardboard. Möhkö and Käenkoski turned from mill communities to lumbering villages. No actual community sprang up around the small and short-lived Ilaja ironworks. Timber had become a much more important natural resource than lake ore. If lake ore affected only a portion of the region and its inhabitants, then timber production strongly bound the future biosphere reserve to the world economy. Timber buyers approached the region from both east and west. The growing demand for timber in central Europe extended to the area via St. Petersburg as early as the eighteenth century. Timber ¶oated along the Jänisjärvi route was sawed at Läskelä from the 1760s on. Timber was also transported in small amounts toward Petrozavodsk in Russia. Floating along the Pielisjoki and Koitajoki Rivers began in the 1830s.20 The region’s natural resources had been exploited mainly by the Russians until the mid-nineteenth century, but thereafter the situation changed and the Finns became interested in the forests, water power, and ore reserves of eastern Karelia. Scandinavian and English timber ¤rms were also entering eastern Karelia and the coasts of the White Sea. In those areas of eastern Karelia where the waters ¶owed into Finland, the timber was cut and ¶oated to Finland to be sawn and shipped to western Europe. There was suf¤cient work available to local residents until the end of the nine-

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teenth century, but in the early 1900s, during periods of large-scale cutting, lumberjacks and teamsters came to the area from all over Finland and some from Russia as well. The effect of the Russians as the ¤rst supralocal exploiters of the region’s ore and forest reserves could also be observed linguistically: words of Russian origin were used in reference to the lifting and processing of lake ore and timber harvesting.

The Forest in Industrial Use The forest economy gradually acquired a position as the key segment of the economy of eastern Finland. Supralocal forest companies began purchasing land in Ilomantsi in the 1860s. Farms did not become the property of these companies directly but through various intermediaries. Sales of forested land started in the northern section of Ilomantsi, since there were still uncut forests in this remote region. Already there was a shortage of suitable timber, that is, thick trunks, near larger villages. In addition, the unrelenting slash-and-burn cultivation had depleted a considerable part of the region’s forests. The supralocal control over the environment increased as the ownership of the land shifted more and more to the forest companies. These companies saw trees solely or primarily as a commercial product. In practice the sale of forests represented the transfer of the forests away from free use by the local residents. Tenant farmers continued to have certain rights to utilize the forest, for example, cutting for ¤rewood and building materials. The increased value of timber further reduced these rights. When the utilization of the forest (for instance, hunting rights) was largely tied to ownership, the supralocals, after acquiring the land, also governed other forest uses, and local decision-making power over nature diminished. The forests became private property and were utilized according to the laws governing private ownership. Ef¤cient policing prevented unauthorized use. Because the demand for raw timber was huge and the existing

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timber harvest technology was so labor intensive, the forest companies required a large number of local residents capable of working in various lumbering and ¶oating trades. The number of farms dependent on lumbering increased. The industrial utilization of the forest led to a new wave of settlement in Ilomantsi. Villages living off the forest also required services such as schools, shops, and artisans. Various skilled workers from different parts of Finland moved into the region. The form of social organization involved in the takeover of the forest environment was the large-scale lumbering/smallholder village that sprang up in the center of the forest. If the life of the villages is approached from the viewpoint of the inhabitants, then the villages can be de¤ned either as casual-labor/cattle-raising or occasional-labor/cattle-raising villages. Both are more descriptive, for example, than “lumbering/smallholder village”; this term would primarily evoke a romantically constructed image of “free men of the forest.” The term common laborer lacks romantic charm; it describes, however, a multiplicity of ways to earn a living. Cattle raising demonstrated the daily role played by women in acquiring income. In fact, it was they—not the men at work elsewhere—who also maintained the village. Occasional work was typi¤ed by its temporary nature, and cattle raising by the small number of animals. It must, however, be remembered that the roads and waterways built using casual labor created the infrastructure upon which the forest economy was based. The villages in the future biosphere reserve broke down in the 1930s when the largest farms were divided into smallholder farms. At the same time the state forester and crown tenant farms became independent. The state had long played a dual role in the use of the forest; would it now concentrate on settlement or forest management, agriculture or forestry? In practice, the independence of the farms served to promote both alternatives.21 In practice the control of the timber, that is, the cutting, in state-owned and private forests was organized through the construction of temporary lumber camps or barracks, which during

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the logging season housed dozens of lumberjacks and teamsters. The men went home only during longer slack periods, and the women were responsible for maintaining the actual household. The lumbering/cattle-raising village largely followed the natural cycle. During the winter the men worked in the forests, during the summer in agriculture, and during the spring and fall engaged in other labor. The desire by human beings to conquer “natural time” can be seen in their attempts to dam the ¶owing water of the ¶oatways. The timber harvesting technique was based on muscle and horsepower. The timber was ¶oated along constructed ¶oatways. The human effect on the construction of the routes extended as far as the small streams constituting the source for the rivers. First the routes were cleared of vegetation and fallen trees. The largest rocks were removed from the currents, and channels were cut into the steepest rapids. Bends were straightened by dredging canals through headlands. The old channel was blocked in order to direct the water into the new one. The stream was equipped with various ¶oat devices to make it suitable for ¶oating, regulating the water ¶ow and preventing the logs from running aground. As stream ¶oating was based on ample spring ¶ooding, attempts were made to hasten the coming of spring by spreading earth, ash, gravel, or anthills on the frozen waters to further the melting of ice.22 The ¶oat routes are at the same time indicative of the increasing supralocal power over waterways as well as forests. The ¶oat companies controlled the water and its ¶ow. With the expansion of the ¶oat network, even more distant forests were turned into sources of timber. In addition, the human in¶uence over nature extended farther and farther. The introduction of fossil fuels revolutionized the entire process of timber production. During the 1960s timber transport shifted from water to land, and the labor force became skilled. The lumberjack equipped with a chainsaw replaced the rustic forest worker and ¶oater, while the truck replaced the horse and the ¶oat logger. There was a reorganization of the control of the main natural resource, timber. The majority of the villages founded on forestry

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and casual labor lost their signi¤cance when the workers began to be transported great distances to cut the forest. A few lumbering villages replaced the logging camps and the scattered forestry/cattleraising villages. The largest portion of the forestry/cattle-raising villages were transformed into villages producing labor for the factories of southern Finland and even Sweden. Pertti Rannikko divides the mechanization into light and heavy mechanization phases.23 In the light phase of mechanization, forestry was not year-round but still followed the annual cycle. Farm tractors spent a part of the year in the ¤elds and part in the forest. The coming of the new machinery had social repercussions. Horsebased timber harvesting was chie¶y the preserve of smallholders and the landless population. The tractors once again brought the large landowners to the forest. The smallholders were in no position to make large investments. The phase of light mechanization marked the end of stream ¶oating. The number of ¶oatways dredged and straightened mechanically by tractors in a few years was greater than in the previous hundred years. Wooden ¶oat walls were supplanted by concrete dams. At the same time, roads for forest vehicles were cut through the forests, replacing the dredged streams and rivers of the ¶oat network. The forest vehicles made it possible to fell trees in watershed areas that had previously been dif¤cult to reach. The vehicles were also able to transport small trees and birch that did not ¶oat well. Birch was increasingly in demand in the 1960s when new plants using birch pulp were built. During the last stages of ¶oating, logs were ¶oated in bunches rather than separately. During the heavy mechanization phase, machines were developed speci¤cally for forestry. It was against common sense to have expensive machinery standing idle, so forestry became a year-round business. Since small trees were not being utilized, there existed greater use for the machines. Thus connection between forestry and the annual and daily cycles was severed. The machinery favored by forest companies brought a new vocational group to the forest, the forest vehicle contractor.

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Human in¶uence over nature expanded. The objective of timberproduction forestry was to increase timber production to its limits. This was to be accomplished by taking control of the entire forest ecosystem, by extending the human economy and human time to the forest.24 The natural forest was to become the industrial forest, an investment to be grown. In addition, the forest surface area needed to be increased and growth brought to the so-called undercapacity forests. This led to forest ditching. Ditches had been dug for decades, but machines increased ditching radically. Ditching plows and later excavation tractors endeavored in turning mires into forest. Unditched mires were transformed into resources in the early 1970s during the so-called Oil Crisis, when the price of imported energy rose dramatically. The peat resources in the mires of the future biosphere reserve led to the founding of a factory producing peat briquettes. The jobs offered by the exploitation of peat reserves were considered to represent a new role, for example, for the village of Hattuvaara.25 These expectations proved too optimistic. With the drop in the price of energy, opportunities to sell peat to energy producers diminished, and the number of jobs never reached the planned level. The local briquette factory had little more than a test run.26 The peat boom, however, meant the draining of a number of mires to meet the needs of peat production. The production of peat for heating still goes on; peat is shipped to the Imatran Voima power plant in Joensuu. Only a fraction of the product is used in Ilomantsi. In contrast to timber production, peat production is still dependent on the annual cycle and the weather. The present technique makes only the mining of dry peat pro¤table. The construction of the Pamilo power plant and the regulation of water level extended the human time concept to a larger lake, Koitere. The hydropower provided by the Koitajoki River and Lake Koitere did not bene¤t the local level but was transformed into electrical energy and fed into the national grid. Thus it was used to a great advantage by the supralocal owners of hydroelectric power, the forest companies Enso-Gutzeit and Kaukas Inc., the power

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company Imatran Voima Inc., and the mining company Outokumpu Inc. The largest of these owners, Enso-Gutzeit Inc., needed electricity for its newsprint mill, which was being built at Summa, in the Kymi River valley.27 The energy from the Koitajoki River was thus exploited hundreds of kilometers away, for the most part in southern Finland. In contrast, on the local level the erection of the power plant meant an upheaval for nature and the residents of the region. The shores of Lake Koitere were cleared of their inhabitants and all the trees were clear-cut. The waters of the Koitajoki and Koitere were channeled to ¶ow according to human directives along a new route built by humans. The old Koitajoki riverbed was left almost entirely dry. The variation in the surface of the Koitere basin was set at 2.5 meters. The construction was a catastrophe to the natural stock of ¤sh in the watercourse. In the 1990s Enso decided to sell the shores of Koitere, which it had previously clear-cut. The regulated basin is marketed as Koitere, the lake of a hundred islands of Kanteletar fame, though it is now a totally different lake from the days when Mateli Kuivalatar sang the poems found in the epic on its shores. Technical development has made it possible to cut ties between the workplace and home. The exploiters of natural resources are today more often supralocal. The utilization of the resources no longer requires residence in the region; no new villages need be created. The gold deposits found at Pampalo in the biosphere reserve will bene¤t the Outokumpu Finnmines mining company, and the contractors will come from other parts of Finland. No new settlements will be established around the mine, nor will any permanent construction be required. The mining of ore will last just a few years, and thereafter the pit will be covered. The local residents are being offered only temporary auxiliary work. The same is increasingly the case in respect to the forests. Forest vehicle contractors from all over Finland can be seen in the region’s forests. Once the bond was severed between timber harvesting and settlement, cultivation on small farms decreased and timber trees were planted instead. In one sense, the forest has reconquered cultivated

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land. This is not, however, a natural forest but an industrialized one that was created by humans and functions in accordance with human time. The villages have done their job as timber harvesters, and there are no other natural resources to be exploited in the vicinity that require their existence. In the production sense, the villages are simply expendable. Where will new tasks for the villages be found? Will the biosphere reserve remain alive, and if so, how will this be accomplished?

Nature as a Postindustrial Resource for Keeping Villages Alive? In respect to the use of the forest, there was a shift in the 1990s to postindustrial forest use. According to Alexander S. Mather, the postindustrial view of forestry characteristically questions the validity of the notion that the forest is simply a producer of timber.28 This change in the use of the forest has not been discussed enough. It was calculated in the 1990s that the northern forest economy was forced to convert one-tenth of the forest area to other purposes.29 Environmental services, such as recreation and conservation, have supralocally become increasingly important. The use of both private and public forests has become more dif¤cult as a result of the public discussion and social regulation. It also seems that local residents have gained some power, or at least a voice. During the period of industrial forestry, the National Parks and Forest Service and the forest companies shaped the environment of the region to the needs of the forest economy. Forests were cut through the end of the 1980s, ignoring the wishes of local residents. In 1995 the National Parks and Forest Service began to explore the possibilities of participatory planning of forest use. The so-called principle of regional ecology planning was adopted from the United States, and through this policy the National Parks and Forest Service has attempted, together with the local residents, to plan cuttings on state-owned land. This participatory

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planning may in coming years be extended to the use of company forests as well. The North Karelian Biosphere Reserve presently includes virgin forests and unharnessed rivers in addition to traditional timberlands. They have become new resources that the supralocals are willing to purchase. This indicates that nature has become something that can be reconstructed. The state has restored forest ditches and established preserved areas, and the forest companies are starting to reconstruct some of the mires that were ditched and fertilized in the 1960s and 1970s in order to produce timber. One consequence of the wave of migration was that some farm owners moved from the area. Often the bond of those moving away from the area was not broken, as the home farm or a part of it was retained for their own use. Since the utilization of nature in Finland has largely been connected to landownership, owning land has permitted individuals to return to their home farms as vacationers to enjoy the bounties of nature, for example, in the form of hunting and ¤shing. Along with this migration from the region there was another kind of migration: an urban move to the countryside during summer. In the early 1970s an increasing number of urban dwellers found themselves enticed by Ilomantsi and Lieksa as vacation locations. The biosphere reserve has attracted a growing number of summer residents. As the level of conveniences in summer cottages and the amount of leisure time have risen, summer cottages have offered more and more longer-term housing. The villages are ¤lled with vacationers or long-term visitors who are connected to residential areas and towns. A group—pataroijat—has arisen from these summer residents to help keep the villages alive. The actual production bond of the pataroijat to the area has been cut, and their connection to nature is different from that of the year-round local residents. Some of the villages in the biosphere reserve have as a result of this taken on a new role. Leisure-time residency has permitted many to return to their roots and the local lifestyle. This new resident, or pataroija, still remains an outsider in the eyes of the lo-

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cal people. In eastern Finnish usage the verb pataroida/pattaroida refers to parasitical existence or residence.30 Thus the term patarointi contains a pejorative meaning and constitutes a slightly mocking term. Through its use, the local user expresses an opinion about something antagonistic—in this case, a new model for using nature. The extension of the human economy and control of nature to the most distant parts of the country can also been seen as a trend to “museumize,” to preserve a portion of the so-called archetypal nature. De¤ning some region as a preservation area at the same time limits the way the natural economy is permitted or expected to operate. National parks and other preserve areas constitute yet another supralocal means of controlling remote areas of the country. Preserve areas can primarily be seen as serving supralocal needs. Locally, preservation has mainly been opposed by those seeking to promote the human economy. They view preservation as a threat. Still, the preservation area holds local signi¤cance, if we disregard thinking grounded solely on the basis of the market economy. Preserve area attracts new residents who crave recreation, hunting and ¤shing opportunities, berries and mushrooms, and the “local way of life.”

Notes 1. The UN Educational, Scienti¤c, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, initiated in 1971 the Man and Biosphere (MaB) project. The objective of the project is to preserve the biosphere, or the earth’s living space, as a viable environment for ¶ora and fauna, including human beings. The operational subjects of the MaB program are biosphere reserves. A biosphere reserve comprises two parts: a virgin, protected core and a transition zone set aside for economic and production operations. All in all there are over three hundred biosphere reserves in the world, two of them in Finland. 2. In respect to the term resource, see, for example, A. S. Mather and K. Chapman, Environmental Resources (Singapore, 1995). 3. A. S. Mather, “Pressures on British Forest Policy: Prologue to the PostIndustrial Forest?” Area (23 March 1991): 245–46.

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4. Kaisa Korpijaakko, Saamelaisten oikeusasemasta Ruotsi-Suomessa: Oikeushistoriallinen tutkimus Länsi-Pohjan Lapin maankäyttöoloista ja oikeuksista ennen 1700-luvun puoliväliä (Mänttä, 1989), pp. 48–49. 5. Carville Earle, “The Myth of the Southern Soil Miner: Macrohistory, Agricultural Innovation and Environmental Change,” in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 176–77. 6. For the annual cycle, see Kustaa Vilkuna, “Mikä oli lapinkylä ja sen funktio?” in Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, vol. 51 (Porvoo-Helsinki, 1971), pp. 215–16; Korpijaakko (1989), p. 185. 7. Vilkuna (1971), pp. 216–17. 8. Matti Sarmela, Suomen perinneatlas: Suomen kansankulttuurin kartasto, vol. 2 (Helsinki, 1994), pp. 20–23. 9. Ismo Björn, Suur-Ilomantsin historia: Enon, Ilomantsin ja Tuupovaaran historia vuoteen 1860 (Pieksämäki, 1991), p. 99. 10. Ibid., p. 106. 11. Sven-Erik Åström, Natur och byte: Ekologiska synpunkter på Finlands ekonomiska historia (Ekenäs, 1978), pp. 27–28, 135. 12. Reijo Solantie, The Climate of Finland in Relation to Its Hydrology, Ecology, and Culture, Finnish Meteorological Institute Contributions, no. 2 (Helsinki, 1990), pp. 41–43, 98. 13. Ismo Björn, Ryssät ruotsien keskellä: Ilomantsin ortodoksit ja luterilaiset 1700–luvun puolivälistä 1800-luvun puoliväliin, Karjalan tutkimuslaitoksen julkaisuja, no. 106 (Joensuu, 1993), pp. 153–55. 14. Solantie (1990), p. 98. 15. Eino Jutikkala, “Ilmaston vaikutuksia Pohjoismaiden väestö- ja asutushistoriaan,” in Societas Scientiarum Fennica, årsbok/vuosikirja, LI B, no. 7, 1972–1973 (Helsinki, 1975), pp. 3, 9–11; Kimmo Katajala, Nälkäkapina: Veronvuokraus ja talonpoikainen vastarinta Karjalassa 1683–1697, Historiallisia tutkimuksia, no. 185 (Helsinki, 1994), p. 292. 16. Björn (1991), pp. 319–20. 17. The “Great Division” refers to the general reparceling of farmland in Finland. In some respects, it resembled the English Enclosures of the Early Modern Age. 18. Paavo Kallio, “Ihminen Lapin ekosysteemin osana: Vanhaa ja uutta Lappia,” Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, vol. 51 (Porvoo, 1971), p. 100. 19. Björn (1991), pp. 349–68. 20. Ismo Björn, “Kohti koillista—Enso-Gutzeit ja Karjalan puu,” Gutzeitin Karjalat: Enso-Gutzeit Oy itäisen Suomen mahtitekijänä, PohjoisKarjalan historiallisen yhdistyksen vuosikirja, vol. 4, ed. Juha Pohjonen (Joensuu, 1996), pp. 7–10; Markku Kuisma, Metsäteollisuuden maa:

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Suomi, metsät ja kansainvälinen järjestelmä 1620–1920 (Jyväskylä, 1993), pp. 102–03. 21. Pertti Rannikko, Metsäteollisuus ja kylä: Suurmetsätalouden vaikutus maaseudun asutusrakenteeseen 1900-luvulla, Karjalan tutkimuslaitoksen julkaisuja, no. 81 (Joensuu, 1987), pp. 25–30. 22. Hanna Snellman, Tukkilaisten tulo ja lähtö: Kansatieteellinen tutkimus Kemijoen metsä- ja uittotyöstä, Scripta Historica, vol. 25 (Oulu, 1996), p. 65. 23. Rannikko (1987), pp. 25–30. 24. Ilmo Massa, Pohjoinen luonnonvalloitus: Suunnistus ympäristöhistoriaan Lapissa ja Suomessa (Tampere, 1994), pp. 223–24. 25. Hattuvaaran kylätutkimus (Ilomantsi, 1978), pp. 2–3. 26. Asko Jämsén, Halkometsistä sahoille ja soille: VAPO 50 vuotta 1940– 1990 (Jyväskylä, 1990), pp. 227–28. 27. Ismo Björn, Enon historia 1860–1967 (Jyväskylä, 1994), pp. 507–11. 28. Mather (1991), pp. 245–46. 29. Business (31.8.1996), p. 61. 30. R. E. Nirvi, Kiihtelysvaaran murteen sanakirja, vol. 6 (Lappeenranta), p. 1408; Karelian language dictionary / Karjalan kielen sanakirja, vol. 4 / Lexica Societas Fenno-Ugricae, XVI, 4, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja, no. 25 (Helsinki, 1993), p. 182.

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ommon thinking outside the forestry profession envisages the industrial utilization of wood as a major cause for the depletion of forest resources and, consequently, environmental degradation. Thailand offers evidence of a different type of relationship whereby environmental degradation, and deforestation in particular, is mainly caused by political, economic, and other societal factors. Conversely, the predicted gradual improvement of the environment and increase in the forested area in Thailand are also trends that will not depend on the forestry sector alone but on more general national policy. This positive development will thus basically be, in its causality, not unlike the earlier negative one in which forestry institutions did not primarily determine the utilization of natural resources but, instead, acted as agents for the changing needs of society. Agricultural land (¤elds and pastures) cover more than 39 percent of the total area. 74

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Deforestation in Thailand Thailand, with a population of more than 60 million and a total land area of 198,215 square miles (513,115 sq. km), is a developing country showing until very recently one of the fastest rates of economic growth in the world. Like its neighbors in the peninsula of IndoChina, shown in ¤gure 3, it is characterized by a tropical monsoon climate and deciduous or evergreen tropical forest vegetation. Agricultural land (¤elds and pastures) now covers more than 40 percent of the total area. Ecologically, rice farming has traditionally constituted the core of the economy at both the national and household level. However, the contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product (GDP) has already fallen to 12 percent in this rapidly industrializing country. Nevertheless, half of the labor force is still working in agriculture. Productivity is, in contrast, higher in industry, which achieved a double-digit growth rate in many years during the 1990s and accounts for 37 percent of GDP.1 The economic prosperity of Thailand can be measured both in economic growth, initially mainly in agriculture, and in a decrease in the percentage of the population living below the poverty line from 30 percent in 1976 to 25 percent in 1988. A study by S. Tongpan and colleagues, which presents and analyzes the ¤gures cited here, also points out the underlying factors that are characteristic of the development situation in Thailand.2 First, economic growth in Thailand was not achieved through increased agricultural production per unit of land area but, instead, by clearing abundant forestland for export-oriented agriculture. This contributed to a low production cost, alleviation of poverty, and reduction of the number of landless people—without any large-scale land reform. Between 1950 and 1988, as much as 16 million hectares of forestland was converted to agricultural use, resulting in tripling of the total area of cropland in the whole country. The forest cover has decreased from 62 percent in 1950 to less than 25 percent today, most of which is already classi¤ed as protected forest.3 Remoteness, poor accessibility, infertile soil, and the pressure

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Figure 3. Thailand

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toward increased forest conservation and protection make, in economic terms, the supply price of forestland from a farmer’s viewpoint continuously higher. As a result, the size of farms and their average production per hectare have started to decrease. A group of experts at the Thai Development Research Institute (TDRI) suggests a number of mitigating factors that in Thailand have prevented a cessation or reversal of the trend of continuous economic growth. Most important is the decline in the annual population growth from 3 percent in the early 1960s to less than 1.5 percent today. Second, industrial centers, notably Bangkok, have absorbed much of the agricultural labor force, which, however, still constitutes 57 percent of the total. The third mitigating factor is the off-farm employment in irrigated areas, particularly on the central plains.4 Despite a decrease in the percentage of the population living below the poverty line and other positive indicators of the Thai economy, the income gap continues to widen. Another, even more serious consideration is that the environment is still deteriorating at an alarming rate. The aim of the present study is to analyze, mainly using data from the literature, some of the causes of deforestation in Thailand and to reach general conclusions that also could help to predict expected future changes in forest cover in Thailand and elsewhere.

Historical Periods of Thai Forest Policies Environmental degradation in Thailand is best evidenced by decrease in forest cover. For a proper understanding of the relationship between the forests and the environment as a whole on one hand and economic land use on the other, a historical overview of the development of forest management in Thailand is necessary. A previous study by Kamon Pragtong and David E. Thomas has been used for identifying the following four distinct phases in Thai forest policy development.5

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Forests in National Institution Building (1896–1953) The Royal Forest Department (RFD) was established in 1896. Its main purpose was to administer the control of and revenue collection in the teak forests of northern Thailand. At the turn of the century, Thailand was an independent country with absolute monarchy as its form of government, but the forestry administration was organized following the British colonial pattern and was led initially by foreign experts. The central authority in Thailand (with Bangkok as the capital since the late eighteenth century) had always fought for sovereignty not only against external threats but also within the country against regional power centers led by local nobles. Forestry administration— and the taxation it supported—strengthened the central authority politically. In 1899, all forestland was proclaimed government property, and timber extraction without payments to the RFD was prohibited. These regulations were mainly enforced in the teak forests of the north, and they had little effect on the dry evergreen or dry dipterocarp forests of the northeast or the moist evergreen forests of the south. Forestry legislation, strengthening of the regional organization of the RFD, and other institution-building activities characterized the period immediately after the peaceful transfer to constitutional monarchy in 1932. Up to the early 1950s the population density remained low (averaging 33 persons per square kilometer), and the forest cover varied from 70 percent in the north to 60 percent in the central region and 40 percent in the northeast and south. Forests in Economic Growth (1954–1967) Forest products, particularly teak logs and processed teak, continued to be among the leading items for export earnings in Thailand after the 1950s. National ¤ve-year plans guided economic development, beginning with the ¤rst plan in 1962–66. Among other things, this plan established 50 percent as a national target for

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forest cover; in subsequent plans up to the present day this target has been 40 percent.6 In the 1950s, the RFD still had the overall responsibility for logging control, but a new commercial body, the Forest Industry Organization (FIO), was formed in 1956 to take over the governmentcontrolled forest industry activities and also forest management tasks, such as teak plantation establishment. Beginning in 1962, national parks and other conservation areas were also established; their management became one of the most visible tasks of the RFD. Forest gazetting, that is, converting reserved forestland of¤cially to government control, was also given to RFD as a special task during this period. Con¶icts over the control of land soon emerged, and a highly controversial situation developed in the mountain areas, where shifting cultivation was practiced by ethnic minorities (either with a long history of residence within the national borders or, in other cases, with a migrant pattern of settlement in Thailand as well as in Burma and Laos).7 During this period a rapid change started in the forests of Thailand; however, the main cause was not any traditional form of land use but the rapidly expanding commercial agriculture of the ethnic Thai lowland population. By 1967, the forest cover had dropped to 48 percent on average, but the deforestation rate was slow in the north, where most industrial forest activities took place (as much as 40 percent of the land area of the north was under forest concessions, which did not yet occur in other regions). Forests in Environmental Degradation (1968–1980s) Commercial logging reached its peak after 1968 when thirtyyear concessions were granted for the ¤rst time.8 Soon half of the total area of the country was covered by concessions in which tree planting was required but was often poorly implemented. The period of democratic government from 1973 to 1976 pardoned the illegal settlers in reserved forests; this probably led to further forest clearing for agricultural land use. However, this period

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also saw an expansion of the conservation area system. By 1980, 8 percent of the total land area was already under protection for conservation purposes. Political instability resulting from the violent military coup in 1976 led to the formation of antigovernment forces. The forestry administration found itself on the side of the military, which tried to suppress antigovernment activities by deliberately speeding up the disappearance of the forest, which protected the rebels. Outside and inside the concessions, illegal logging continued to be a considerable problem. Cutting of valuable timber trees illegally was, and still is, mostly done by villagers who act under the protection of powerful persons with strong commercial and political connections. It has been estimated that during the height of commercial logging, between 50 and 75 percent of the timber originated from illegal operations.9 Forest clearing for agricultural crops reached its peak during this period, and the RFD had no power to stop it. Other government branches actively supported forest clearing to speed up economic growth and political stability. Roads constructed for defense or centralized control were additional factors that brought about settlement and forest clearing. Forests Today Through the 1980s Thailand experienced a period of political stability that was interrupted by a military coup in 1991. However, this coup caused a strong popular reaction against the military and initiated a rapid new democratization process, the ¤nal outcome of which still is to be seen. As an attempt to halt deforestation, a national forest policy was approved in 1985, with 40 percent forest cover still a target. Of this land area, 15 percent was allocated for conservation areas and 25 percent for production purposes (later, these percentages were inverted, with the effect that 25 percent was allocated for conservation).10 In the 1980s, tree planting projects were also initiated, which, however, did not include much local participation. One of the most disputed issues was the leasing of degraded forestland to

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private enterprises for industrial plantations. Environmental, economic, and social reasons have been mentioned as factors making this activity less bene¤cial than expected.11 In many cases the land allocated for industrial plantations was already occupied by encroachers and used for agricultural production. Forestland was also lost to dam construction.12 A ¶ood disaster in southern Thailand in 1988 was the ¤nal factor that sensitized the environmentalists, the general public, and political decision makers toward rapid action to stop the deforestation completely. In 1989, after much publicity and heated debate, the cabinet declared a ban on commercial logging of all indigenous forests (except for mangroves) in the whole country. Among the most immediate consequences were the revocation of all concession rights and the switch to imported logs or rubberwood in the forest industry.13 The country was ready to enter a new stage in environmental and forestry-related matters, but at the same time a strong suspicion of the old administrative and political structure concerning its ability to solve environmental problems prevailed. This suspicion of everything connected with the past did not disappear in Thailand during the recent democratization process. A Forestry Sector Master Plan, ¤nanced by the Finnish government in the years 1990–93, attempted to analyze the forest-related issues in Thailand. It is being implemented in a challenging but historically very convenient situation. It is hoped that the result will be a completely revised forest policy and a process that turns this policy to action.14

Forest Management as Affected by Societal and Economic Factors in Thailand Population Growth Of the main administrative regions in Thailand (Central, East, South, North, and Northeast), the Northeast offers the most plausible example of population growth as a major factor causing deforestation.15 The

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Northeast has the densest population and also the lowest percentage of forest cover. The region is characterized by low average agricultural production, caused by poor soils and the insuf¤cient and erratic rainfall. In the Northeast, deforestation reached the highest rate (7 to 8 percent annually) during the 1970s and 1980s. By 1986, the forest area had decreased to 12 percent, as contrasted to the 25 percent cover in the country as a whole. Deforestation in northeastern Thailand was due to a rapid conversion of forestland to farmland for ¤eld crops, especially maize, kenaf, cassava, and sugarcane. The decline in the deforestation rate since the early 1980s has been due to the lack of suitable land for conversion to ¤eld crop cultivation.16 Historically, the Northeast was sparsely populated until the early nineteenth century, when the Thai migration into this hinterland started.17 During the twentieth century, the Northeast has shown the highest population growth of all administrative regions. During the period 1970–80, the annual population increase in the Northeast was 3.8 percent, while the national average was 2.7 percent, and the ¤gure for the remaining regions varied from 2.2 to 2.7 percent. Between 1947 and 1970, the population density in the predominantly rural Northeast doubled, reaching seventy persons per square kilometer. The fastest population growth occurred in those northeastern provinces that later, in the 1970s and 1980s, showed the fastest deforestation rates.18 During the ¤rst half of the twentieth century, overpopulation was already obvious along the northeastern river ¶oodplains, which were suitable for wet rice cultivation. Soil fertility of the paddy ¤elds began to decrease, as evidenced by decreasing yields, and a migration to upland areas started. New farmlands cleared in these areas were not suitable for paddy but initially produced good yields of such crops as upland rice and maize. It is worth noting that this process, which caused signi¤cant deforestation, started before the onset of the export crop promotion of the 1950s. James A. Hafner, whose conclusions are cited here, also presents an interesting notion of a “socially optimal” forest clearance rate:

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Excess rural population was absorbed through an expansion of settlement and land under cultivation. Rather than intensifying land use, farmers sought to maintain traditional land-extensive cultivation systems by forming new settlements and expanding cultivated areas. . . . For much of this century, the existing natural resource base has sustained this expansion, even though it involved increased conversion of forest lands to agricultural uses.19

Later, continuing population increases and subsequent unsustainable attempts to expand paddy cultivation to marginal areas, together with migration, further accelerated the disappearance of forests. A totally new phase in agricultural practices was caused by the rapid increase in commercial cultivation of ¤eld crops for export, which started in the 1950s. Agricultural Policy Commercial ¤eld crop cultivation after forest clearance in upland areas depended to some extent on the Thai government policy, which, for instance, affected the price setting for rice and thus indirectly favored new, alternative crops.20 Another factor was the postwar changes in the infrastructure, which allowed transport of farm products from distant rural areas. Earlier, since the beginning of the twentieth century, the railway had signi¤cantly improved the commercial links between the capital and the provinces. Subsequently, the improved road network continuously opened new areas for subsistence shifting cultivation.21 However, it was the network of all-weather roads connecting most provinces with the center in the early 1960s that dramatically improved the movement of farm produce and contributed to the increase in upland cultivation.22 The ¤rst upland crop cultivated on a large scale for export was maize; it was followed in the 1960s by kenaf and later by cassava. Hafner concludes that the cultivation of new export crops did not replace paddy cultivation but, instead, extended farming activities to new marginal areas; the improvement

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of traditional wet rice cultivation through irrigation did not prevent farmers in irrigation schemes from simultaneously clearing forestland for upland crops.23 Land clearing was also promoted by the illegal activities of local traders and other in¶uential people, who ¤nancially supported the opening up of new farmland in reserved government forests. Cleared land gradually changed hands, even before any legal title was obtained, and the farmers could continue forest farming in new areas.24 Thus, on the local level, deforestation was directly driven by market forces, rather than by consistent government policy. At the other end of this market-driven deforestation process is the international trade in agricultural products. The international market price paid for livestock feed needed in industrialized countries was one of the most distinct single factors explaining the deforestation rate in Thailand.25 Recent efforts to restrict farm production by removing state subsidies in Europe and elsewhere in the industrialized world will obviously to some extent remove the market incentives that earlier contributed to forest clearance by Thai farmers. Landownership Policy A peculiar feature of the legislation regulating land use and landownership in Thailand is the stepwise registration of land, recognizing occupancy and use separately from full title.26 Mere registration of occupancy is currently the only form of land security for millions of people in Thailand. Although clearly denied by the written law, the occupancy certi¤cate is commonly understood as a form of landownership, which is even (illegally) transferred or sold. Further confusion has been caused by different government branches, local administrative bodies, and politicians, which all tend to interpret the occupancy registration of farmers to their own advantage. Starting in 1962, with the ¤rst national ¤ve-year development plan, efforts were undertaken to better regulate land use. One mea-

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sure was to clearly demarcate the reserved forests (this attempt was not very successful); another was to settle farmers in a controlled way in degraded forest areas. The most visible result of this policy has been the granting of usufructuary land-use certi¤cates to landless farmers since 1975 by the Agricultural Land Reform Of¤ce and since 1982 by the Royal Forest Department. This program has led to the degazetting of 1.7 million hectares of state forestland and had provided at least some kind of land security to nearly one million families by 1989. This process used to solve the country’s land use problems has been too slow, however, in relation to actual needs.27 Other signi¤cant attempts to provide land for landless farmers and to prevent deforestation were the forest village programs, started in 1967 by the Forest Industry Organization, and, since 1975, by the Royal Forest Department. In the former program, the speci¤c aim was also to produce plantation-grown industrial wood, especially teak, for further processing. The Royal Forest Department emphasizes in its forest village program the social and economic bene¤ts the farmers can enjoy through sustainable agroforestry practices, as well as the environmental bene¤ts achieved through better protection of watershed areas. Unfortunately, the forest villages cover only a few tens of thousands of hectares of forestland, while the total area lost in deforestation, in 1961–89 only, amounts to 13 million hectares. Presently, the total area covered by forest plantations is 714,000 hectares. The fact that land tenure remains the single most important forest-related problem in Thailand is illustrated by the fact that still 1.7 million families, totaling nearly 10 million people (out of a population of 60 million), dwell on 6 million hectares of degraded forestland in reserved state forests, without formal recognition of their land use.28 National Security and Infrastructure Development In Thailand, the aims of forest management, and especially those of the state forest administration (the Royal Forest Department), have also changed according to national security considerations. Most

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distinctly this was the situation during the 1970s, the decade of the most turbulent changes in the internal political life of the country.29 The Royal Forest Department became actively involved in land development in 1973–76, as exempli¤ed by special development projects in degraded reserved forests and the expansion of conservation areas. However, the coup of 1976 led to political instability and an antigovernment insurgency that found its base in the forested border areas. This situation gave a new role to the forestry administration: on the one hand, national security required effective means of ¤ghting the rebels; on the other hand, winning the support of the population of the affected areas was also essential. The military and the forestry administration found common goals, one of which was the protection of logging concessions in insecure areas. For the forestry administration this meant a paradoxical role. Popular support could be gained through village development, including tree planting. However, the insurgents used the forests for protection, and clearing of forests became a military strategic goal that the foresters had to accept. Protection of forests lost much of its purpose, and illegal logging and land conversion were activities tolerated or supported by governmental as well as private interest groups. The military encouraged new settlement and forest conversion, and the Ministry of Interior registered new villages in reserved forests so as to qualify them for government service programs.30 In the late 1970s, following the Vietnam War, the remaining international and national support for the Thai insurgents diminished, and the antigovernment ¤ghting in Thailand lost its political signi¤cance (after amnesty, all ¤ghters gradually surrendered). The forestry administration, still in cooperation with the military, could more effectively concentrate its efforts on rural development work. Through the 1980s, the “Green Northeast” project, for instance, included extensive rural afforestation originally as an army initiative. Both the military and the forestry administration faced dif¤culties in their social forestry work. An important factor was un-

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doubtedly the old controversy between the central administration and those forest dwellers who had found sympathy among the antigovernment forces in their land use disputes with concessionaires during the insurgency. Another cause was the uncontrolled ¶ow of migrants to reserved forests, which exacerbated the land con¶icts.31 It has also been pointed out that the central forestry administration often lacked the skills especially needed in social forestry work. Road construction, especially during the Vietnam War, also had a strategic basis in remote rural areas. An improved road network increased the ¶ow of migrants into the forest areas even further, especially in northeastern Thailand, and facilitated illegal logging activities.

Conclusions: Tropical Forests Tomorrow Thailand today offers a unique situation for testing in practice the effect of forest management on the environment. Since commercial logging is banned and there thus exists no substantial forest management in indigenous forests for commercial production purposes, the existing changes theoretically are caused by factors other than industrial forestry. Deforestation rate is one of the most important environmental indicators. Even before the logging ban, the deforestation rate had begun to slow down, mainly because of a lack of easily accessible forests and stronger nature conservation efforts.32 During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the devastation of forests continued primarily in the Northeast, the North, the upper part of the Central Plains, and the West. In those regions, deforestation was mainly caused by illegal log poaching and extensive slash-and-burn cultivation by local village people. There are reasons to expect that forest degradation will continue for some time, possibly not so much as a decrease of the forest area, but instead, through the disappearance of individual trees resulting in a decrease in biomass. The different stages in the development of forest management and the society as a whole in Thailand show that the forestry

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administration (RFD) is able to change its mode of action, and this change re¶ects the development of the society. On the other hand, the RFD cannot alone manage the natural forests, especially not those that could be used for productive purposes. Furthermore, environmental issues in Thailand (the 1988 ¶ood disaster) as well as globally (the UNCED process) tend to become more central in determining the use and management of forests. In Thailand, technically forests and especially the economically important teak forests can be sustainably managed, but factors emanating from outside the forestry sector, such as the need for farmland, prevent the application of silvicultural treatments and other interventions aimed at guaranteeing sustained tree growth.33 Onfarm activities are the key factor in the present forest destruction, but they also are the key to maintaining tree cover. Possible lines of development in the future include a shift from large industrial plantations toward commercial farm forestry; better management of the natural forest by local communities for a variety of subsistence products as well as for cash; and putting the responsibility for forest protection and conservation in the hands of communities or other private groups. Community and nongovernmental organization involvement in forest management and utilization for production and protection purposes was one of the main recommendations of a forestry master plan already completed in the Philippines.34 In that country, recommendations are already being turned into action. Positive development in land use, including application of successful agroforestry systems, can be effectively promoted using demonstration areas or “model sites.” A correlation between deforestation and industrial utilization of wood in Thailand gives the impression of a poorly managed national forest estate, with the industry as a primary cause of environmental degradation. On the other hand, the following ¤ndings suggest a different relationship. Crop cultivation, particularly for cassava and other export crops, has required clearing of forestland at a rate that corresponds to the deforestation rate. Mathematical models even show a posi-

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tive correlation between the increase in commodity price and the land area cleared for farming.35 Government policy has favored agricultural expansion at the expense of the forest cover, and the forestry administration has been unable to interfere even when this is against the approved national forest policy. Even when accounting for the considerable damage that mechanized logging causes the remaining trees, a suf¤cient number of trees is usually left in teak stands and other natural forests for subsequent recovery and sustained forest production, although the process very much depends on the silvicultural system used.36 In contrast, clearing for farmland and land conversion to permanent agriculture causes a de¤nite loss of the forest. Certain types of traditional shifting cultivation have also been sustained over centuries, although they represent interventions at least comparable to selective logging in intensity.37 Much too often deforestation is presented as a straightforward process with just one or a few causes. In Thailand, it is already widely recognized that shifting cultivation by hill tribes cannot be accepted as the main factor. Social scientists and forestry researchers have already presented elaborate models of underlying social and economic factors.38 The problem with such analyses is, however, that even if they recognize the key factors, they do not easily translate to operational guidelines for action. For instance, if a correlation is found between population increase and deforestation, how should we use this information as land managers or policy makers? As social scientists have repeatedly done in Thailand, economists have also emphasized that there is no solution to deforestation if the landownership question remains unsolved.39 Peter Kunstadter has discussed models of disintegration of culture and the environment speci¤cally with reference to Thailand. He criticizes the “moral community” hypothesis, which presents traditional life as ecologically balanced and with a capacity to regulate resource exploitation and the whole relationship between human and the environment. For instance, in Thailand reference is

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repeatedly made to inscriptions possibly from the thirteenth century that describe, among other things, harmonious life and tree planting in the ancient capital of Sukothai.40 The criticism by Kunstadter concentrates on the fact that only very incomplete evidence exists for active measures to manage such natural resources as forests by traditional societies. This is especially true of the humid tropics. In contrast, in the arid and semiarid zones of Africa much more recorded evidence has been gathered about tree care and forest management.41 If the relationship between population and the environment is said to be stable, we need, according to Kunstadter, to de¤ne in what sense it is stable (e.g., continuously or on an average over long periods of time). Were the constraints on utilization of natural resources sociocultural or involuntary, caused, for instance, by lack of technology or market? Did religious values regulate behavior or rationalize a given life situation? If population growth is limited by high mortality or by migration, and if technological limitations and small population rather than conscious regulatory action cause conservative utilization, we should not advocate the return to the past. As Kunstadter concludes, the idea of moral community is not in any case irrelevant, but the underlying concepts have to be adapted to the current situation. Ultimately this moral community has to cover the whole world. A common problem, as Kunstadter also points out, is that we are too ambitious. Solutions should ¤rst be tested on a small scale. This would also prevent unexpected or undesired consequences from having too serious effects.42 In conclusion, it would be worthwhile to study in different contexts how much factors other than those directly forest-related determine the existence and composition of forests. Clari¤cation of such dependencies would pave the way for better understanding of the relationship between the forest and humans, and thus also contribute to successful conservation and sustainable utilization of forests in all countries.43

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Notes 1. http://www.mahidol.ac.th/Thailand/glance-thai/thailand.html; http:// www.immigration-usa.com/wfb/thailand_geography.htm; http://www. thaiembdc.org/index.htm 2. S. Tongpan, T. Panayotou, S. Jetanavanich, K. Faichampa, and C. Mehl, “Deforestation and Poverty: Can Commercial and Social Forestry Break the Vicious Cycle?” 1990 Thailand Development Research Institute Year-End Conference: Industrializing Thailand and Its Impact on the Environment, 8–9 December 1990, Jomtien, Thailand (Bangkok, 1990). 3. N. Ruangpanit, Conservation and Management of Natural Forests in Thailand, Paper for a Seminar in Tropical Silviculture, Department of Forest Ecology, University of Helsinki (1992). 4. Tongpan et al. (1990). 5. The core of the information presented below is derived from K. Pragtong and D. E. Thomas, “Evolving Management Systems in Thailand,” in Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia, ed. M. Poffenberger (West Hartford, Conn., 1990), pp. 167–86. 6. M. Bonita, “Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan: An Effort to Support National Development,” Forest and Development 2 (1992): 6–10. 7. Cf. P. Kunstadter, E. C. Chapman, and S. Sabhasri, eds., Farmers in the Forest (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1978). 8. A. Arbhabhirama, D. Pantumvanit, J. Elkington, and P. Ingkasuwan, eds., Thailand Natural Resources Pro¤le (Bangkok, 1987). 9. Cf. P. Hurst, Rainforest Politics: Ecological Destruction in Southeast Asia (London, 1990), p. 228. 10. Cf. Ruangpanit (1992). 11. Cf. Tongpan et al. (1990). 12. Hurst (1990), p. 235. 13. The deciduous trees are planted and tapped primarily for natural rubber production. However, after twenty-¤ve to thirty years, the trees cease to produce liquid latex in an economic scale. The wood from these trees, popularly known as Rubberwood or Parawood (Hevea brasiliensis), is used for manufacturing a wide range of products including wood ¶oorings and furniture. A. Anglesen, “Shifting Cultivation and ‘Deforestation’: A Study from Indonesia,” World Development 23, no. 10 (1995): 1713–29. 14. Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan. Mid-Term Review (Helsinki, 1992);

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Thailand, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Royal Forest Department, Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan, vols. 1–7 (Bangkok, 1993). 15. J. A. Hafner and Y. Apichatvullop, “Migrant Farmers and the Shrinking Forests of Northeast Thailand,” in Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia, ed. M. Poffenberger (West Hartford, Conn., 1990), pp. 187–219. 16. J. A. Hafner, “Forces and Policy Issues Affecting Forest Use in Northeast Thailand, 1900–1985,” in Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia, ed. M. Poffenberger (West Hartford, Conn., 1990), pp. 69–94. 17. M. Poffenberger, ed., Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia (West Hartford, Conn., 1990). 18. Hafner (1990), pp. 72–75; with references to various sources. 19. Ibid., p. 75. 20. Ibid. 21. Kunstadter, Chapman, and Sabhasri (1978). 22. Hafner and Apichatvullop (1990), with particular reference to the Northeast. 23. Hafner (1990), p. 77. 24. Ibid. 25. Tongpan et al. (1990). 26. Arbhabhirama et al. (1987). 27. Tongpan et al. (1990). 28. Ruangpanit (1992). 29. Cf. “Forests in Environmental Degradation (1968–1980s)” above. 30. Pragtong and Thomas (1990), p. 174. 31. Ibid. 32. Thailand, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Royal Forest Department, Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan. Subsectoral Plan for Production and Utilization (Bangkok, 1993). 33. Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan. Natural Forests and Indigenous Tree Species: Management Principles and Silvicultural Options, Proc. Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan Seminar, 19 January 1991, Bangkok, Thailand (Bangkok, 1991). 34. The Philippines, Quezon City, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Master Plan for Forestry Development (1990). 35. Tongpan et al. (1990). 36. H. Lamprecht, Silviculture in the Tropics: Tropical Forest Ecosystems and Their Tree Species (Eschborn, Germany, 1989). 37. Kunstadter, Chapman, and Sabhasri (1978).

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38. Cf. S. Ramitanondh, “Forests and Deforestation in Thailand: A Pandisciplinary Study,” in Culture and Environment in Thailand (Bangkok, 1989), pp. 23–50.; M. Palo and J. Uusivuori, eds., World Forests, Society, and Environment (Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 1999). 39. Cf. C. Tingsabadh, “Economic Systems and the Environment in Thailand,” in Culture and Environment in Thailand (Bangkok, 1989), pp. 449–62; D. Pantumvanit and T. Panayotou, “Natural Resources for a Sustainable Future: Spreading the Bene¤ts,” 1990 TDRI Year-End Conference: Industrializing Thailand and Its Impact on the Environment, 8– 9 December 1990, Jomtien, Thailand (Bangkok, 1990). 40. P. Kunstadter, “The End of the Frontier: Culture and Environmental Interactions in Thailand,” in Culture and Environment in Thailand (Bangkok, 1989), pp. 543–53. Cf. S. Sukwong, “Patterns of Land Use as In¶uenced by Forestry,” in Culture and Environment in Thailand (Bangkok, 1989), pp. 61–70. 41. Cf. G. Shepherd, Managing Africa’s Tropical Dry Forests: A Review of Indigenous Methods (London, 1992). 42. Kunstadter (1989), p. 549. 43. Using Thailand as a case, a recent study develops further the discussion on con¶icts related to tropical forests; see V. Kaarakka and G. Holmberg, “Environmental Con¶icts and Development Co-operation with Special Reference to Conservation and Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests,” University of Helsinki Tropical Forestry Reports 17 (Helsinki, 1999).

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umerous studies have shown that birds can often serve as indicators of the viability of an ecological system.1 This chapter traces the history of human impact on bottomland hardwood forests of the southeastern United States, and the signi¤cance of this impact on the disappearance of a species characteristic of the habitat, the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis). The best-known and most extensively documented example of a North American bird exterminated by European settlement is the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). The history of the disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker, however, gives an almost equally spectacular account of the consequences of 1492 on North American avifauna. The populations of this relatively common but localized species decreased rapidly during the nineteenth century, and no positive sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker have been 94

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documented for years. Consequently the North American subspecies principalis is today considered to be extinct. The purpose of this chapter is to study from different aspects the disappearance of this one species and to show how enormous were the alterations brought about by Europeans in the southeastern bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem, using the ivory-billed woodpecker as a possible indicator species of these changes. Documentation of different human activities in the region, from pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century, aims to place the disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker into a broader context of human-induced environmental change in North America.

The Southeastern Bottomland Hardwood Forest It has been estimated that in the year 1600—the approximate date of the arrival of the ¤rst European colonists in North America—the eastern half of the continent from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the forty-seventh parallel in southern Canada southward to the coastal plains of the Carolinas, except for the northern extension of the Mississippi prairie, was almost entirely covered with forest.2 The forest types changed from coniferous woods in the north through deciduous woodlands into subtropical forest in Florida. There were local variations everywhere to add complexity to the scene. Among these were the southeastern bottomland hardwood forests, which made up the primary habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker.3 Eastern North America carries one of the most complicated and variable aggregations of vegetation in the temperate regions of the world. It has literally hundreds of species of trees, most of them deciduous. Hardwoods cover most of the forested area and largely determine the general characteristics of the forest; the eastern forest as a whole is usually known as the Eastern Deciduous Forest. The major types of natural forest vegetation found within the Eastern Deciduous Forest have been arranged into many different subdivisions,

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which are shown in ¤gure 4. The southeastern bottomland hardwood forest region is among the most distinctive of these because of its unusual site conditions and sharply bounded topography.4 The bottomland hardwood forests are found in the general area of 28 to 38 degrees north latitude and 75 to 95 degrees west longitude. These forests are supported by the broad ¶oodplains of the southeast and most of the Mississippi basin. In addition to the Mississippi, its tributaries, such as the Arkansas, the Red, the Quachita, the St. Francis, and the Yazoo, have extensive areas of bottomland hardwood forest. Other large rivers that drain into the Gulf of Mexico and have extensive areas of bottomland include the Pearl, the Tombigbee, the Alabama, the Pascagoula, the Chattahoochee, the Apalachicola, and the Suwannee. Comparable rivers, ¶owing into the Atlantic, include the Altamaha, the Ogeechee, the Santee-Cooper, the Pee Dee, the Cape Fear, the Neuse, and the Roanoke. The soils of the forests are of alluvial origin, derived from the deposits of sand, silt, clay, and calcareous sediments left by the shifting courses of meandering rivers. The seasonal abundance of water and rich alluvial soil contribute to the formation of lush vegetation, which clearly distinguishes the bottomland hardwoods from the pine-dominated upland forests.5 The present landforms that characterize the major bottomland areas of the southeast were formed during the Quaternary period of geologic time. A sequence of marine deposition of sands, silts, and clays combined with intermittent rises in the sea level and subsequent uplifting of the land resulted in the development of a series of terraces making up the coastal plain of the present-day southeastern United States. As the land surface was raised, an undulating topography was formed by the developing seaward drainage patterns. The continual erosion of the uplands and deposition of eroded materials along the streams and at the sea outlets resulted in the formation of alluvial bottomlands. Because of the gentle angle of seaward dip, most southeastern rivers meander across their ¶oodplains, creating natural levees and oxbow lakes.6 The rivers of the coastal plain originate in the Appalachian

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Figure 4. Major subdivisions of the Eastern Deciduous Forest in the United States as it existed at the time of European conquest. Only the broadest belts of the bottomland hardwood forests are shown. Source: Smith (1980), p. 15.

Mountains and in the Piedmont, where they drain extensive basins with high precipitation levels. As the rainfall runoff rapidly drains to the ¶at coastal plain, the rivers spill out of their channels. Once this runoff is reduced, the levels of the rivers will drop rapidly, except for the low-lying swampy areas where sizable areas may remain inundated for several weeks. Consequently most of the ¶oodplain

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acreage is—in its natural state—subject to rapid inundation during any season of the year. Because of the relatively small drainage area and the subsequently modest water volume carried by the stream, the extent of the ¶oodplain is limited along smaller watercourses. However, several species of bottomland broadleaf trees, especially those typical of short submergence habitats, can be found on the banks of such streams. In these moist creek bottoms, areas of bottomland hardwood forest dissect the pine-dominated higher lands of the southeast.7 The diversity and species richness of plant communities in the southeastern bottomland hardwood forests are immense. In the better-drained areas of the ¶oodplain, forests are very dense. Trees at previously uncut sites can reach a very large size, often over three feet in diameter. Small trees, shrubs, and lianes are abundant. Along the elevated ridges fronting the streams the white oak, the willow oak, the shell-bark and mocker-nut hickories, the black walnut in great numbers, the yellow poplar and the sassafras large enough to furnish canoes of great size, the mulberry, the Spanish oak, the sweet and black gums are the principal forest trees, with an undergrowth in the openings of dogwood, various haws, crab apples, wild grapes, buckthorns, etc. In the forests covering the lower lands, which slope back to the swamps and reservoirs, the cow oak takes the place of the white oak, while the over-cup white oak occurs everywhere in the more or less saturated soil. Here the sweet gum reaches its greatest size, and here grow also in great perfection the bitter-nut, the elms, hornbeams, white ash, box-elder, and red maples of enormous size. The honey locust, water oaks, and red and Spanish oaks are equally common. Here, among the smaller trees, the holly attains its greatest development, with hornbeams and wahoo elms, while papaws, haws, and privets form the mass of the dense undergrowth, which, interspersed with dense cane-brakes, covers the ground under the large trees.8

As with other types of forests, tolerant species gradually replace

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intolerant ones in the process of natural succession. Many plant species of the bottomland hardwood forests typically require or tolerate recurring or long inundation. Extended ¶ooding, however, raises mortality among some species of trees and consequently snags are abundant in mature bottomland hardwood forests. Because of their proximity to streams, parts of these forests ¤t within the general de¤nition of riparian vegetation.9 In addition to natural succession and the differences in soil structure and drainage, the composition of bottomland hardwood stands is furthermore affected by insects, plant diseases, wildlife predation on seed and seedlings, and—without doubt—by the actions of humans and their livestock. Remarkably, almost all tree species of bottomland hardwoods are vulnerable to ¤res, whether natural or set by people. Fires consume younger vegetation and provide entry for decay in mature trees.10 The southeastern bottomland hardwood forests present an extremely heterogeneous mixture of tree species with changes so subtle that the classi¤cation of speci¤c forest cover types is a dif¤cult task. The U.S. Forest Service today classi¤es forestland according to the presence or absence of certain species groups, dividing the bottomland hardwoods to oak-gum-cypress and elm-ashcottonwood types. Other, more detailed classi¤cations of bottomland hardwood forest have also been used; the description of eight primary types with several variations, developed by J. A. Putnam in 1951, has been applied widely. However, only the more recent data on the bottomland hardwood forest and its inhabitants separates these different plant communities. Consequently, the broad term “bottomland hardwood forest” used throughout this chapter refers to all of the different plant communities found within this major forest type.11 The suitability of a forest area for birds and other animals depends on many factors. These include, for example, stand structure, foliage volume and the number of vertical foliage layers, habitat patchiness, and moisture gradient. Most of these are quite favorable for many species of birds in bottomland hardwood forests of natural

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state; for example, the supplemental nutrient and soil input provided by ¶ooding enhances productivity in bottomlands. Ecologists have claimed that a more productive and diverse community of plants, such as a bottomland hardwood forest as compared to a longleaf pine forest, is likely to support a greater richness of herbivorous species, and so on up in the food web.12 Accordingly the southeastern bottomland hardwood forests have always supported a high diversity and density of permanent resident, breeding, and wintering birds. It has been pointed out that any reduction in the size of this very complex system may have a disproportionately large effect on the resident fauna, and it may also affect migratory visitors and many species of the adjacent areas, such as the aquatic communities. Thus the value of this habitat for several species of birds and other animals is hard to overestimate.13 The ivory-billed woodpecker was by no means the only bird con¤ned to the bottomland hardwood forests of southeastern North America. Two other now-extinct birds, the Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) and the Bachman’s warbler (Vermivora bachmanii), were also associated with this type of forest, at least during the critical breeding season.14

Campephilus principalis (Linnaeus 1758) As a species, the ivory-billed woodpecker (order Piciformes, family Picidae) has been divided into two subspecies: Campephilus p. principalis of southeastern North America and C. p. bairdii of Cuba.15 The ivory-billed woodpecker and its closest relative, the imperial woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) of northern Mexico, have fascinated ornithologists since the ¤rst observations because of their impressive looks and, more recently, because of their critical endangerment. While the North American subspecies principalis is today considered extinct, an extremely small population of the subspecies bairdii may still exist in remote Cuban forests.16 The ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the world’s largest woodpeckers (20 inches, 50 centimeters). The general plumage of this bird is glossy black, with white areas along the sides of the head and on the

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wings. The male has a prominent red crest, absent in the female. Both sexes have a conspicuous (2.5 inches, 6.5 centimeters) creamy-white bill.17 Because of its great size and striking coloration, the ivory-billed woodpecker became well known among the European settlers of North America; especially the huge white bill of this powerful species captured the imagination of early observers: “nature having so formed their bills, that in an hour or two of time they will raise a bushel of chips; for which the Spaniards call them carpenteros.”18 Unlike other representatives of the genus Campephilus, the North American subspecies principalis of the ivory-billed woodpecker has been associated with deciduous bottomland forests. The geographical range of this subspecies formerly included the South Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Mississippi valley states from southeastern North Carolina to eastern Texas and up the Mississippi valley, along the larger rivers, to southern Illinois.19 Almost all records of the ivory-billed woodpecker in North America are from swamps or swampy areas of the southeastern bottomland forests. In his wellknown Ornithological Biography, John James Audubon attempted to picture “the favourite resort” of the ivory-billed woodpecker: Would that I could describe the extent of those deep morasses, overshadowed by millions of gigantic dark cypresses, spreading their sturdy moss-covered branches, as if to admonish intruding man to pause and re¶ect on the many dif¤culties which he must encounter, should he persist in venturing farther into their almost inaccessible recesses, extending for miles before him, where he should be interrupted by huge projecting branches, here and there the massy trunk of a fallen and decaying tree, and thousands of creeping and twining plants of numberless species!20

Compared to the Carolina parakeet and the Bachman’s warbler, the two other recently extinct birds of the southern bottomlands, relatively much data exists on the ecology of the ivory-billed woodpecker. This is mainly due to the extensive work of James T. Tanner, who during the late 1930s studied some of the last-known populations of the species in North America. The birds studied by Tanner

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showed a high degree of specialization in their foraging habits: most of their food consisted of larvae of wood-boring insects, found by scaling the bark off dying or recently dead trees. This food requirement postulated a habitat of many such trees—a feature typical to extensive stands of mature bottomland forest. Trees killed by forest ¤res may also have provided additional concentrations of food for the species. The ivory-billed woodpecker also utilized different berries, fruits, and nuts for food. This woodpecker was a nonmigratory species, though the birds studied by Tanner seemed to roam after aged timber stands of suf¤cient food supply.21 The ivory-billed woodpecker seemingly mated for life, and the breeding pair excavated a nesting hole in a dead or dying tree ¤fteen to seventy feet (about 4.5 to 20 meters) from the ground. The breeding season of the ivory-billed woodpecker was variable: incubating birds were found as early as January and as late as April. A typical clutch consisted of one to three eggs, incubated by both parents for about twenty days. The young left the nest at about thirty-¤ve days of age and were accompanied by their parents for up to eight months. In addition to nesting holes, the ivory-billed woodpecker excavated special holes for nighttime roosting.22 There are few records concerning the interactions of the ivorybilled woodpecker with other species. The ivory-billed woodpecker, however, was known to defend its nest territory from other birds. It is conceivable that interspeci¤c competition with the smaller pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) occurred in secondary habitats with scarce food resources. No records of the ivory-billed woodpecker being attacked by predators exist; the size and the alertness of an adult bird presumably protected it effectively from hawks, owls, and mammalian predators.23

The Chronology of Extinction No written information on the ivory-billed woodpecker exists before the colonization of North America by Europeans. The ¤rst ref-

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erences to North American birds can usually be found in the narratives of explorers and travelers, which constitute the main ornithological source material for the colonial period. Some forms of American bird life, like the enormous ¶ocks of the passenger pigeon, caused genuine amazement and are frequently mentioned in early accounts.24 The impressive ivory-billed woodpecker was among the most prominent features of North American avifauna, and there are numerous references to it. The ¤rst scienti¤c and illustrated account of the ivory-billed woodpecker appeared in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1731–43) by the English naturalist Mark Catesby.25 The species was then included in Linnaeus’s tenth edition of Systema Naturae in 1758, based on Catesby’s description. From then on, Catesby’s “Largest White-bill Woodpecker” was known among Western scientists as Picus principalis.26 The original distribution of this bird is depicted in ¤gure 5 by a solid line moving north from the area around present-day Houston, then turning east and ending at Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. The populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker began to shrink rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The decline of the ivory-billed woodpecker started in the northern part of the species’ range, and by 1880 the huge woodpecker had disappeared from most of the Carolinas and all of the region west of the Mississippi River, except for some localities in southeastern Arkansas, eastern Texas, and Louisiana.27 By the turn of the century the species was virtually unknown in Alabama and Mississippi, and by 1915 birds could be encountered only in the larger swamps of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana. The late-nineteenthcentury distribution of the ivory-billed woodpecker is marked by a diamond pattern in ¤gure 5. The greatest restrictions in the ranges of these populations outside Florida seem to have taken place from 1895 to 1900 and from 1915 to 1930, while the species’ decrease in Florida accelerated just after the turn of the century. By the late 1930s—when James T. Tanner conducted his classic study of the species—the ivory-billed woodpecker was known only from a

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Figure 5. The original (solid line) and late-nineteenth-century distribution (diamond pattern) of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States. Source: Hasbrouck (1891).

handful of localities in Florida and Louisiana, and from the Santee Swamp of South Carolina.28 In 1939 James T. Tanner estimated the total population of the species to be around twenty-four individuals, dispersed over ¤ve areas in Louisiana, Florida, and possibly South Carolina.29 The actual populations of the species, however, were probably considerably greater in size and range, as sightings of the ivory-bill continued for decades; the survival of such small populations for so many years is not conceivable. The last authenticated sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States was, however, made in Florida in 1952. Since then there have been only some uncon¤rmed reports from Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, and a highly controversial photograph taken in Louisiana in 1971. Objective evaluation of most reports has been impossible, and in most cases confusion with the more abundant pileated woodpecker seems probable.30 As innu-

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merable American ornithologists still crave to see this fascinating species at any cost, it is imaginable that even valid encounters with the ivory-billed woodpecker have gone unreported because of conservation purposes. Thus it is not entirely unrealistic to speculate that a few individual birds may still exist. Even if this were true, there is little reason to believe in recovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the future.31 In searching for a conceivable explanation for the demise of the ivory-billed woodpecker, it is logical to turn one’s attention to the changes that have taken place in the species’ environment during historical times. How were the bottomland hardwood forests of the southeast altered after the arrival of the ¤rst European colonists? In order to present and explain the changes in the habitat of the ivorybilled woodpecker, the question of aboriginal impact on the forest must ¤rst be addressed.

The Native American and the Southern Forest There were hundreds of Native American tribes and several distinctive culture areas by the time of European settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. Accordingly the pre-Columbian southeast was inhabited by dozens of tribes, each with different cultural adaptations and subsistence economies. Some well-known tribes of the region include the Cherokee and the Catawba of the southern Appalachians, the Creek of interior Alabama and Georgia, and the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, and the Natchez of interior Mississippi and nearby areas. The Guale lived on the coast of Georgia, while the Apalachee, the Calusa, and the Timucua inhabited coastal Florida.32 Traditionally, the archaeologically de¤ned Indian cultures in the southeast have been discussed in terms of their chronological and stylistic relationships in time and space, with only a very general description of their use of natural resources. During the last decades archaeologists, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians have, however, made signi¤cant contributions to our understanding of

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the relationship between aboriginals and their physical environment in southeastern North America. For example, Indian agricultural practices in the southeast do not appear to have been as uniform as they usually have been portrayed.33 Most archaeological attention has been paid to the subsistence technology of the last precolonial period, the so-called Mississippi period, which began approximately A.D. 900 and ended with the arrival of the ¤rst Europeans in the area during the early sixteenth century. This cultural tradition arose along the Mississippi ¶oodplain between modern-day Vicksburg, Mississippi, and St. Louis, Missouri, and it spread to river valleys throughout much of the southeast. The Mississippian culture in the interior southeast was characterized by its sedentary villages on riverine locations and its relatively ¤rm agricultural base. Despite agricultural innovations, gathering and hunting were still important activities for the Mississippian farmers.34 The subsistence technology of Mississippian cultures on the coastal areas of the southeast was based on small-scale corn agriculture as well as on hunting and utilization of wild plants: especially acorns and nuts of different oaks and hickories were collected. In southern Florida the aboriginal people were wholly dependent upon the exploitation of native plant and animal resources. The aboriginals on the coast of Florida typically focused their subsistence efforts on marine animals, such as shell¤sh, ¤sh, and sea mammals.35 On the other hand, many tribes of the interior southeast, such as the Catawba and the Choctaw, typically combined annual cycles of hunting and gathering with a regular horticultural cycle: crops were planted in spring, and other economies sustained communities until the fall harvest. Fields were established by cutting and burning existing vegetation, with regard to soil quality. To clear the forests, Native Americans ¤rst girdled the trunks or scotched the roots until the trees were dead. The stumps and dead trees, as well as brush, were then burned. After the land had been cleared, the soil was broken for cultivation with simple wooden implements and the crops were planted.36

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Tillage as practiced by Indians differed signi¤cantly from the contemporary European practices: broadcast seeding was virtually nonexistent, and crops were planted in rows with each stalk or plant hoed to keep down the weeds. Native Americans commonly used the method of hill planting: as an individual plant grew, loose dirt was scraped around it in order to suppress the weeds. As the soil between the hills remained unbroken, there was little danger of soil erosion in the Indian ¤elds, and this contributed to the sustenance of soil fertility. Mississippian farmers were probably the ¤rst eastern Indians to cultivate beans (Phaseolus spp.), and the horticulture of most southeastern tribes was built up around the small-scale cultivation of corn and beans, but squash (Cucurbita spp.) and tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) were also grown. All of these American products were unknown to Europeans until the conquest of the New World. In order to achieve maximum yields from their ¤elds, Indian farmers of the southeast used two agricultural methods: intercropping and multiple cropping. By intercropping (planting several cultigens together in the same ¤elds) Native Americans ef¤ciently utilized the limited area of productive land and enabled the crops to complement each other. The long growing season of the southeast, on the other hand, made several plantings possible: early and late varieties of corn often yielded two annual crops from the same ¤elds. The Native American crops complemented each other in a number of ways. The cornstalks, for example, provided a place for the beans to climb on, while the squash vines covered the ground and ef¤ciently suppressed the growth of competing weeds. Beans, on the other hand, largely replaced nitrogen in the soil, which corn depleted; this method partly enabled Native Americans to cultivate the same ¤elds over long periods of time without the use of fertilizer. Only after the ¤elds had markedly declined in fertility were they abandoned and new areas cleared. Indian farmers of the interior southeast often preferred ¶oodplain locations because of their need to grow corn without the use of fertilizers; silt deposited by ¶oodwaters enriched the soil and

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made continuous cultivation—and thus sedentary populations— possible. The bottomland soils furthermore held enough moisture even during droughts to sustain agriculture without the use of irrigation. Occasional severe ¶oods were therefore endured for the sake of this naturally productive alluvial soil. Besides, unlike the hard upland soils, the bottomland soils were easy to till with ¶int and wooden tools. Some bottomland sites furthermore presented seasonal opportunities for ¤shing and hunting. Native American agriculture in the interior southeast was often very productive and, combined with hunting, ¤shing, and gathering, usually provided the tribes in the region with a secure subsistence. Agriculture may have contributed from 25 to over 50 percent of their food needs.37 However, it must be emphasized that this pattern of agriculture in the southeast was con¤ned to the broad natural levees of major rivers on the lower elevations of the Piedmont, the Cumberland Plateau, and the Mississippi valley. The narrow levees of rivers and the constant threat of ¶ooding on the coastal plain made it unattractive for agriculture. Thus the ¶oodplain areas of the inner coastal plain were generally unoccupied by any permanent populations during the Mississippi period. This assertion is supported by all the maps made of the area prior to the early nineteenth century: on these maps Native American towns are always situated on or above the fall line or on the coast, while the intervening area is shown without any occupation.38 The estimates of precolonial Native American population in the Atlantic seaboard area run from 350,000 to over 2,200,000.39 Thus the total number of aboriginal people in North America at the time of the European conquest can only be a matter of speculation. Accordingly the estimates regarding percentage of land under cultivation within the range of the southeastern bottomland hardwood forest vary considerably, and no one can state with certainty how many acres in the region were cultivated by Indian agriculturists. It is interesting to note that John Lawson, writing in 1714, remarked that the agricultural Indians of North Carolina did not necessarily clear and cultivate the most fertile lands along the rivers, as

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the removal of huge trees in the bottomlands presented too great an inconvenience.40 Accounts such as Lawson’s make it tempting to speculate that the most mature bottomland hardwood forests were often excluded from conversion to corn¤elds by Native Americans, even when agriculture was being practiced. In any case, transformation of land from forests to agricultural ¤elds seems to have been quite localized, and vast areas of the bottomland hardwood forest remained untouched by human activity, especially on the coastal plain. In addition to clearing land for agricultural reasons, many tribes burned sections of the forests to ease the hunter’s task and open areas for the grass and other growth that game, especially deer, could feed on. By retarding normal successional patterns and maintaining edge habitats, this burning of the woodlands by Native Americans bene¤ted their main game, the white-tailed deer, and consequently themselves. The in¶uence of anthropogenic ¤re in creating game habitats nevertheless varied from region to region in the southeast. In forested uplands and abandoned ¤elds, ¤re maintained optimal deer habitats, such as meadows with dense and shrubby margins, but along the gulf plain the use of ¤re to some extent degraded these habitats. Fire gives a competitive edge to a certain ¤re-resistant conifer, the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), and anthropogenic ¤res probably contributed to the formation of vast coniferous forests in the region. Without ¤res, whether natural or set by humans, the region would have mostly consisted of oak-hickory forests of a higher average carrying capacity for deer and many other game animals. At the same time, however, ¤re remained largely absent from the naturally moist bottomlands, and thus these areas were dominated by deciduous trees.41 The hammocks and cypress swamps located in the deltas of southeastern rivers and in the Florida Everglades served (and still serve) as rookeries for thousands of herons, egrets, ibis, and ¶amingos. However, there does not seem to have been any signi¤cant utilization of these or any other birds by the Native American populations within the bottomland hardwoods complex of the southeast. Judging from the archaeological evidence, it appears that there was

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no concentrated effort to hunt birds for subsistence in the bottomlands during the late precolonial period; the aboriginal people probably lacked effective means to capture them in the jungle-like forests strewn with debris deposited by frequent ¶ooding. Also, the population densities of Indians’ main game bird, the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), seem to have been too low on the ¶oodplains in relation to the time required to trap large numbers of them. Thus turkeys and other species of birds were probably taken only when it was convenient to do so while other resources were being exploited.42 The enormous ¶ocks of the passenger pigeons were frequently utilized by eastern Indians, both at nesting sites and on migration, but there are no explicit records concerning hunting of this species by Native Americans within the bottomland hardwood forest complex.43 Existing information on the hunting of the ivory-billed woodpecker by Native Americans is scanty, but the species was undoubtedly well known among southeastern Indians. Mark Catesby gave the best-known account on the subject in 1731: The bills of these Birds are much valued by the Canada Indians, who make Coronets of ’em for their Princes and Great Warriors, by ¤xing them round a Wreath, with their points outward. The Northern Indians having none of these Birds in their cold country, purchase them of the Southern People at the price of two, and sometimes three, Buck-skins a Bill.44

Consequently it is not entirely astonishing to note that a beak of the species, along with a beak of a pileated woodpecker, was found in an Indian (probably Arapaho or Cheyenne) grave in Colorado in 1939. As no direct commercial route is known to have existed between the Indians of the plains with those of the southeast, it seems possible that the huge bill of an ivory-billed woodpecker was a valued item that could change hands several times and travel for hundreds of miles.45 Apart from this decorational use, nothing is known about the

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Indian utilization of the ivory-billed woodpecker. The insuf¤ciency of historical data on the subject makes it impossible to estimate the effect of aboriginal predation on the populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the southeast. It is probable that the species was also hunted for food, at least when encountered by chance. Thus it seems likely that hunting of the species for food and various artifacts may have resulted in its extirpation on a very localized scale. Still, it is hardly conceivable that hunting by Indians had any signi¤cant effect on the populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker as a whole; the bird was clearly able to maintain viable populations in the pre-Columbian southeast.

The European Utilization of the Forest The ¤rst Europeans to enter the bottomland hardwood forests of North America were Spanish conquistadors who explored parts of the southeast during the early sixteenth century. However, their visits to the region were brief and did not seem to leave any mark of lasting consequence.46 The English were more tenacious in their attempts to conquer the New World, and thus the European colonization of North America became a rapid process: the ¤rst permanent British settlement, Jamestown, was founded in Virginia in 1607, and by the middle of the eighteenth century there were already thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic coast. The economic life of the European colonists was heavily based on agriculture; approximately 90 percent of the population in all the colonies earned their living by farming. Agriculture differed somewhat in the various colonies as it was in¶uenced by soil, climate, and English trade regulations, but everywhere the use of the land was primitive, resulting in early soil exhaustion. For example, the rotation of crops and use of fertilizers were hardly known, as rich virgin soil with seemingly limitless reserves did not encourage scienti¤c farming. In addition to utilizing old Indian ¤elds and natural clearings, new land for agriculture could be obtained by clearing the

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forested areas. The colonists had soon adopted from the Indians the use of ¤re and girdling as means to transform forests to ¤elds. Combined with the settlers’ modern technology, this practice soon resulted in a phenomenal alteration of the southeastern forest.47 Southern agriculture in the colonial period was based on plantations. The plantations in South Carolina and Georgia were given over to the large-scale production of rice and indigo. The leading crop in these colonies, rice, was grown on cut-over, marshy, or ¶ooded lands, especially on clear-cut cypress swamps. By the mideighteenth century most land suitable for pro¤table rice growing in colonized South Carolina was under cultivation.48 With new techniques adapted in the late 1700s, production continued to increase during the next century, more than tripling between 1820 and 1850. Only after the Civil War did the center of rice production move from South Carolina to Louisiana; at the same time the cultivation of this crop was also taken up in the lowlands of Texas and Arkansas.49 The settlers in Virginia had discovered in tobacco a staple crop. Tobacco cultivation was a pro¤table business, but it quickly exhausted even the richest alluvial soil; the optimal age of a tobacco ¤eld was three years, after which it was turned over to other crops, and land for a new tobacco ¤eld had to be cleared. Since tobacco was an export product, it was necessary for plantations to be located on the riverbanks in order that the transportation of the yield by ships would be possible. Consequently the land along rivers was rapidly taken up in Virginia and North Carolina. Only after the lands near the rivers had been entirely occupied did the settlers move inland; this meant that the better-drained sections of bottomland hardwood forests were among the ¤rst areas to be cleared for agricultural interests. By 1750 the soils of the old tobacco regions had been exhausted, and production moved into the Piedmont. By the 1820s Kentucky and Tennessee were expanding their production rapidly; later, tobacco gained importance also in Ohio and Missouri. The scarcity of labor in North America, partly resolved by using African slave labor, demanded utmost ef¤ciency in its use. Combined with other elements of tobacco cultivation, such as the biology of the plant and the

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ever-growing demands of the market, this requirement ensured that few people would have the maximum impact on soil and forest. Tobacco cultivation consequently resulted in the ceaseless breaking in of new land and vast deforestation in much of the southeast. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became an important cash crop for southern farmers. Production centered ¤rst in South Carolina and Georgia. After 1815, however, the cotton belt expanded quickly through Alabama and Mississippi and—as the soils in the older areas were exhausted—into Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Another pro¤table crop for some southern farmers was sugarcane, a plant introduced to Louisiana during the eighteenth century by the French. Since the sugarcane plant rapidly depletes potassium and requires fertile land, its cultivation was con¤ned to the areas of recent alluvium along the lower Mississippi and its tributaries. In comparison with tobacco, cotton, and sugarcane, the other crops cultivated in the southeast did not deplete the soil as extensively. Their cultivation, therefore, did not increase the need for land clearing along the rivers so expansively as did the farming of these three crops; nor were they grown on the swampy areas of the bottomland hardwood forests as rice was. Because of incomplete statistics it is dif¤cult to estimate how much land was cleared before 1850, but it is probable that some 113,740,000 acres (45,416,000 hectares) of land had been improved (term used by U.S. Bureau of the Census) in the United States before that date. The overwhelming part of this land was carved out of the eastern forests, with only a small amount coming from natural clearings. All the evidence points to a big upswing in the rate of clearing after 1840; and in any case between 1850 and 1860 the amount cleared rose by a total of 39,705,000 acres (15,882,000 hectares), equivalent to approximately one-third of all clearing carried out during the preceding two centuries. During the Civil War and the rest of the 1860s, the amount of forestland newly cleared and settled fell by almost 50 percent, but during the next decade the settlement of the Midwest raised it again to its highest total in any intercensal period with almost 50 million acres (20 million hectares).50

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The shift in the center of activity of pioneer endeavor from the east to the central and unforested parts of the continent after the 1860s did not mean a diminution of the human impact on the eastern forests. Uncleared areas in the southeast were largely brought under cultivation. For example, in Florida the acreage of land in farms almost doubled between 1870 and 1900.51 The scarcity of wood in the central prairies furthermore acted as a stimulus for lumbering in the southeast and led to the emergence of a continental system of timber transportation.52 The clearing of southeastern forests for agriculture continued after the turn of the century, peaking again in the 1930s. New drainage techniques became crucial in the transformation of lowlands from swampy forests to agricultural ¤elds. After the Second World War bigger farms, commercial fertilizers, pesticides, and an expanding market for agricultural commodities resulted in increased pro¤ts, and new land for agriculture was in high demand. Soybeans became a major crop in many areas of the southeast, and the desire to convert the remaining areas of bottomland hardwood forest into productive row crop ¤elds resulted largely from the cultivation of this new, highly pro¤table crop. Bottomland areas along the lower Mississippi in particular have continued to suffer losses because of the increased soybean cultivation.53 There had, of course, been other than agricultural reasons to attack the seemingly limitless forest since the time of the ¤rst colonists. In addition to the clearing for crops and pastures, there was the harvesting of trees for housing, fencing, lumber, and fuel, and for the manufacturing of naval stores and charcoal iron, all of which accelerated the destruction of the original forest. The introduction of the steam engine, which consumed wood for fuel and was often used for sawing machines, assisted in this attack on the forests from the early nineteenth century on. Wood was the basic fuel in the United States until the late nineteenth century; coal hardly entered into domestic fuel consumption before that. Of all timber cut in gross volume, the amount cut for fuel exceeded the amount cut for lumber still in the late nineteenth century.54 Since the colonial period, southeastern woodlots

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and sawmills had concentrated in the proximity of streams and rivers where the transportation of lumber was easy and the dominant trees were hardwoods that constituted cordwood of superior quality. In order to save labor and expense, cutting was customarily restricted to riverbanks and adjacent slopes so the logs could easily be rolled into the streams.55 The lumber industry in the United States expanded enormously during the nineteenth century; the lumber cut increased from less than 0.5 billion board feet in 1800 to more than 35 billion board feet by 1899.56 This expansion was made possible by three technological changes: improved saws and the use of steam engines, the improvement of local transport with the development of the log drive, and the evolution of a continental transport system that linked the areas of timber surplus and de¤ciency.57 The large-scale lumbering industry started in the northeast, extended to the central and lake states at mid-century, and reached the southeast during the last decades of the 1800s. Lumbering had been widespread on southern plantations and along coastal waterways from colonial times on, and there had always been a market for the durable bald cypress, a tree characteristic of the bottomland swamps. Cypress was highly valued for shipbuilding and roo¤ng purposes as the wood ef¤ciently resisted damp.58 Cypress logs were usually transported at high water, and severe ¶oods offered remarkable opportunities to obtain this valuable wood: The river was extraordinarily high, the lowlands being over¶owed to a depth of more than 10 feet. . . . No idle man was to be found on shore; everybody who could swing an axe, paddle a boat, or pilot a log was in the swamp engaged in felling and ¶oating cypress timber. All the millhands worked in the swamps; ¤elds and gardens were left untouched, and even clerks from the stores were sent to swamps as overseers.59

Following the federal Swamp Lands Acts of 1849 and 1850, vast areas of mature cypress forests on public lands along the Mississippi, Red, and Atchafalya Rivers passed via corrupt of¤cials to lumbermen. The major assault on the southern cypress stands,

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however, was delayed until after the Civil War because of the inaccessibility of many swamp areas.60 The adaptation of steam-powered sawmills combined with the spread of the railroads during the nineteenth century revolutionized the southern lumber industry, and in the 1850s production more than doubled.61 The Civil War ended the boom, but by the 1880s the South was again on its way to becoming the nation’s leading lumber producer, a status won by the turn of the century. Following the Civil War, many southern states were economically strapped, since no taxes had been paid on federal lands, and soon the sale of these lands—in order to put them back on the tax rolls— had become inevitable. Thus the economic situation in the postwar South enabled northern lumber companies and speculators to take over vast areas of southern forest: between 1876 and 1888 millions of acres of forested public land was sold to ruthless northern buyers, often at minimal prices.62 The new owners were usually absentees who looked for a quick pro¤t and missed the fact that trees were both a valuable crop and an essential protection to the soil; no efforts were made to replant the clear-cut forests. In the late-nineteenth-century gulf states region, methods characteristic of the old lumber industry were used: enormous mills, huge log drives, and aggressive pursuit of timberlands combined with “cut out and get out” policies resulting in a vast deforestation. The construction of railroads signi¤cantly spurred the timber economy and made it possible to harvest formerly inaccessible stands of virgin timber. “The large number of [cypress] logs harvested shows clearly with what activity the destruction of these treasures of the forest is being pushed; and the reports, as of heavy thunder, caused by the fall of the mighty trees, resounding at short intervals from near and far, speak of its rapid progress.”63 “Logtowns” sprang up across the region, and logging drove the local economy until the supplies were depleted. The settlements and the cut-over lands were then abandoned and dropped from the tax rolls once again. During the late nineteenth century, the northern lumber com-

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panies were primarily interested in the virgin pine forests of the southeastern uplands, but the vast timber stands of bottomland areas also offered opportunities for quick gains: In 1831 Mr. Vaughn found these cypress swamps untouched by the axe. At present their resources are so diminished by the inroads made upon them during the last twelve years that, with a prospect of a rapidly-increasing demand for cypress lumber in the near future, he judges that they will be completely exhausted during the next ten years. This opinion is shared by all mill-owners here, who believe that in less than that time their business must come to an end.64

In 1909 the all-time peak of lumber production in the United States was reached; over 44.5 billion board feet of lumber was sawn that year, with almost 20 billion board feet of it coming from the South and south Atlantic regions.65 Because of cheap labor, tax incentives, and the depletion of old-growth stands in the western and northern parts of the United States, the southern forest industry remained strong through the twentieth century. The recognition of the forest as the basis of industrialization, agricultural expansion, and material advancement soon resulted in a signi¤cant diminution in the area occupied by forests in North America. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the quickening destruction of the southeastern forests due to the booming lumber industry had resulted in vast deforestation and erosion that ultimately led to the adaptation of sustained-yield forestry in the twentieth century. By 1919 the onslaught across southern timber stands had reduced the primeval forest by approximately 40 percent: only some 178,000,000 acres (71,000,000 hectares) from the original 300,000,000 acres (120,000,000 hectares) remained. Of the southern woodland left, 39,000,000 acres (15,500,000 hectares) was classi¤ed as virgin forest.66 Lumbering played the greatest part in this reduction and left a permanent imprint on the southeastern landscape. In addition to its massive assault on the southeastern pine forests, the logging industry concentrated much of its cutting

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efforts on hardwood stands of high commercial value, and thus especially mature bottomland forests were affected by lumbering. Since the 1930s almost a third of all the cleared land in the southeast has reverted to forest, though fragmented and immature. Large areas of hardwood forest in the southeast have been converted to even-aged pine plantations, and these young monocultures today dominate the landscape of many southeastern states. Much of the increase in forested area has come from the abandonment of marginal farmland, a process largely restricted to upland regions. Consequently most of the mature bottomland hardwood forest seems to have been permanently lost. Only the relatively small areas of bottomland hardwood forest in public ownership today seem secure from economic exploitation.67

The Mechanics of Extinction Judging from the preceding evidence, it would not be dif¤cult to accept habitat alteration as the sole cause for the extinction of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Extinction, however, is a very complicated biological process, and numerous factors usually contribute to a species’ extinction. In order to evaluate the role of humaninduced environmental change, it is essential to examine the general characteristics of extinction and address other factors that might have played a part in the disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker. A population or a species will become extinct when its rate of mortality is continually greater than its rate of recruitment. Extinction is, of course, a natural part of the evolutionary process, and since the upper Jurassic period innumerable species of birds have evolved and most of them have become extinct. While humans cannot have had any role whatever in the vast majority of these extinctions, there is evidence for human agency in almost every avian extinction since the late Pleistocene. Humans have greatly increased the rate of avian extinctions, and thus the average longevity of a bird

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species has been dramatically reduced. Until recently, many scientists have maintained that there are no documented examples of continental bird species being extinguished by nonhuman agencies during historical times. In any case, “natural” extinctions of continental birds seem very rare.68 The extinction of a species can often be viewed as a two-stage process, and causes of extinction can be divided into two classes: “ultimate” and “proximate.”69 Ultimate causes of extinction are the factors that have led to a situation in which there is a small population, while proximate causes consist of the reasons why the last individuals of this population die. Sometimes the ultimate cause of a species’ extinction is the proximate cause as well: in 1894 the whole population of the ¶ightless Stephen Island wren (Xenicus lyelli) was extirpated by a cat belonging to the keeper of the island’s lighthouse!70 Numerous studies of avian extinctions have shown that after the population of a species has decreased to below a certain level by ultimate causes, for example, persecution or habitat destruction, proximate causes will deliver the coup de grâce and result in extinction. The concept of the “minimum viable population” is often used in this context, referring to the critical population size below which the population is doomed to quick extinction. The proximate causes are often divided into four classes: demographic stochasticity, genetic deterioration, social dysfunction, and extrinsic forces. Demographic stochasticity refers to the random variation in population variables, such as sex ratio, birth and death rates, or the distribution of individuals among age classes. Random change in these variables, such as the occurrence of broods consisting of members of the same sex, is much more threatening to a small population. Small populations also experience genetic deterioration as a result of losing alleles by genetic drift and inbreeding. This loss may limit a population’s ability to respond to changes in its environment through natural selection. It must furthermore be noted that different proximate causes often contribute to each other. For example, the skewed sex ratio typically increases the rate of inbreeding depression and vice versa.

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Some species have characteristic social behavior that makes them more liable to extinction. Elaborate social behavior, such as herding, group mating displays, or group defense, can considerably assist certain ultimate extinction forces in the reduction of population size. A good example of this is the decimation of the North American bison (Bison bison) by commercial hunting during the nineteenth century, a process made extremely easy by the herding behavior of the species. It must also be noted that once a population has declined to a certain level, there may simply be too few individuals left to stimulate or consummate social behavior. For example, certain species of colonial birds satiate their predators by synchronous breeding, and thus a decrease in the size of a breeding population typically results in increased mortality from predation. A species may furthermore require some sort of social facilitation in order for mating and offspring production to be vigorous. Females of some bird species have short estrous cycles during which fertilization must occur, while males can fertilize females only during certain periods. Thus asynchrony between the sexes can completely prevent mating when there are too few individuals in a population. A small population can furthermore be threatened by ¶uctuations in the biotic and abiotic environment. Extrinsic forces, such as temporal variation in habitat parameters, the population sizes of enemies, and random catastrophes, can produce major population declines. A greater probability thus exists that extrinsic forces like epizootic diseases or adverse weather will extirpate a small population.71 Species with narrow habitat requirements are often subjected to a greater than normal threat of extinction. As the habitats of such species decrease in size and become more patchily distributed, formerly continuous populations are fragmented into series of small ones having very limited interactions. Such small populations are much more likely to undergo extinction than is a single large population—simply because the number of individuals in such populations is smaller. Should a small, isolated population become extinct, the site is much less likely to be recolonized than a piece of suitable

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habitat embedded in a large and continuously inhabited range would be. The ivory-billed woodpecker inhabited a broad geographical range but was largely restricted to a certain habitat, the mature bottomland hardwood forests of the southeast, which have been greatly diminished during recent centuries. In order to evaluate the ultimate importance of anthropogenic habitat alteration in the disappearance of the species, other possible factors contributing to its demise will be examined. The European settlers introduced numerous new species to North American ¶ora and fauna, and some of these became competitors or predators of the original species. The colonists had also brought with them the diseases of the Old World, which proved to be dangerous for the aboriginal humans of North America as well as for the indigenous ¶ora and fauna.72 There is, however, no evidence of epizootic disease, whether introduced or endemic, involved in the decline of this species. The European settlers did not introduce to North America any potential predators of the ivory-billed woodpecker. The colonists did, however, introduce a species that possibly became a competitor for this cavity-nesting bird. The European honeybee (Apis mellifera) barely preceded the settlers in invading the interior of North America, and it became extremely abundant within a short time. The bees tend to nest in hollow trees, the very places where the ivory-billed woodpeckers nested, and thus the honeybees may have to some degree prevented the birds from using the holes.73 The forests of North America had been rich in a variety of mammals and birds, which provided a convenient supply of food and made hunting an important part of the settlers’ domestic economy. Ever since colonial times, the ivory-billed woodpecker had been an easy and palatable target for the hunter. The bird soon became a part of southern cuisine, and as late as 1895 an ornithologist visiting Florida remarked that the few remaining individuals in the region were “shot by being systematically followed up. They are shot for food, and the people—the crackers—consider them ‘better than ducks’!”74 In addition to being an edible game bird, a conspicuous

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species such as the ivory-billed woodpecker was widely shot for sport and practice. Marksmanship aside, it is interesting to note that the use of woodpecker bills as ef¤gies had not passed with the Indian. The ivory-billed woodpecker could still be hunted for its prized bill in the twentieth century: a pair of ivory-colored mandibles made an excellent watch-charm!75 When the extreme rarity of ivory-billed woodpeckers had become evident and the remaining intact bottomland areas of the southeast were proving to be their last strongholds, the demand for specimens increased rapidly. Collectors and ornithologists wanted to preserve as many specimens as possible for both public and private collections before the species became extinct. The ornithologist of the late nineteenth century seldom identi¤ed the birds with binoculars and ¤eld guides in the wild but rather shot the bird and examined it at home. Every self-respecting scientist had a collection of eggs, skins, and mounted specimens; rarities were in particular demand. The ivory-billed woodpecker was hunted enthusiastically for that purpose, but obtaining ¤rst-class specimens could prove dif¤cult: “Five [ivory-billed woodpeckers] came into my possession during my last trip, but three of them having been shot with a 44 Winchester were of no use as cabinet specimens.”76 In addition to the specimen hunting on more or less scienti¤c grounds, the nests and eggs of the ivory-billed woodpecker were in demand for other purposes. In the turn-of-the-century United States and Europe, oology (egg collecting) as a hobby was almost as popular as philately or numismatics, and a ¶ourishing trade existed in the eggs of rare species. When a set of eggs of the ivory-billed woodpecker could pro¤t a professional merchant some two hundred dollars, the onslaught on the last known populations of the species was hardly surprising.77 The rapid disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker did not arouse much attention in the turn-of-the-century United States; possibly the even more spectacular extirpation of the passenger pigeon overshadowed its demise. Conservation ideas were still unusual, and the few laws passed for the protection of endangered

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birds during the nineteenth century proved grossly ineffective. There was some concern in ornithological circles: most agreed that the species was in immediate danger of extinction and expressed their regret about the situation. Some ornithologists may even have justi¤ed contemporary extinctions on the basis of “survival of the ¤ttest.”78 In any case, a few individuals proposed concrete measures to preserve endangered species, while the majority of ornithologists concentrated upon specimen hunting: a species on the verge of extinction had to be obtained for the scientist’s own collection or museum while it still was possible.79 As late as 1915, an article describing the collecting of the ivory-billed woodpecker for specimens could be published in a distinguished journal of scienti¤c ornithology without arousing much attention.80 Shooting an endangered species for scienti¤c reasons was always justi¤ed: the famous ornithologist Frank M. Chapman accused the “so-called sportsmen” of wanton slaughter that partially caused the extinction of the Carolina parakeet but went on to say, “So far as I know, the Carolina Paroquet was last taken near Taylor Creek, northeast of Lake Okeechobee, where, in April 1904, I saw thirteen and shot four.”81 As the rising conservation movement gained momentum, state and federal laws—and the attitudes of biologists—began to change, and by the 1930s an ornithologist’s observation of a rare species did not inevitably result in an additional specimen in a museum collection.82 By 1932 the Louisiana Department of Conservation did not issue permits for the scienti¤c collecting of the ivory-billed woodpecker and asserted to conservationists its will to do everything within its power to protect the last ivory-billed woodpeckers “in their home in the big forest.”83 Consequently the state of Louisiana attempted to secure a protective right over the wildlife in the last large tract of primeval bottomland hardwood forest in the state. These 80,000 acres (32,000 hectares), the so-called Singer Tract in Madison Parish of northeastern Louisiana, were also the locality of James T. Tanner’s study on the last known breeding population of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States. The owners of the forest, however, reserved their right to develop their property as they

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wished. In 1937 half of the forested area was sold to lumbering interests, and cutting in the Singer Tract began. By 1943 the entire area had been logged over and the woodpeckers soon disappeared.84 Louisiana ornithologist and Tabasco tycoon E. A. McIlhenny had not really exaggerated when he stated in 1941 that “[w]hen cutting begins on this last stand of virgin timber in Louisiana, ivorybilled woodpeckers will disappear, and the demands of civilization will have exterminated one more famous creature through environmental changes.”85 The remaining populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker were undoubtedly too small and too widely scattered when legislative and other efforts to save them ¤nally began, and attempts to establish preserves for the protection of the species have not been successful.86 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the breeding populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker more or less disappeared from the United States. Of the factors involved in the disappearance of the species, which can be classi¤ed as the ultimate and which as the proximate causes for its demise? In any case, human in¶uence seems to have been decisive in the process of extinction. Judging from all evidence, the ultimate cause for the disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker was the extensive destruction of its habitat by land clearing and logging. The cutting of mature bottomland hardwood forests deprived this highly specialized species of its main food source, the larvae of insects restricted to old-growth forests. The decreases in the ivory-billed woodpecker’s range almost always correlated with the spread of the logging industry, and the populations disappeared after the timber in the bottomlands had been removed.87 The decline in area of suitable habitat led to fragmentation of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s range, and several proximate causes then exterminated the isolated and sedentary populations. Direct evidence that demographic stochasticity played a role in the woodpecker’s demise does not exist. The role of genetic deterioration, on the other hand, seems more substantiated. There is some suggestion of inbreeding depression in the last populations, manifested by

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infertile eggs and weak offspring. The high percentage of infertile eggs in the last known clutches of the species can also be explained by asynchrony between reproductive cycles of the sexes. Consequently social dysfunction, in addition to inbreeding, may have been in¶uential in the demise of the last, small populations of the ivory-billed woodpecker.88 Several extrinsic forces played at least a proximate role in the passing of Campephilus principalis. Egg and specimen collectors undoubtedly accelerated the decline of the species around the turn of the century. No sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker were made in the Suwannee River region of Florida after a professional collector had secured seventeen specimens in the area in 1892 and 1893.89 Occasional egg and nestling predation by natural enemies such as raccoons and opossums could have furthermore reduced the nesting success of the last breeding pairs. It must also be noted that the hunting of the species for food continued till the very end; in the poor, rural areas of the southeast, an ivory-billed woodpecker could still be shot for solely nutritional purposes in the early twentieth century.90 The rapid disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker indicates a profound change in the whole bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem. The environment of this one species, as well as of all North American fauna, was rapidly altered after the colonists’ arrival. It is clearly evident that the destruction of mature bottomland hardwood forests in the southeast played a signi¤cant part in the demise of the ivory-billed woodpecker. This immense change in North American forests was largely driven by economic interests. Along with the industrialization and commercial development in Europe and North America came burgeoning markets for products that could be obtained by utilizing the bottomland hardwood forest, and agriculture and forestry expanded enormously compared with the Native American practice. In one form or another, the events described in this chapter are being constantly repeated on a global scale.91

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Notes Most of the source material for this article has been obtained from the different libraries of the University of Helsinki, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Kansas. Special reference should be made to some collections at the University of Kansas libraries. The collection of government publications and the holdings of the ornithology laboratory at Dyche Hall possess much material unavailable in Finland. The Ralph N. Ellis Collection of Ornithology at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library contains an extraordinary number of ornithological publications, and it proved invaluable while searching for rare nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century journals of ornithology and oology. Many people have aided the completion of this manuscript by commenting on my work at various stages of research. I especially wish to thank Alfred Crosby, Harvey Green, Yrjö Haila, Markku Henriksson, the late Olli Järvinen, Anto Leikola, Torsten Stjernberg, Yrjö Vasari, Thomas Wendel, Donald Worster, and John Wunder for their encouragement. Parts of this chapter have appeared in Environment and History 2, no. 1 (February 1996): 77–95. 1. See, for example, Kalevi Hyytiä, Jarmo Koistinen, and Erkki Kellomäki, eds., Suomen Lintuatlas (Helsinki, 1983), p. 495; and Frank B. Gill, Ornithology (New York, 1990), p. 9. 2. Thomas R. Cox, Robert S. Maxwell, Philip Drennon Thomas, and Joseph J. Malone, This Well-Wooded Land: Americans and Their Forests from Colonial Times to the Present (Lincoln, Nebr., 1985), p. 2; James C. Greenway Jr., Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World, 2d rev. ed. (New York, 1967), p. 37; Michael Williams, Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography, Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 3–4. Cf. Stephen J. Pyne, Fire in America (Princeton, N.J., 1982), pp. 75–76, 79–80. 3. The southeastern United States, as used in this chapter, consists of the modern-day states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee and of southern Virginia and Kentucky, southeastern Missouri, and eastern Oklahoma and Texas. 4. David M. Smith, “The Forests of the United States,” in Regional Silviculture of the United States, ed. John W. Barret, 2d ed. (New York, 1980), pp. 9–19. See also E. Lucy Braun, Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (Philadelphia, 1950), pp. 31–38, 290–91; and C. Frank Brockman, Trees of North America: A Guide to Field Identi¤cation, rev.

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ed. (New York, 1986), pp. 18–19. See also William H. Patrick Jr., George Bissmeyer, Donal D. Hook, Victor W. Lambou, Helen M. Leitman, and Charles H. Wharton, “Characteristics of Wetland Ecosystems of Southeastern Bottomland Hardwood Forests,” in Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), p. 277 (¤gure 1). It should be noted that alternative terms have sometimes been used of the bottomland hardwood forest. For example, in the classic map of the natural vegetation of North America by Shantz and Zon (1924), the bottomland hardwood forests are called “river bottom forests.” 5. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, “Introduction,” in Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), p. 1; and David William Smith and Norwin E. Linnartz, “The Southern Hardwood Region,” in Regional Silviculture of the United States, ed. John W. Barret, 2d ed. (New York, 1980), p. 145. 6. Smith and Linnartz (1980), pp. 154–55; and James G. Dickson, “Forest Bird Communities of the Bottomland Hardwoods,” in Proceedings of the Workshop Management of Southern Forests for Nongame Birds, January 24–26, 1978, Atlanta, Georgia (Asheville, N.C., 1978), p. 66; and James G. Dickson, “Bird Communities in Oak-Gum-Cypress Forests,” Bird Conservation, vol. 3, ed. Jerome A. Jackson (Madison, Wis., 1988), p. 51. Most bottomland hardwood forests are found on the so-called ¤rst bottoms and terraces. First bottoms have been formed by the present drainage system. Under natural conditions, they are subject to frequent ¶ooding. Terraces that have been formed by earlier drainage systems represent former ¶oodplains and are not ¶ooded except during super¶ood stages. The transition from a ¤rst bottom to a terrace may be distinct or gradual. Variation in elevations within the bottoms and terraces results in ridges, ¶ats, sloughs, and swamps. In addition, new areas of land, or fronts, are formed by the river in ¤rst bottoms along the riverbanks. Ridges are banks or fronts of former stream courses, commonly one to ten feet (thirty to three hundred centimeters) above the adjoining ¶ats. They are covered by the water only during ¶oods. The ¶ats constitute the general terrain between ridges, and have little topographical relief. The sloughs are the remains of nearly ¤lled stream courses or present drainageways; water collects only seasonally in these shallow depressions. The swamps are distinct depressions that contain water except during extreme drought. These terms, used today to describe the physiography of bottomland

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hardwood forests, were introduced by J. A. Putnam in Management of Bottomland Hardwoods, Occasional Papers, no. 116 (Asheville, N.C., 1951). For another classi¤cation of the physiographic features of the ¶oodplain, see Braun (1950), pp. 290–91. 7. Smith and Linnartz (1980), pp. 156–57; and Lewis H. Larson, Aboriginal Subsistence Technology on the Southeastern Coastal Plain during the Late Prehistoric Period, Ripley P. Bullen Monographs in Anthropology and History, no. 2 (Gainesville, Fla., 1980), pp. 36, 51. 8. Charles Mohr’s report upon the forests of the Yazoo Delta, Mississippi, in 1880. Published in Charles S. Sargent, Report on the Forests of North America (Exclusive of Mexico), vol. 9 of The Tenth Census of the United States (1880), U.S. Department of Interior, Census Of¤ce (Washington, D.C., 1884), p. 535. 9. Braun (1950), pp. 293–95; and Clark and Benforado (1981), pp. 1–2. On succession in general, see Michael Begon, John L. Harper, and Colin R. Townsend, Ecology: Individuals, Populations, and Communities, 2d ed. (Boston, 1990), pp. 628–47. 10. Dickson (1978), p. 67. 11. For two different attempts to classify the bottomland hardwood forest ¶ora, see Braun (1950), pp. 291–95; and Smith and Linnartz (1980), pp. 160–61 (table 5-3). To illuminate the complexity of ¶ora classi¤cation in the bottomlands, a short description of J. A. Putnam’s system, according to Dickson (1978), p. 66, and (1988), pp. 53–54, is given. For a more painstaking portrayal, consult Putnam (1951), pp. 3–6. In Putnam’s classi¤cation, the bottomland ¶ora is divided into eight different categories. According to Putnam, the widely distributed sweetgum–water oak type is usually found on terrace ¶ats and in ¤rst bottoms. The white oak–red oak–other hardwoods type occurs mainly on ¤rst bottom and terrace ridges. The overcup oak–bitter pecan type is characteristic of low, poorly drained ¶ats, sloughs, and backwater basins. The cottonwood type pioneers fronts and well-drained ¶ats, while hackberry-elm-ash is normally a successional type following cottonwood on low ridges, ¶ats, and sloughs in ¤rst bottoms and on terrace ¶ats and sloughs. The willow type invades fronts in sloughs and low ¶ats. The riverfront hardwoods type is transitional between cottonwood or willow and the sweetgum–water oak type and occurs on all front lands except deep sloughs and swamps. Finally, the cypresstupelo-gum type characterizes low and poorly drained ¶ats, deep sloughs, and swamps. 12. While there have been only a few studies comparing the fauna of bot-

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tomland forests with the fauna of upland forests, it appears that the bottomland hardwood forests have a distinctive fauna. Food resources found in the bottomland hardwood forests attract mammals as diverse as the opossum (Didelphis virginiana), rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.), the raccoon (Procyon lotor), and the bobcat (Felis rufus). At the time of the European conquest, canebrakes of the bottomland ridges provided food and cover for large herds of the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Also, the black bear (Ursus americanus), the cougar (Felis concolor), and even the wolf (Canis lupus) were among the original fauna of the bottomland hardwood forests. See Charles H. Wharton, Victor M. Lambou, John Newsom, Parley V. Winger, L. L. Gaddy, and Rudy Mancke, “The Fauna of Bottomland Hardwoods in Southeastern United States,” in Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural and ManagedForest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), pp. 120–21. 13. Dickson (1978), pp. 67–71, and (1988), pp. 52–58; and Paul B. Hamel, H. E. LeGrand Jr., M. R. Lennartz, and S. A. Gauthereaux Jr., Bird-Habitat Relationships on Southeastern Forest Lands (Asheville, N.C., 1982), pp. 95–109, 161–76, and especially pp. 132–46. See also Begon, Harper, and Townsend (1990), pp. 819–25; Louis B. Best, Dean F. Stauffer, and Anthony R. Geier, “Evaluating the Effects of Habitat Alteration on Birds and Small Mammals Occupying Riparian Communities,” in Strategies for Protection and Management of Floodplain Wetlands and Other Riparian Ecosystems: Proceedings of the Symposium, December 11–13, 1978, Callaway Gardens, Georgia (Washington, D.C. 1979), pp. 118–21; H. H. Shugart, T. M. Smith, J. T. Kitchings, and R. L. Kroodsma, “The Relationship of Nongame Birds to Southern Forest Types and Successional Stages,” in Proceedings of the Workshop Management of Southern Forests for Nongame Birds, January 24–26, 1978, Atlanta, Georgia (Asheville, N.C., 1978), pp. 5–15; Dean F. Stauffer and Louis B. Best, “Habitat Selection by Birds of Riparian Communities: Evaluating Effects of Habitat Alterations,” Journal of Wildlife Management 44 (January 1980): 1–15; and Bryan L. Swift, Joseph S. Larson, and Richard M. DeGraaf, “Relationship of Breeding Bird Density and Diversity to Habitat Variables in Forested Wetlands,” Wilson Bulletin 96 (March 1984): pp. 51–58. On the importance of the habitat, see John Cairns Jr., Mark M. Brinson, Robert L. Johnson, W. Blake Parker, R. Eugene Turner, and Parley V. Winger, “Impacts Associated with Southeastern Bottomland Hardwood Forest Ecosystems,” Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural

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and Managed-Forest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), pp. 303–26; Laurence R. Jahn, “Values of Riparian Habitats to Natural Ecosystems,” in Strategies for Protection and Management of Floodplain Wetlands and Other Riparian Ecosystems: Proceedings of the Symposium, December 11–13, 1978, Callaway Gardens, Georgia (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 157–58; Eugene P. Odum, “Ecological Importance of the Riparian Zone,” in Strategies for Protection and Management of Floodplain Wetlands and Other Riparian Ecosystems: Proceedings of the Symposium, December 11–13, 1978, Callaway Gardens, Georgia (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 2–4; and Wharton et al. (1981), p. 127. 14. Good introductions to the natural history of the Carolina parakeet include Arthur Cleveland Bent, Life Histories of North American Cuckoos, Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, and Their Allies, Smithsonian Institute, United States National Museum Bulletin, no. 176 (Washington D.C., 1940), pp. 1–14; and Greenway (1967), pp. 323–27. The Carolina parakeet has been extensively studied by Daniel McKinley. For example, see his “The Carolina Parakeet in Pioneer Missouri,” Wilson Bulletin 72 (September 1960): 274–87. See also Mikko Saikku, “The Extinction of the Carolina Parakeet,” Environmental History Review 14 (fall 1990): 1–18. On the Bachman’s warbler, see Arthur Cleveland Bent, Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Smithsonian Institute, United States National Museum Bulletin, no. 203, part 1 (Washington, D.C., 1953), pp. 67–74; and John P. S. MacKenzie, Birds in Peril (Toronto, 1977), pp. 153–58. The de¤nitive study is Paul B. Hamel, Bachman’s Warbler: A Species in Peril (Washington, D.C., 1986). 15. Carl von Linné (Linnaeus), Systema Naturae, 10th rev. ed. (Holm, 1758), p. 113. Carl Linnaeus was raised to the Swedish nobility in 1757 as von Linné. 16. For taxonomy of the genus, see James F. Clements, Birds of the World: A Check List (New York, 1974), p. 209; and James Lee Peters, Check-list of Birds of the World, vol. 6 (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 231–32. Only three species are included in the genus today, the third being the Magellan woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus) of Argentina and Chile. The most comprehensive study of this species is still James T. Tanner, The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, National Audubon Society Research Report, no. 1 (New York, 1942). Excellent nineteenth-century descriptions of the species can be found in John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, Or an Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1832), pp. 342–47; Charles Bendire, Life Histories of North American Birds: From the Parrots to the Grackles, Smithsonian Institution Special Bulletin, no. 3 (Washington, D.C., 1895), pp.

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42–45; Edwin M. Hasbrouck, “The Present Status of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis),” Auk 8 (April 1891): 174–86; and Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, American Ornithology; Or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States, vol. 1, ed. Robert Jameson (Edinburgh, 1831), pp. 132–38. Good general accounts include Arthur Cleveland Bent, Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers, Smithsonian Institute, United States National Museum Bulletin, no. 174 (Washington, D.C., 1939), pp. 1–12; Frank M. Chapman, “Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Notes on the Plumage of North American Birds, 87th paper, Bird-Lore 32 (1930): 265–67; Greenway (1967), pp. 357–60; and Lester L. Short, Woodpeckers of the World (Greenville, Del., 1982), pp. 448–51. For a detailed study based on ¤eld observations of the species, see Arthur A. Allen and Paul P. Kellogg, “Recent Observations on the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Auk 54 (April 1937): 164–84. On more recent status of the species, see Endangered Birds of the World: The ICBP Bird Red Data Book, comp. Warren B. King (Washington, D.C., 1981), codes 103/CAMPE/PRI/PRI E and 103/CAMPE/ PRI/BAI E; Lester L. Short, “Status and Conservation of Woodpeckers,” Bird Conservation, vol. 1, ed. Stanley E. Temple (Madison, Wis., 1983), p. 125; and www.fws.gov/r9endspp/birds2.html#LnkOa (April 15, 1999). On the Cuban subspecies, see also Gill (1990), p. 483; Guy Mountfort, Rare Birds of the World: A Collins/ICBP Handbook (Lexington, Mass., 1989), p. 86; and Lester L. Short, “Status and Conservation of Woodpeckers,” in Bird Conservation, vol. 3, ed. Jerome A. Jackson (Madison, Wis., 1988), pp. 161–62. An expedition in the spring of 1986 sighted at least two birds in the Cupeyal Reserve (Oriente Province). This reserve was established in 1963 by the Cuban Academy of Sciences. Most of the mature timber in the area, however, had already been removed by that time, and the forest remains in a highly disturbed state. See also www. neotropicalbirdclub.org/feature/ivory.html (April 15, 1999). On the imperial woodpecker, see E. W. Nelson, “The Imperial Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Campephilus imperialis (Gould),” Auk 15 (July 1898): 217–23; and Short (1982), p. 452. Ecologically similar species include also the pale-billed and crimson-crested woodpeckers (Phloeoceastes guatemalensis and P. melanoleucos) of Central America. See Lawrence Kilham, Life History Studies of Woodpeckers of Eastern North America, Publications of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. 20 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 195–204. 17. On morphology, see works cited in the second paragraph of note 16

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above; Elliot Coues, Key to North American Birds, 2 vols., 5th rev. ed. (Boston, 1903), p. 580; and Robert Ridgway, The Birds of North and Middle America: A Descriptive Catalogue, Part 6, U.S. National Museum Bulletin, no. 50 (Washington, D.C., 1914), pp. 167–68. 18. Mark Catesby, Catesby’s Birds of Colonial America, ed. Alan Feduccia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985), p. 88. For Catesby’s eighteenth-century illustration of two bottomland hardwood forest species, a male ivory-billed woodpecker perched on a willow oak (Quercus phellos), see ibid. 19. As a rule, the genus inhabits mature pine forests, and some scholars maintain that the vast pine forests of the southeast made up the original habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker. See Jerome A. Jackson, “The Southeastern Pine Forest Ecosystem and Its Birds: Past, Present, and Future,” Bird Conservation, vol. 3, ed. Jerome A. Jackson (Madison, Wis., 1988), pp. 141–42; and Short (1982), p. 449. Cf. H. Nehrling, “List of Birds Observed at Houston, Harris Co., Texas, and in the Counties Montgomery, Galveston and Ford Bend,” Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 7 (1882): 170. On the species’ range, see works cited in the second paragraph of note 16 above; Arthur H. Howell, Birds of Alabama, 2d ed. (Birmingham, Ala., 1928), pp. 159–60; Harry C. Oberholser, “Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” The Migration of North American Birds, 2d series, 43, Bird-Lore 32 (1930), p. 265; and L. Otley Pindar, “Winter Birds in Eastern Arkansas,” Wilson Bulletin 36 (December 1924): 205. 20. Audubon (1832), p. 342. 21. James T. Tanner’s extensive study of the species was funded with a fellowship at the Cornell University, established for the purpose by the National Audubon Society. Field work for the project lasted three years (1937–39), and Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was published in October 1942; on the Cornell project, see Christopher Cokinos, Hope is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds (New York, 2000), pp. 67–87. The best account on foraging habits of the species is Tanner (1942), pp. 40–45. See also Clarence Cottam and Phoebe Knappen, “Food of Some Uncommon North American Birds,” Auk 56 (April 1939): 162. According to most writers, larvae of Buprestidae, Cerambycidae, and Elateridae dominated the diet of the ivory-billed woodpecker. 22. On nesting, see works cited in the second paragraph of note 16 above; R. D. Hoyt, “Nesting of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Florida,” Warbler, 2d series, vol. 1 (1905), pp. 52–55; and William Earl Dodge Scott, The Story of a Bird Lover (New York, 1904), pp. 267–70.

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23. On competition and predation, see Short (1982), pp. 450–51; and Tanner (1942), pp. 54–55. 24. For a de¤nitive study on this species, consult A. W. Schorger, The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction (Madison, Wis., 1955). The amazement caused by the abundance of this species to a European is evident, for example, in Pehr (Peter) Kalm, “A Description of the Wild Pigeons Which Visit the Southern English Colonies in North America, During Certain Years, in Incredible Multitudes,” Auk 28 (January 1911): 53–66; and Resejournal över Resan till Norra Amerika, vol. 2, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland, no. 436 (Helsingfors, Finland, 1970), pp. 278–88, 319–20, 363–65, 420–21. 25. Catesby (1985), p. 88. 26. von Linné (1758), p. 113. See also O. A. Stevens, “The First Descriptions of North American Birds,” Wilson Bulletin 48 (September 1936): 206–7. The species was also included in Thomas Jefferson’s list of Virginia birds (1781). See Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1955), p. 99. 27. Hasbrouck (1891), p. 184; and Tanner (1942), p. 18. On the diminishing range, see furthermore Wells W. Cooke, Report on Bird Migration in the Mississippi Valley in the Years 1884 and 1885, ed. and rev. C. Hart Merriam, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Economic Ornithology Bulletin, no. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1888), pp. 127–28, and “Some Winter Birds of Oklahoma,” Auk 31 (October 1914): 480; Walter Hoxie, “Probable Occurrence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker on Pritchard’s Island, South Carolina,” Ornithologist and Oologist 12 (August 1887): 122; and L. Otley Pindar, “Birds of Fulton County, Kentucky,” Wilson Bulletin 37 (June 1925): 86. For some nineteenth-century sightings in Florida, see C. Hart Merriam, “Ornithological Notes from the South,” American Naturalist 8 (February 1874): 88; William Earl Dodge Scott, “On Birds Observed in Sumpter, Levy, and Hillsboro Counties, Florida,” Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 6 (1881): 16; and William Earl Dodge Scott, “Notes on the Birds of the Caloosahatchie Region in Florida,” Auk 9 (July 1892): 218; and John Williams, “Notes on Birds of Wakulla County, Florida,” Wilson Bulletin 32 (March 1920): 10. 28. Tanner (1942), p. 18. Chronology of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s disappearance in Florida during the twentieth century can be traced from Oscar E. Baynard, “Breeding Birds of Alachua County, Florida,” Auk 30 (April 1913): 245; J. B. Ellis, “Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Not Yet Extinct,” Oologist 35 (January 1918): 11; Donald J. Nicholson, “My First IvoryBilled Woodpeckers,” Oologist 43 (December 1926): 156–58; F. M.

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Phelps, “The Resident Bird Life of the Big Cypress Swamp Region,” Wilson Bulletin 26 (June 1914): 99; and John Williams, “Some Notes from St. Marks, Florida,” Wilson Bulletin 29 (September 1917): 165–66. On the disappearance history in Louisiana, see Stanley C. Arthur, The Birds of Louisiana, Department of Conservation Bulletin, no. 20 (New Orleans, 1931), p. 375; and E. A. McIlhenny, “The Passing of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Auk 58 (October 1941): 582–84; and E. A. McIlhenny, “Major Changes in the Bird Life of Southern Louisiana during Sixty Years,” Auk 60 (October 1943): 547. On Mississippi and Texas, see Julian D. Corrington, “The Winter Birds of the Biloxi, Mississippi, Region,” Auk 39 (October 1922): 545; and Rollin H. Baker, “Remarks on the Former Distribution of Animals in Eastern Texas,” Texas Journal of Science 8 (September 1956): 357–58. 29. Tanner (1942), pp. 29, 99. 30. MacKenzie (1977), p. 152. On the last authenticated sightings, see Whitney Eastman, “Ten Year Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Atlantic Naturalist 13 (October-December 1958): 216–27. For a later, uncon¤rmed report, see H. Norton Agey and George M. Heinzmann, “The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Found in Central Florida,” Florida Naturalist 44 (April 1971): 46–47, 64. 31. Short (1982), pp. 450–51. Short speculates that because of interspeci¤c competition with the pileated woodpecker, the ivory-billed woodpecker would not be able to maintain viable populations under the prevailing conditions. No extensive areas of the species’ primary habitat exist today, and the pileated woodpecker, being more of a generalist species, is a superior competitor in the secondary habitats. 32. On major cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, see Donald J. Ballas, “Historical Geography and American Indian Development,” in A Cultural Geography of North American Indians, ed. Thomas E. Ross and Tyrel G. Moore (Boulder, Colo., 1987), pp. 15–20. 33. Larson (1980), a good example of the interdisciplinary approach to the prehistory of North America, has largely served as a model for the following discussion on the Native American subsistence technology in relation to the bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem. 34. Albert E. Cowdrey, This Land, This South (Lexington, Ky., 1983), pp. 13–14; and R. Douglas Hurt, Indian Agriculture in America (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), pp. 13–16. 35. Larson (1980), pp. 221–28. 36. The following account of the general characteristics of Native American agriculture in southeastern North America is based on Cowdrey (1983), pp. 14–15; Cox et al. (1985), pp. 39–40; G. Melvin Herndon, “In-

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dian Agriculture in the Southern Colonies,” North Carolina Historical Review 44 (summer 1967), pp. 283–97; Hurt (1987), pp. 13–16, 27–41; Robert M. Weir, Colonial South Carolina—A History (Millwood, N.Y., 1983), pp. 14, 16; and Richard White and William Cronon, “Ecological Change and Indian-White Relations,” in History of Indian-White Relations, Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 4, ed. Wilcom E. Washburn, (Washington, D.C., 1984), pp. 419–20. 37. Hurt (1987), pp. 29–31; and Larson (1980), p. 222. 38. Larson (1980), pp. 56, 58–59, 65, 221–22. 39. Cf. A. L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, repr. (Berkeley, Calif., 1963), p. 147; and Henry F. Dobyns, Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America, Native American Historic Demography Series (Knoxville, Tenn., 1983), p. 41. 40. Quoted in Herndon (1967), p. 284. 41. Cowdrey (1983), pp. 14–15; Larson (1980), pp. 38–47, 51–52; and White and Cronon (1984), p. 420. Cf. Pyne (1982), pp. 143–44. The competitive advantage of the longleaf pine in frequently burned woods is based on its thick bark, rapidly growing root system, and seeds germinating on exposed soil. 42. Larson (1980), pp. 28, 58. 43. In the southeast the enormous roosts of the passenger pigeon were located in the oak-hickory forests of the uplands. See Jackson (1988), p. 137. 44. Catesby (1985), p. 88. See also Audubon (1832), p. 343; and Wilson and Bonaparte (1831), pp. 135–36. The collections of the Milwaukee Public Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, contain a peace pipe ornamented with six bills and crests of the ivory-billed woodpecker. This pipe was made by the Iowa tribe of Oklahoma. See Margaret Morse Nice and Leonard Blaine Nice, The Birds of Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Bulletin, no. 20 (Norman, Okla., 1924), p. 50. 45. Alfred M. Bailey, “Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s Beak in an Indian Grave in Colorado,” Condor 41 (July 1939), p. 164. Many Indian tribes believed certain animals to be useful in curing diseases. For example, in the medicine of the Wyoming Shoshone, woodpeckers were associated with venereal diseases. 46. The conquistadors, however, had brought with them Eurasian diseases that often proved fatal to Indian populations in the region. Also, the horse (Equus caballus) was reintroduced in North America by the Spanish, and it later became important for many Indian tribes.

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On the environmental history of the collision of the Old and New Worlds, see Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn., 1972), and Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge, 1986). 47. The following account of European agriculture in North America is based on Cowdrey (1983), pp. 28–41, 67–80, 107–11; Cox et al. (1985), pp. 9, 38–39; Paul A. Korte and Leigh H. Frederickson, “Loss of Missouri’s Lowland Hardwood Ecosystem,” in Transactions of the Forty-second North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, ed. Kenneth Sabol (Washington, D.C., 1977), pp. 33–40; and Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800, Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 104–10, 139–88. 48. Weir (1983), p. 38. 49. On the late-nineteenth-century rice agriculture in Louisiana, see Cowdrey (1983), pp. 108–9. 50. Michael Williams, “Clearing the United States Forests: Pivotal Years 1810–1860,” Journal of Historical Geography 8 (January 1982), pp. 14–15. 51. U.S. Bureau of the Census (U.S. Census Of¤ce), Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 1 (Washington, D.C., 1975), p. 460 (table K 55). The area of land in farms in Florida increased from 2,374,000 to 4,364,000 acres (949,600 to 1,745,600 hectares). 52. Williams (1982), pp. 16, 24–25. 53. The annual return for soybeans is manyfold higher than what the landowner receives from natural or planted stands of hardwoods, or even from cultivation of corn. See R. Eugene Turner, Stephen W. Forsythe, and Nancy J. Craig, “Bottomland Hardwood Forest Land Resources of the Southeastern United States,” in Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), p. 24. On twentieth-century land conversion along the lower Mississippi, see Herbert S. Sternitzke, “Impact of Changing Land Use on Delta Hardwood Forests,” Journal of Forestry 74 (January 1976): 25–27. 54. Williams (1982), p. 18; and Marion Clawson, “Forests in the Long Sweep of American History,” Science 204 (June 1979): 1172. 55. Silver (1990), pp. 133–35. The elimination of forest canopy from the drainage basin of a stream is likely to increase evaporation, runoff, and erosion, which can cause considerable ¶uctuations in the water level. 56. Cox et al. (1985), p. 266 (¤gure 2); and U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 542 (table L 113).

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A board foot measures 1 foot × 1 foot × 1 inch, and 12 board feet equals one cubic foot. Throughout this article, “billion” is the American billion (thousand million). The following account on forestry in the southeastern United States is based on Cowdrey (1983), pp. 52–55, 89–95, 111–14; Cox et al. (1985), pp. 94–101, 122, 164–65, 188; Jackson (1988), pp. 127–34; Robert S. Maxwell, “The Impact of Forestry on the Gulf South,” Forest History 17 (April 1973): 31–35; and Williams (1982), pp. 12–28, and (1989), pp. 238–88. 57. On the development of the log drive and the continental transport system of timber, see Williams (1982), pp. 24–25. 58. Cowdrey (1983), pp. 92–93, 97–98; G. Melvin Herndon, “Forest Products of Colonial Georgia,” Journal of Forest History 23 (July 1979): 135; and Silver (1990), p. 119. 59. Charles Mohr’s report from the Tensas River region of Alabama in 1880. Published in Sargent (1884), p. 525. 60. The Swamp Lands Acts of 1849–50, aiming to increase the amount of arable land, donated all federal swamplands to the individual states, on the condition that the money obtained from their sale be used to levee and drain them. 61. Cox et al. (1985), p. 122. 62. Cowdrey (1983), pp. 111–14. Some 5,500,000 acres (2,200,000 hectares) of federal land was sold in the ¤ve southeastern public land states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida) after the Civil War. 63. Charles Mohr’s report from the Tensas River region of Alabama in 1880. Published in Sargent (1884), p. 526. 64. Ibid. 65. U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 542 (tables L 113, 118, and 119). The states included in the South and south Atlantic regions are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. 66. Williams (1989), p. 238. 67. In the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, only about 5 percent of the remaining bottomland hardwood forests are in public ownership. See O. Gordon Langdon, Joe P. McClure, Donal D. Hook, Joe M. Crockett, and Ron Hunt, “Extent, Condition, Management, and Research Needs of Bottomland HardwoodCypress Forests in the Southeastern United States,” in Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests, ed. J. R. Clark and J. Benforado, Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, no. 11 (New York, 1981), p. 72 (table 3.1).

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Korte and Frederickson (1977) convincingly illustrate the demise of the bottomland hardwood forest in southeastern Missouri. They estimate that these forests covered some 2,400,000 acres (972,000 hectares) of the region in the late eighteenth century. By 1870 agricultural development had reduced the forests to 2,100,000 acres (850,000 hectares). Lumbering then added to the agricultural clearing, and by 1920 only 1,300,000 acres (526,000 hectares) of bottomland forest remained. Since then, loss of forested habitat has accelerated as a result of governmentassisted drainage, agricultural mechanization, and increased soybean production. Consequently only 98,000 acres (39,700 hectares) of bottomland forest prevailed by 1975, and much of this land was fragmented in blocks of less than 1,000 acres (400 hectares). 68. Tim Halliday, Vanishing Birds: Their Natural History and Conservation (London, 1978), pp. 19–20; and Warren B. King, “Ecological Basis of Extinction in Birds,” in Acta XVII Congressus Internationalis Ornithologici, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1980), p. 905. See also Vinzenz Ziswiler, Extinct and Vanishing Animals, rev. Engl. ed. Fred and Pille Bunnell (New York, 1967), pp. 55–60. 69. The following discussion on the process of extinction is based on William R. J. Dawson, David Ligon, Joseph R. Murphy, J. P. Myers, Daniel Simberloff, and Jared Verner, “Report of the Scienti¤c Advisory Panel on the Spotted Owl,” Condor 89 (February 1987): 212–20; Michael E. Gilpin and Michael E. Soulé, “Minimum Viable Populations: Processes of Species Extinction,” in Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity, ed. Michael E. Soulé (Sunderland, Mass., 1986), pp. 19–34; Olli Järvinen and Kaarina Miettinen, Sammuuko suuri suku? Luonnon puolustamisen biologiaa (Helsinki, 1987), pp. 87–94; and David Simberloff, “The Proximate Causes of Extinction,” in Patterns and Processes in the History of Life, ed. D. M. Raup and D. Jablonski (Berlin, 1986), pp. 262–66. 70. Greenway (1967), pp. 367–68. 71. Simberloff (1986), p. 265. 72. Consult sources mentioned in note 46 above. 73. Cowdrey (1983), p. 154. See also McKinley (1960), p. 283. 74. Arthur Trezevant Wayne, “Notes on the Birds of the Wacissa and Aucilla River Regions of Florida,” Auk 12 (October 1895): 367. Other accounts of the ivory-billed woodpecker as food include Eastman (1958), pp. 218–19; and Philip Laurent, “My Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Oologist 34 (April 1917): 65. According to Eastman, the ivory-billed woodpecker could still be hunted for food in the 1950s.

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75. R. W. Williams Jr., “A Preliminary List of the Birds of Leon County, Florida,” Auk 21 (October 1904): 455. On hunting of the species for bills, see also Audubon (1832), p. 343; and Wayne (1895), p. 367. Cf. Greenway (1967), pp. 357–58; and Austin Paul Smith, “Destruction of Imperial Woodpeckers,” Condor 10 (March 1908): 91. 76. Philip Laurent, “Notes on Birds of Levy County, Florida,” Ornithologist and Oologist 12 (October 1887): 158. 77. For descriptions on collecting of eggs of the ivory-billed woodpecker in twentieth-century Florida, see Oscar E. Baynard, “Echos from Florida,” Oologist 26 (January 1909): 6; and Hoyt (1905), pp. 52–55. 78. Daniel McKinley, “The Gay Life and Sad End of America’s Parakeet,” Explorer 8 (1966): 23. 79. For example, see Frank M. Chapman, Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, 3d ed. (New York, 1896), pp. 222–23. 80. Frederic H. Kennard, “On the Trail of the Ivory-Bill,” Auk 32 (January 1915): 1–14. Other descriptions on hunting for specimens of the ivorybilled woodpecker can be found in Geo. G. Beyer, “The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana,” Auk 17 (April 1900): 99; W. F. Henninger, “The Diary of a New England Ornithologist,” Wilson Bulletin 29 (March 1917): 4; Robert Ridgway, “The Home of the Ivory-Bill,” Osprey 3 (November 1898): 36; and Maurice Thompson, “A RedHeaded Family,” Oologist 6 (February 1889): 29, and “An Archer’s Sojourn in the Oke¤nokee,” Atlantic Monthly 78 (April 1896): 486–91. 81. Frank M. Chapman, Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, 2d rev. ed. (New York, 1934), p. 330. 82. On the changing intellectual climate toward the protection of birds, see Cowdrey (1983), pp. 118, 138–41. 83. Letter of Armand P. Daspit, Director of Fur and Wild Life Division (the Department of Conservation of the State of Louisiana), to Dr. Thomas Gilbert Pearson dated June 6, 1932. In Thomas Gilbert Pearson, “Protection of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,” Bird-Lore 34 (July-August 1932): 300–301. 84. McIlhenny (1941), pp. 583–84; Cokinos (2000), pp. 88–105; and George H. Lowery Jr., Louisiana Birds, 2d ed. (Baton Rouge, La., 1960), pp. 354–55. 85. McIlhenny (1941), p. 584. 86. The ivory-billed woodpecker was included in the list of endangered species by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1973 under the Endangered Species Act; see www.fws.gov/r9endspp/birds2.html#LnkOa (April 15, 1999). On preserves, see Eastman (1958), pp. 221–23, 227; and

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Richard R. Olendorff and William D. Zeedyk “Land Management for the Conservation of Endangered Birds,” in Endangered Birds, ed. Stanley A. Temple (Madison, Wis., 1978), pp. 419–27. 87. For a convincing example from Avery Island of southern Louisiana, see McIlhenny (1941), p. 583. After the logging of the region’s last intact bottomland hardwood forest around 1920, Pique-bois grande, the Cajun name for the ivory-billed woodpecker, has survived only in the Cajun folklore in Louisiana. 88. Allen and Kellogg (1937), pp. 181–84. 89. Tanner (1942), p. 19. The collector in question was A. T. Wayne, well known also for his extensive collecting of eggs and specimens of the Bachman’s warbler. 90. Eastman (1958), pp. 218–19. 91. The grave effects of human-induced habitat alteration on birds are evident also in today’s Fennoscandia. The white-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos), a species characteristic of old-growth hardwood stands, is presently classi¤ed as critically endangered. The extensive logging of mature forests greatly in¶uences populations of birds everywhere in the Nordic countries. For example, see G. Aulén, “Ecology and Distribution History of the White-Backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopus leucotus) in Sweden,” Ph.D. diss., Swedish University of Agriculture Science, Uppsala (1988); and Raimo Virkkala, “Effects of Forestry on Birds in a Changing North-Boreal Coniferous Landscape,” Ph.D. diss., University of Helsinki (1990), pp. 7–8, 10–11.

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nvironment has always had a place in history. However, nature, the pivotal part of environment, is regularly viewed as an instrument. In our culture, nature is basically considered a mere means to be exploited for human ends. It is an object, a setting for human activities, a resource base, a working ground or a refuse pit. A vital question in environmental history is whether nature passively provides preconditions for history without having any active role in the chain of events or whether it is possible to regard environment as an actor in historical processes. First of all, history means human history, and hence there has been an anthropocentric bias in written history. Various competing anthropocentric approaches to history have not left much space for ecocentric views. “History is made by individuals and must be explained in terms of individual action,” claims one of the anthropocentric approaches.1 A contrasting approach argues that the 141

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individual has no proper role in history; according to this approach, history is the result of a series of collective actions. If an action by an individual causes any deviation in the course of events, the ¶ow of actions by a mass of people will later resume the interrupted development. British historian E. H. Carr attempted to reconcile contrasting approaches when he emphasized that “society and the individual are inseparable; they are necessary and complementary to each other, not opposites. . . . The individual apart from society would be both speechless and mindless.”2 Carr regarded history primarily as a sequence of events that is a result of human actions. For him written history consisted of documented facts, selected, processed, and presented by the historian. All facts include a human touch, since they are transmitted to the historian by somebody. Some facts may deal with nature, but they are always observed, registered, and interpreted by human eyes and brains. Consequently, Carr de¤nes history as “a social process, in which individuals are engaged as social beings; and the imaginary antithesis between society and the individual is no more than a red herring drawn across our path to confuse our thinking.”3 Besides the antithesis between society and the individual, there is also another contradiction. Anthropocentric history has frequently regarded humankind and the environment as counterpoles for each other. The former is considered the active and dynamic factor, and the latter a passive and slowly changing entity. Three scholars who consolidated this description of the relationship between the human and nature were Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and René Descartes. In this dualistic concept of reality, the human is above nature; nature is an object, and the human the subject. This approach, which has its roots in the Bible, is de¤ned by Georg Henrik von Wright as follows: “The human encounters nature on the one hand as an observer and on the other hand as an actor that attempts to manipulate it.”4 Therefore it is challenging to claim that the environment is an active element in history—not only a precondition or instrument for human actions. Examining environment as a responding actor in the sequence of historical events leads one to ask

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whether it should be subsumed among the factors capable of explaining history. The group of French historians who founded the journal Annales d´histoire économique et sociale in 1929 was the ¤rst coherent team of researchers who clearly perceived the importance of humankind’s dynamic encounter with its environment. The Annales school criticized the traditional historical research that heavily emphasized event-oriented narrative history on anthropocentric issues. The Annalists launched the concept of “total history,” a comprehensive history of the whole range of human activities analyzed in a problemoriented way within an environmental context. Their creative methodologies also included cooperation with other disciplines with historical dimensions, such as anthropology and geography. In studying social formations in interaction with their physical surroundings, the Annalists anticipated the agenda of environmental historians. However, their approach led to con¶icts with individual-oriented historiography. Critics have blamed the Annalists for their controversial tendency to outline “history as a natural science in which vast impersonal forces of long and medium duration rule out the possibility that individual human beings make their own history.”5 Considering the strife between the schools of historians, we may ask whether explaining history is possible. Jon Elster distinguishes three modes of scienti¤c explanation: the causal, the functional, and the intentional. This chapter examines whether any of these modes can be applied to elucidate historical processes by using the environment as an explanatory factor. The starting point is to outline environmental history as a discipline and characterize its principal features. A brief survey of the main subject categories of current environmental history precedes a discussion of the modes of explanation in environmental history.6

What Is Environmental History? In the ¤rst chapter of this book we stated that as a concept and an academic discipline, environmental history is a new phenomenon.

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In its prevailing form, research in environmental history began in the United States and Europe only three decades ago. However, environmental history has long roots. Before current environmental history, there were old traditions that I call instinctive. Old instinctive orientations to environmental history have produced valuable knowledge on nature. Nevertheless, even though there are many solid, classic pieces of research, the old traditions do not generally ful¤ll the requirements of the current environmental history that has gained a foothold in Western historical research since the 1970s. In an earlier article, which surveyed old Finnish traditions, I have more closely examined these questions,7 while Birgitta Odén has outlined equivalent themes in Swedish historiography.8 How does the current environmental history differ from the traditional approach? In the new approach, the place of nature has changed: nature has moved from the background into the foreground. As a rule, classic works describe how nature has disciplined humans, forcing them to reconcile and adapt or to resist and ¤ght against nature. In contrast, recent studies almost bemoan what we have done to nature, and what price we have to pay for our damage and devastation.9 At ¤rst glance, the term “environmental history” seems composed of two incompatible elements. Environment is frequently regarded as an antithesis for humanity, while history expressly refers to the story of humanity. However, both “nature” and “environment” are culture-laden concepts. They are cultural constructs and therefore cannot be examined outside a societal context. What has been regarded as “nature” has varied enormously through history and across societies. Nevertheless, the de¤nition of “the environment” is the pivotal problem for all sorts of environmentalism. The “environment” of a society is not a constant but a historically changing complex of variables. Correspondingly, environmental conditions have supported a great variety of societies in different phases of history. “The relation of local cultures to the environment is no one-way adjustment, but a two-way interpenetration.”10 According to a compact de¤nition, environmental history ex-

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amines interactions between nature and society in the past. The discipline may also be described as a research ¤eld that helps us to perceive the outlines of the past, understand the present situation, and solve the problems of the future by providing basic illuminating knowledge on environmental issues. A distinctive feature of the current environmental history is that it considers the relationship of a culture to its environment as a complex interplay between combative parties, while it frequently concentrates upon those environmental changes and problems that humankind has caused. Therefore, environmental history can also be called a nature-centered or an ecocentric history of society. Conventional anthropocentric historians have been reluctant to see anything more in nature than just an enduring landscape that human labor has shaped. Some environmental historians have a completely contrasting viewpoint; for example, Donald Worster claims that “the natural environment is not really passive but is rather a powerful determining force throughout history.” Hence, for him, nature is an active, decisive factor, a subject in history in¶uencing available options and shaping development paths.11

Characteristics of Current Environmental History Environmental history has an original perspective on the past because it gives priority to nature in its analysis. However, this extraordinary viewpoint is not the only de¤ning characteristic of environmental history. Its broad de¤nition of the objects of research separates this discipline from many other ¤elds of historical research. I believe that at least ¤ve distinctive features characterize current environmental history.12 First, environmental history focuses its attention on the evolution of nature and therefore centers around long-term changes. Great alterations in nature, such as the transformation of climate, erosion, and the uplift of the ground, are slow processes that may take centuries—sometimes even millennia. Ecological catastrophes,

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like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or explosions of nuclear power plants, are often sudden and seemingly short events that may have very long-lasting repercussions. French Annalists, such as Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, were interested more in slowly changing structures of the past, phenomena of extensive periods, than in the history of individuals and events. According to this Annalist tradition, Fernand Braudel claimed that environmental history is, at its best, a so-called history of long duration, “histoire de la longue durée.”13 Second, environmental history regularly includes an international perspective, which is frequently extended to a global dimension. Spatially, it is more wide-ranging than traditional historical research. It is not bound to the borders of national states or economic communities as is conventional history. In environmental history, the borders of nature are more important than the borders created by humans. As industrialization and socioeconomic modernization have spread to many countries, environmental problems related to these phenomena have not been limited to national borders. The pollution of air and water, for instance, have become international problems that have grown to a worrisome level worldwide. The integration of local economies into the world economy has affected the relationship of society and nature. Various regional environmental damages have been defended by claiming that advantages gained from the world market are considerably greater than local ecological destruction. When the geographical distance between decision makers and the sites of natural resources being utilized have become great enough, environmental damage, such as the erosion of cotton ¤elds or the drying out of Lake Aral, does not signi¤cantly disturb production, which keeps on going. The fact that the exploitation of natural resources and the consumption of goods manufactured from these resources often take place in different parts of the world has caused ecological indifference that small locally controlled economic systems would hardly accept. Third, environmental history has a resolute tendency toward an interdisciplinary approach. An environmental historian aims to

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study research objects in a broad context. Conventional methods of historical research are not enough, and traditional sources do not supply suf¤cient material about changes in nature. For these reasons, environmental history needs the support of ecology, biology, zoology, botany, chemistry, geology, geography, meteorology, and many other natural sciences. Before we can make broad historical syntheses based on multidisciplinary knowledge, we need to conduct a great deal of basic empirical research. One ambition of environmental history is to construct a comprehensive history of interaction between nature and culture. The movement toward interdisciplinary research is also connected to the diversity of sources. Plenty of data are available on environmental changes in conventional human-made archives, but they are not the only wells of information needed by an environmental historian. We encounter imprints of the past more often in nature around us than in human documents. “Nature’s archives” are rich and contain information from very early periods—well before the era of written documents—about autonomous, natural environmental changes, as well as about those changes that humans have caused with their activities. Nature’s archives include a great variety of “data banks,” such as the annual growth rings of trees, sediments of bottom mud in lakes and marshes, pollen grains deep in the soil, radio isotopes of organic materials, and ¶ora around ancient habitations such as prehistoric fortresses. Nature’s archives are not easily understandable. Frequently only an expert can reveal their enigmas. Stone “speaks” to a geologist but not necessarily to a layperson. Therefore, we need experts from different disciplines to translate the stored knowledge of these archives for us. Prerequisites for doing research in environmental history vary between countries. For a long time, some densely populated areas have replaced their natural landscapes with cultural landscapes, and consequently many of nature’s archives have been destroyed or covered by built environment. In researching long-term changes, remote areas that have fairly recently been populated often provide interesting material. Opportunities for studying environmental history

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in Finland have not yet been recognized, although historian Ernst Gustaf Palmén claimed that Finland provided excellent preconditions for research in environmental history at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Several great environmental transformations took place quite recently, mostly in the past two centuries. Palmén, who knew the preconditions for research in central Europe, assessed the situation when he stated, “in many respects, Finland can provide such research materials that hardly any other country can do.” Although this prophetic statement contains a certain nationalist bias, there may be a seed of truth in it, because in Finland various environmental changes have not been covered by so many cultural layers as in some other European countries. Therefore, Finland can provide a useful shortcut or a functional laboratory for removing only a few layers of human-induced changes and reconstructing virgin nature.14 While searching for new sources and scienti¤c partners, environmental history is creating new kinds of linkages to the humanistic, social, natural, and technical sciences. It will probably also have close contacts to the history of technology, because technical equipment has greatly in¶uenced the utilization of natural resources. Within a few centuries, by means of technology, numerous forested natural landscapes in Europe were transformed into deforested cultural landscapes of ¤elds, villages, towns, and arti¤cial traf¤c routes. Because technology made this interference possible, the history of technology helps us to understand how humanity has remolded its environment. However, the present history of technology is not able to give answers because the study of its subjects in an environmental context has been generally neglected. Consequently, environmental history has to research and interpret the history of technology in a new way and locate it within a broader context. Experiences accumulated during the past three decades by various projects in environmental research indicate that research questions cannot be answered just by creating interdisciplinary groups of scholars. Such groups can be collectively creative and productive only if they are able to communicate with each other. The new concept,

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transdisciplinarity, describes the mutual understanding between experts of different ¤elds. In environmental history, some interdisciplinary projects have already nearly failed because their members have lacked a common language, shared goals, and active interaction. Cooperation with scholars educated in different traditions and cultures requires much more ¶exibility and open-mindedness than communications with colleagues of a similar educational background. The fourth feature of environmental history is problem orientation, which makes this discipline very challenging. In Europe, environmental history lacks the status of an established academic discipline; it is just a ¤eld of historical research focused on a vast area of past and present environmental problems. Although issues and research tasks vary greatly in this ¤eld, the research objects of environmental history are generally not brief episodes in the past but rather long-term processes. Because of their widespread temporal and spatial linkages, various environmental problems of the past still affect our life. Research problems are often issues of the day that have wide historical and social dimensions. While emphasizing the continuities of the past, environmental history compresses a great deal of long-term history under the title of contemporary history. This statement is in accordance with Geoffrey Barraclough’s thesis that “contemporary history begins when the problems that are actual in the world today ¤rst take visible shape.”15 Examples of current environmental problems that have been discussed in Europe since the Middle Ages are the impoverishment and erosion of the soil, deforestation and timber famine, detrimental smoke and air pollution, as well as sewage damage and water contamination. All of these problems resulted from humankind’s long-term overburdening of ecosystems and overuse of natural resources.16 The ¤fth feature of environmental history is its tendency to reassess our views of the past. While it approaches history from novel viewpoints, asks new kinds of questions, uses pristine sources, scrutinizes a wider ¤eld of phenomena, and operates with a multidisciplinary tool kit as its methodological arsenal, environmental history

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cannot always be satis¤ed with the premises and results of traditional historical research. It needs its own framework, a new paradigm for reorganizing our historical knowledge. Environmental historians are committed more than other historians to the proposition that nature has an autonomous place in history. Likewise, they reject the conventional notion that humans are above nature. In addition, they aim to disprove the argument that humans have liberated themselves from the limits of the natural world by means of religion, science, or technology.17 Environmental history cannot avoid reevaluating many of the research results of traditional history, because it disagrees with part of the latter’s assumptions, logic, or the framework of research. Ecological thinking means a conceptual revolution in historical research. Environmental history, therefore, may become a dynamic force that will reform the way of thinking in the historical sciences.18 There are various research results that environmental history wants to reevaluate. The historical statistics of gross national product (GNP) are one example of such results. One oddity of national income accounts is that they do not take into account changes in the stock of natural capital—one of a country’s main sources of wealth and welfare. A country can fell its forests, pollute its air, and ¤ll its lakes with dirt, but still national prosperity remains intact according to national income accounts. If a factory spoils a river with its wastewater and consequently a nearby town has to ¤nd another source of fresh water and invest in a new water supply system, then national income accounts include both pollution and reinvestment as contributions to national income. “Defensive expenditures” against the unwanted side effects of economic activity result in a kind of double counting. Logically pollution ought to be a deduction from national income, not an addition to it. Although traditional economic historians working on historical GNP statistics do not reject the possibility of calculating so-called green national income accounts, they stick to their old approach and defend GNP as a well-de¤ned measure. They believe that one

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should criticize not the measure but its use. GNP is actually meant to measure not the changes in welfare but rather economic growth. This school of historians stresses the virtues of economic growth; they insist that “an economy without growth is sick.” At the same time, they tend to underestimate the economic effects of polluting and plundering the environment. “In many respects, the improvement of the environment has characterized the twentieth century.”19 The message is that thus far environmental disruptions have not cost much. In economic terms, losses have remained modest. Traditionalists claim that if the conventional national income accounts were cleansed by deducting environmental damage, it would decrease annual GNP by only a couple of percentage points.20 Environmental historians do not regard the consideration of environmental destruction as a minor adjustment in GNP. It is extremely dif¤cult to value the signi¤cance of wildlife, healthy forests, or clean air in terms of money. How can anyone put a value on a natural resource for which there is no substitute? What is the price of the ozone layer around the globe or freshwater seals in Lake Saimaa, extraordinary relicts from the postglacial era in Finland? Environmental history, on the one hand, has to respond to great expectations. Its exacting tasks include not only challenging and criticizing prevailing historical concepts, myths, and misinterpretations, but also researching history from a new environmental perspective and producing its own, indigenous research results. On the other hand, the tendency to reassess the old views and create new ones is causing problems for environmental history, because the criticism of the prevailing viewpoints is frequently considered equal to “political reformism” or “political correctness.” Environmental history seems to suffer from a lack of credibility because “at least part of it” is still seen as being “politically motivated.” Therefore, representatives of traditional political history may urge established historians to be on the watch for rapidly expanding environmental history and to “discuss seriously the dilemma between ‘good goals’ and ‘free research.’”21

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Levels of Environmental History If we leaf through publications of recent environmental history, they do not appear to represent one school “attached to political reform movements.” The diversity of approaches and subjects is enormous. We can, however, describe environmental history by clustering the issues it addresses. It is possible to identify four levels on which environmental history applies. These levels can also be called lines of thought or orientations within the discipline. The following analysis is a modi¤cation of Donald Worster’s model of the three clusters of issues environmental history deals with.22 The fourth level of the model was introduced by Finnish social scientist Ilmo Massa.23 The ¤rst level aims at understanding nature itself in the past: how it was organized and how it functioned in previous periods. It concentrates on the history of nature’s ecosystems and strives to reconstruct the natural environment of the past. Sometimes this orientation is called ecological history or historical ecology in order to separate it from other types of environmental history. Within this orientation, an environmental historian must cooperate closely with ecologists and other natural scientists. According to Massa, however, ecological history does not comprise only natural history.24 Besides fauna and ¶ora, it also studies humankind and its culture as part of the ecosystem. In this respect, historical ecology tends to converge with cultural ecology, a term coined by American anthropologist Julian Steward. Cultural ecology was launched as a new approach for researching the relationships between cultures and their habitats, and it deals with the “super-organic factor of culture which . . . affects and is affected by the total web of life.” During the past ¤fty years cultural ecology has developed into an academic discipline, which has also been called ecological anthropology and cultural materialism.25 While Rolf Peter Sieferle evaluates the impact of the ecological approach on historical research, he states that the main challenge of environmental history lies in a change of point of view: from anthropocentrism to the ecosystem concept. The lan-

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guage of ecosystem can be used as a heuristic concept, which allows the use of models of explanation, developed within the framework of a general system theory, for the explanation of complex life processes. Concepts such as self-regulation, balance, resilience, or feedback must thus be understood as mere heuristic devices, not as essential qualities of nature.26

The second level deals with the interaction between social conditions, the economy, and the environment. Worster considers this the most important level to study. His idea is to research environmental changes in relation to historical modes of production. Here we are concerned with tools and work, with the social relations that grow out of that work, with the various modes people have devised of producing goods from natural resources. A community organized to catch ¤sh at sea may have very different institutions, gender roles, or seasonal rhythms than one raising sheep in high mountain pastures.27

The third level of environmental history concerns research on environmental policy and decision making in society in general. “Power to make decisions, environmental or other, is seldom distributed through a society with perfect equality, so locating the con¤gurations of power is part of this level of analysis.”28 Environmental history has to study the economic and political structures and functions of society in order to understand its relationship to its environment. The values, ideologies, and interests of decision makers have had a great in¶uence on environmental policy. The fourth level focuses on the environment purely from human perspectives. It studies the mental and intellectual history of environmental consciousness, the human outline of the surrounding world and its natural resources. In different periods, people have seen their environment in different ways. These variations have resulted from differences in thinking, conceptualizing, and valuing

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both nature and the human-made environment. Attitudes toward the environment have been of great signi¤cance in changing nature. Perceptions, myths, ethics, values, religions, ideologies, and scienti¤c doctrines have been part of society’s dialogue with nature.29 As ¤gure 6 illustrates, the four levels can be arranged so that they constitute a step pyramid of orientations in environmental history. The talents of an environmental historian are weighed by how skillfully he or she is able to interweave different levels. There is no manual of instructions for this demanding task. Moreover, not all projects of environmental history need be grand syntheses embracing all four levels. An environmental historian does not necessarily have to be a jack-of-all-trades but may specialize in and focus on answers to the questions in only one level. Equally, individual studies

Figure 6. The pyramid of orientations in environmental history

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may focus on one or two levels, holding the other levels in the background. Nevertheless, researching all four levels of the pyramid can be regarded as the general program for current environmental history as an academic discipline. All the above levels can be politicized and ideologized. Yrjö Haila and Richard Levins have described how political ecology tried to turn ecological conceptions into a political program in the 1970s and 1980s.30 Nevertheless, political tendencies are not necessarily integrated elements in environmental history. Various publications have proved that research in environmental history is possible without political implications. Several research projects are so specialized that it is dif¤cult to connect them to political issues.

The Role of Environment in History The globe is the nest for humankind and the galaxy is its habitat. Environmental conditions set boundaries for societies—there is no option for forestry in Saudi Arabia or for viticulture in the Arctic zone. Nature has participated in molding socioeconomic development all over the world. Environmental changes have often been mentioned as causes for societal changes. For example, climatic variations in historic and prehistoric times have affected harvests that used to form the backbone of agricultural societies. The economic consequences of ¶uctuating harvests correspond to various social indicators, such as death rate, marriages, and birth rate.31 Severe crop failures related to weather factors have led to serious famines in Finnish, Russian, and Irish history, for example. Earthquakes have destroyed cities. Droughts have forced peoples to leave their country and migrate. Hundreds of cases prove that a change in natural conditions is capable of diverting the development of societies.32 Hence environment can indisputably provide causal explanations in history, and causal explanation is more fundamental than the other modes of explanation. For a functional explanation, we need a causal theory as a basis.

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Functional explanation is the main mode of explanation in biology, where the theory of evolution by natural selection authorizes us to explain organic phenomena through consequences that are bene¤cial in terms of reproductive capacity. Because a functional explanation is plausible in ecology and some other closely related disciplines, it would be natural to argue that this mode is also valid in environmental history. However, at least part of environmental history is very close to the social sciences, where the use of functional explanations meets some problems. First, there ought to be theoretical preconditions to provide consequence laws, for example, general lawlike statements to the effect that whenever some phenomenon would have bene¤cial effects, this causal connection is in fact observed. Second, there has to be a theoretical explanation for a speci¤c feedback mechanism, which would transmit the information from the consequence to the phenomenon. Jon Elster is skeptical of the applicability of functional explanation in social sciences because in those sciences and in biology there are some basic differences in applying this mode of explanation.33 Environmental history is a discipline with vast research areas, and functional explanation may be valid in those ¤elds that are close to biology and ecology, for example, historical ecology. Environmental factors are, of course, the key elements when historical explanations are constructed. In ecological processes, environment is among the interactive factors that in¶uence the results. Considering environmental consequences, there are two types of human actions: intentional and unintentional. Shooting game, felling timber, drying marshes, building roads, and constructing dams are intentional activities, although their environmental effects remain largely unknown. A great deal of environmental damage caused by human activities is not intentional. For example, nobody has aimed to create acid rain or deplete the ozone layer. These have been the unintended side effects of some purposeful activities. While studying the mental and intellectual history of environmental consciousness, the history of environmental policy, or the

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history of interaction between the environment and the socioeconomic realm, a wealth of opportunities arises for ¤nding intentional explanations for human actions. In contrast, nature has no intentional behavior, that is, behavior conducted in order to bring about some goal. Intentional behavior is primarily related to the future, and often the rather distant future. Nature does not deliberately direct, for example, evolution to a certain de¤nite goal in the remote future, whereas societies often plan their future in several respects. “Intentional explanation is the feature that distinguishes the social sciences from the natural sciences.”34 Therefore, this mode of explanation can be applied in the societal sphere of environmental history. Nevertheless, intentional explanation is not at all applicable in clearing up the role of environment in history. In sum, the environment can be an explanatory factor and active actor in history, but it is different from and not comparable to the role of humankind. This fact is re¶ected in the applicable modes of explanation. The causal explanation is available for explaining both the environmental and the human side. The effects of environmental factors can be explained functionally in the cases where appropriate theoretical support and operative notions, such as bene¤ts, adaptation, selection, and evolution, are available. In contrast, an intentional explanation for the environment’s role in history is out of the question, and this is the key difference in comparison to human history, although we have to admit that the sphere of intentional explanation in human history is limited. There are plenty of events in society that have not been the aim of anybody. Economic depressions and mass unemployment are consequences of very complex sequences of collective actions.

Concluding Remarks The task of the environmental historian is to reveal by means of fundamental research what kinds of long-term effects on the earth have resulted from human activities. The goal is to analyze what

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consequences successive generations have created by remolding their environment. Lengthy research periods, broad geographical scopes, transdisciplinary interaction, problem orientation, and innovative reassessment are characteristics that make environmental history into a complex but also attractive discipline. Because environmental historians have to start entirely from scratch in many ¤elds, the achievement of solid and enduring results will not be easy. Basically, environmental history aims at indigenous syntheses: it connects existing historical knowledge to new viewpoints and to recent interdisciplinary research results. A great many source materials utilized by current environmental history have been available for generations. Ongoing research attempts to reorganize this material in a new way on the basis of recent experience and theoretical achievements. Environment is an interactive factor that has participated in shaping changes and transitions in history. Environment molds and remolds everything on the earth, including social formations. As an explanatory factor, environment, however, differs from humankind. Its effects cannot be explained intentionally—only causal and, in some ¤elds, functional explanations are possible. The central goal of environmental history is to place nature in history and in the life of humankind. The environment has been an active element in history. In fact, “the environment is and always has been a major player.”35 Also, in the future it will participate to make history. Moreover, it counteracts human actions in many ways, as German cultural geographer Helmut Jäger puts it, human-nature contact is an interdependent relationship with various feedback effects (vielfältige Rückkoppelungseffekte).36 Furthermore, current environmental history brings humans back to their former position, as a part of nature. Meanwhile, the discipline highlights the human as a factor that affects the fate of this planet but who is still inevitably dependent on the habitat and on the state of nature in a turbulent world. The research results of environmental history can reveal the outcomes of the long-term interaction between nature and society. New results will de¤nitely increase our knowledge of history. In ad-

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dition, it might be truly possible to learn from environmental history and to avoid past mistakes.

Notes 1. Jon Elster, Explaining Technical Change: A Case Study in the Philosophy of Science (New York, 1990), p. 32. 2. E. H. Carr, What Is History? (London, 1990), p. 31 (1st ed. 1967, 2d ed. 1987). 3. Ibid., p. 55. 4. Georg Henrik von Wright, Vetenskapen och förnuftet, Ett försök till orientering (Helsingfors, 1986), pp. 43–44. 5. Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929–89 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1–8, 32–48; William A. Green, History, Historians, and the Dynamics of Change (Westport, 1993), pp. 170–71. 6. Elster (1990), p. 17. 7. Timo Myllyntaus, “Suomalaisen ympäristöhistorian kehityslinjoja,” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 89, no. 4 (1991): 321–31. 8. Birgitta Odén, “Människan och miljön: historiogra¤ska traditioner och trender,” Människan och miljön: XXI Nordiska Historikermötet, Umeå 1991, Huvudtema II, ed. Lars J. Lundgren (Umeå, Sweden, 1991), pp. 27–43; Birgitta Odén, “Miljöhistoria i ett långsiktigt perspektiv,” Miljön har en historia, Aktuellt om historia, Organ för Historielärarnas förening (Lund, Sweden, 1992), pp. 4–14. 9. Richard White, “American Environmental History: The Development of a New Historical Field,” Paci¤c Historical Review 54, no. 3 (1985): 297–335. 10. Yrjö Haila and Richard Levins, “Humanity and Nature,” in Ecology, Science, and Society (London, 1992). 11. Donald Worster, “History as Natural History: An Essay on Theory and Method,” Paci¤c Historical Review 53, no. 1 (1984): 5. 12. Timo Myllyntaus, Ympäristöhistorian tutkimus Suomessa, Keskusteluaiheita—Discussion Papers, no. 336 (Helsinki, 1990); Timo Myllyntaus, “Ympäristöhistorian näkökulma,” Ympäristökysymys: Ympäristöuhkien haaste yhteiskunnalle, ed. Ilmo Massa and Rauno Sairinen (Helsinki, 1991), pp. 93–114. 13. Fernand Braudel, On History (Chicago, 1980); Ilmo Massa, “Suunnistus suomalaiseen riskiyhteiskuntaan,” Suomi 2017, ed. Olavi Riihinen (Helsinki, 1990), pp. 547–76. 14. E. G. Palmén, “Seespiegelsenkungen in Finland, Referat,” Fennia 20, no. 7 (Helsinki, 1902–3): 101–8.

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15. Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, England, 1969), p. 20. 16. See, for example, Peter Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London since Mediaval Times (London, 1987). 17. William Cronon, “Modes of Prophecy and Production: Placing Nature in History,” Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (1990): 1122. 18. Timo Myllyntaus, “Ympäristöhistoria—Mitä se on?” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 89, no. 4 (1991): 291–94. 19. Olle Krantz, Miljö och ekonomisk tillväxt, LO-series Uppdrag för framtiden (Stockholm, 1989), p. 51. 20. Ibid., 15, 33–36, 43–45; Magnus Lindmark, Towards Environmental Historical Accounts for Sweden. Methodological Considerations and Estimates for the 19th and 20th Centuries (Umeå, 1998), pp. 210–21. 21. Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen, “Ympäristö—ihmislajin ongelma,” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 89, no. 4 (1991): 363. More on anti-environmentalism in Andrew Rowell, Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement (London, 1996). 22. Donald Worster, “Doing Environmental History,” in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (Cambridge, 1988), p. 293. 23. Ilmo Massa, “Ympäristöhistoria tutkimuskohteena,” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 89, no. 4 (1991): 296–97. 24. Ibid. 25. Julian Steward, Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution (Urbana, Ill., 1963), p. 31; Worster (1984), pp. 6–8. 26. R. P. Sieferle, “The Energy System—A Basic Concept of Environmental History,” in The Silent Countdown, ed. P. Brimblecombe and C. P¤ster (Heidelberg, 1990), pp. 9–20. 27. Worster (1988), p. 293. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid.; Massa (1991), p. 298. 30. Haila and Levins (1992), pp. 2–13. 31. Gustaf Utterström, “Climatic Fluctuations and Population Problems in Early Modern History,” in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (New York, 1988), pp. 39–79. 32. Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World (London, 1992), pp. 1–7 (1st ed. 1991). 33. Elster (1990), p. 68. 34. Ibid., p. 69. 35. Green (1993), p. 170. 36. Helmut Jäger, Einführung in die Umweltgeschichte (Darmstadt, Germany, 1994), p. 11.

Index

afforestation, 56, 86 Africa, xv, 19, 90, 112 agriculture, xiv, 4, 16, 37, 53, 55, 65, 75, 79–84, 89, 105–9, 111–14, 117, 125, 155. See also slash-and-burn cultivation animal liberation, 41 Annales (journal), 143 annalists (a French school of historical research), 14, 143, 146 anthropocentrism, 10, 31, 36, 141–42, 145, 152–53 Åström, Sven-Erik, 12 Atlantic Ocean, 12, 16, 95, 96, 101, 108, 111, 117 Audubon, John James, 101 Australia, 43

biomass, 56, 87 biosphere reserve, 50, 51–55, 62, 64, 67–71 bison, 120 Blake, William, xiv Bloch, Marc, 146 Braudel, Fernand, 146 Brazil, xiii Amazonia, xv Brimblecombe, Peter, 16 Britain. See United Kingdom bureaucracy, 38 Burma (Myanmar), 79 Cambridge, 14 Carolina parakeets, 100–101, 123 Carr, E. H., 142 catastrophes, 10, 145 Catesby, Mark, 103, 110 Chapman, Frank M., 123 charcoal, 6 civil wars Finland (1918), 40–42 USA (1861–65), 112, 116 Clapp, B. W., 16 climate, xv, 4–5, 54, 57, 75, 111, 145, 155 conservation, 12, 29–30, 34, 36, 38, 41– 42, 122–23. See also nature conservation of birds, 104, 122–23

Bachman’s warblers, 100–101 Bacon, Francis, 43, 142 Bangkok, 77–78 Barraclough, Geoffrey, 149 bears, 18 bees, 121 Berg, J. H. van den, 43 Bible, 29, 38, 142 Biblical, 29–31 biocentricity, 36 biodiversity, 37

161

162

v

conservation (continued) Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, 11, 41 Finnish Nature League, youth organization for nature conservation, 12 of forests, 39, 43, 69, 75, 88, 90 modern, 30 Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, 11 conservation areas, 70–71, 79–80, 85– 86, 124 conservation law, 11 conservation movement British, 11 Finnish, 11, 13 U.S., 123 conservation programs, 34, 38–39, 41– 43 conservationists, 12, 34, 41–43, 123 Copernican revolution, 31–32 cotton, 113, 146 Cronon, William, 12 Crosby, Alfred W., xviii, 12, 14, 136n Cuba, 100 deforestation, 74–75, 77, 79–85, 88–89, 112, 116–17, 148 deforestation rate, 75, 82–84, 87 dendrochronology, 3 Descartes, René, 43, 142 dualism, 30, 37, 43 Dust Bowl, 5 ecocentrism, 141, 145 ecological history, 3, 14, 152 ecological niches, xiv economic growth, 41, 75, 78–80, 151 economic history, 14–16 International Economic History Congresses, 15 economy human, 52, 54, 67, 71 hunting and gathering, 53–56, 58, 106, 121, 125

Index market, 71 natural, 52, 54, 71 slash-and-burn, 51, 53, 55–61 ecosystem, xv, 49, 152 concept of, 153 hardwood forest, 94–95, 125 midtemperate zone, xv northern, xv, 60, 67 overburdening of, 149 taiga, 49 as a taxonomic system, 32 Elster, Jon, 143, 156 England, 62, 103, 111. See also United Kingdom Enlightenment, 4, 12 Enso-Gutzeit Inc., 67–68 Environment and History (journal), 15, 18, 27n. environmental degradation, xi, xvii, 74, 77, 79–80, 85, 87–88, 109 environmental historians, xii–xv, xvi, 5, 13–16, 19, 145, 150–51, 157 environmental historiography, 2–3 environmental history, xvii–xviii, 1–5, 12–14, 16–20, 52, 141, 143–56, 157–59 American Society for Environmental History (ASEH), 13 European Association for Environmental History (EAEH), 14 European Society for Environmental History (ESEH), 15 Finnish, xiii, xv Environmental History Newsletter, 15, 24n environmental movement, 12–13, 36–37 environmental policy, 3, 153, 156 Environmental Review (journal), 13, 27n environmentalism, 13, 19, 40–41, 144 environmentalists, xii–xiii, 12, 34–35, 81 epidemics, 18 erosion, 96, 107, 117, 145–46, 149 escapism, 40 European colonization, 32, 102, 111

Index European Union, 40, 50 extinction, xv, 94–95, 100–101, 102, 118– 20, 122–24 famines, 4–5, 155 Febvre, Lucien, 146 Fennoscandia, 54 Finland Civil War (1918), 40–42 Grand Duchy of (1809–1917), 37–38 fjells, 5 forest companies, 50, 60, 62–64, 66–70, 116 forest ¤res, 53, 102 forest history, 18 forest industries, 79, 80–81, 117. See also wood-processing and lumbering industries forest management, xv, 64, 74, 77–79, 81, 85, 87–90 forest policy, xiv, 77, 80–81, 89 forest products, xiii, 54, 62–63, 78, 125 forestry, 39, 41–43, 50, 52–53, 64–67, 69, 74, 78, 81, 86–89, 117, 125, 155 agroforestry, 85, 88 forestry administration, 38, 78, 80, 85– 87, 89 Royal Forest Department (Thailand), 78–80, 85–86, 87–88 forests Eastern Deciduous Forest (U.S.), 95– 96, 97 industrial, xiv, 43, 63–64, 66–67, 69, 74, 79, 88 managed, 10 old-growth, 5–10, 17, 53, 117, 124 postindustrial, 69 tropical, xi, 95 virgin, 50, 53, 70, 117, 124 France, xiii, 4, 5, 113, 143, 146 fur trade, 7, 49 Gadd, Pehr Adrian, xiii, 4 Galileo, Galilei, 43, 142 Gallen-Kallela, Akseli, 40

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163

geocentrism, 31–32 Germany, 5, 13–15, 38, 158 Great Division, 38, 59 green parties, 13 Gulf of Mexico, 96, 101 Hafner, James A., 82–83 Haila, Yrjö, xviii, 155 Halonen, Pekka, 40, 43 Häyrinen, Urpo, 38 heliocentrism, 31 Helsinki, xiv, xvii, 12 Here under the North Star (Täällä Pohjantähden alla) (novel), 40 historiography environmental, 1–3, 143 European, 1 Finnish, 1–2 Swedish, 144 traditional, 2, 143 U.S., xv, 3 Hult, Ragnar, 10 hunting, 43, 53–55, 58, 63, 70–71, 106–8, 109–10, 120–23, 125 Hustich, Ilmari, 5, 12 hydropower, 17 Imatran Voima Inc., 67–68 industrialization, 30, 32–33, 60, 125 Finland, xiv, 11, 17–18, 38, 42 international, 146 Soviet Union, 38 U.S., 17, 117 Inha, I. K., 42 Iraq, xi Jäger, Helmut, 16, 158 Joensuu, 67 Jutikkala, Eino, 27n Kalevala (Finnish epic), xiii, 37–38 Kalliola, Reino, 38 Kanteletar (collection of folklore poems), 68

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Karelia, 42, 57–58, 62 East Karelia (a region in Russia), 42 North Karelia (a region in Finland), 50–71 North Karelian Biosphere Reserve, 50, 51–53, 70 Karelians (a Finnish tribe), 57–58 Kaukas Inc., 67 Kianto, Ilmari, 42 Kivi, Aleksis, xiii, 39 Kjærgaard, Thorkild, 16 Kuivalatar, Mateli, 68 Kunstadter, Peter, 89–90 Lake Aral, 146 Lake Koijärvi, 13 Lake Ladoga, 6 (map), 55 Lake Onega, 41 Lake Oulu, 5, 6 (map) Lake Saimaa, 6 (map), 151 Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim, 15 landless population, 58–61, 66, 75, 85 landownership, 42, 55, 58–59, 63–64, 66, 70, 84–85, 89, 118, 123 Laos, 79 Lapland, xv, 4–5, 43 Lawson, John, 108 Leino, Eino, 33 Levins, Richard, 155 Linna, Väinö, 40 Linnaeus (later von Linné), Carl, 33–34, 100, 103 Linnean taxonomies, 37. See also Linnaeus Lönnrot, Elias, 42 lumbering industries, 113–18, 124. See also wood-processing and forest industries Malin, James C., 3 Marsh, George Perkins, 33 Massa, Ilmo, 152 Mather, Alexander S., 52, 69

Index McIlhenny, E. A., 124 Mexico, 100 Middle Ages, 8, 16, 22, 149 migration, xiv, 54, 70, 82–83, 90, 110, 155 Mississippi, 95–96, 101, 103, 105–7, 108, 113–15 modernization, 11, 31–32, 34, 37–38, 146. See also Western modernization moose, 55 moral community, 89–90 Moscow, 57 national parks, 41, 69–71, 79 Native Americans, 17, 106–10 natural resources, 17, 32–33, 38–39, 42, 50, 52–53, 56, 58, 61–62, 65–70, 74, 83, 90, 105–6, 110, 146, 148–51, 153 nature, concepts of, 31, 36, 39 nature conservation, 11–12, 30, 34, 36, 38, 41, 87. See also conservation Netherlands, 14 Newton, Isaac, 43 Niskavuori (play), 41 nongovernmental organizations, 88 Nordenskiöld, Adolf E., 10–11, 38 Nordic countries, 3–4. See also Scandinavia Norway, 54 Novgorod, 56–57 Odén, Birgitta, 22n, 27n, 144 Oil Crisis, 67 oology, 122 ore, iron, in lakes, 50, 53, 61–63, 68 Outokumpu Inc., 68 overpopulation, 82–83 ozone layer, xi, 151 Palmén, Ernst G., 10, 148 Palmgren, Rolf., 11 Peace treaty of Pähkinäsaari (1323), 56 Stolbova (1617), 57 Täyssinä (1595), 57

Index peasantry, 58–59 Pepper, David, 16 Petrozavodsk, 62 P¤ster, Christian, 16 Philippines, 88 Physiocrats, 4 pigeons, passenger, 94, 103, 110, 122 Pinchot, Gifford, 11 pollen, 3, 55, 147 Ponting, Clive, 16 population growth, 89–90 Pragtong, Kamon, 77 predators, 18, 102, 120–21 preservation. See under conservation Putnam, J. A., 99 Rannikko, Pertti, 66 Renaissance environmentalism, 33 Revolution, Russian (1917), 16 rice, 75, 82–83, 112–13 Roosevelt, Theodore, 11 Russia, 5, 16, 37–38, 57–58, 61–63, 155 Ruuhijärvi, Rauno, 38 Saarikoski, Pentti, 33 Sami (an indigenous people of Lapland), 8, 16–17 Sampo (symbol of wealth in The Kalevala), 38–39, 57 Savo (a region in Finland), xv, 57 Savonians (a Finnish tribe), 56–58 Scandinavia, 62. See also Nordic countries Scotland, 15 seals, 18, 151 sediment, 3, 96, 147 Seven Brothers, The (Seitsemän veljestä) (novel), xiii, 39 Sibelius, Jean, 40 Sieferle, Rolf Peter, 152 Simmons, I. G., 16 slash-and-burn cultivation, 7 agriculture, 17, 57–60 economy, 51, 53, 55–61 use of forests, 53, 55–59, 63

v

165

Small Ice Age, 58 Smeds, Helmer, 3 social history, 18, 33 Solantie, Reijo, 57 solar energy, 49, 54, 56 Sörlin, Sverker, 16 Soviet Union, 38, 42 and socialism, 40, 42 breakdown of, 40 Spain, 5 St. Petersburg, 61–62 state intervention, 40 Steward, Julian, 152 sugarcane, 113 sustainability, 39, 56, 83, 85, 88, 90 sustainable yields, xiv Sweden, 5, 11, 56–57, 61, 66 taiga, 38, 43, 49 Tanner, James T., 101–3, 123 tar, 7, 49 taxonomic system, 32. See also Linnean taxonomies technology, 50, 57, 64, 90, 106, 111, 148–50 Finnish, xiii Texas, xii, 101, 103–4, 112–13 Thailand, xv, 74–90 Thomas, David E., 77 timber, 7, 17 tobacco, 107, 112–13 Tongpan, S., 75 Tuan, Yi-Fu, 29 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 3 Ukraine, 5 UNCED, 88 United Kingdom, 11, 14–15, 17, 78, 111, 142. See also England; Scotland; United States, xv, 1, 5, 9, 16–19, 43, 69, 94–125 Civil War (1861–65), 112, 116 urbanization, xiv, 17 van den Berg, J. H., 43

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van Zanden, J. L., 16 Vasari, Yrjö, xviii, 15 vegetarianism, 41 Voionmaa, Väinö, 3 W. Gutzeit & Co., 62 wars, 40. See also civil wars Sweden-Russia (1808–9), 61 Vietnam, 86 World War II, 11–12, 38, 114 Webb, Walter Prescott, 3 Western modernization, 30, 33. See also modernization White, Richard, 12 wild turkeys, 110 wilderness, 7–9, 17, 29–30, 42–43, 54–55, 60

Index Wilderness Act, 43 wilderness debate, 43 wildlife, 18, 99, 123, 151 Williams, Michael, 14 wolves, 18 woodpeckers imperial, 100 ivory-billed, xv, 94–125 pileated, 102, 104, 110 wood-processing industries, 18. See also forest and lumbering industries Worster, Donald, 2, 12, 14, 18, 145, 152–53 Wright, Georg Henrik von, 12, 142 Wuolijoki, Hella, 41 Zirnstein, Gottfried, 16