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- Convenors:
-
Patrick Roberts
(Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)
David Max Findley (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)
Greg Bankoff (University of Hull)
James McCann (Boston University)
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- Chairs:
-
Patrick Roberts
(Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)
Greg Bankoff (University of Hull)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Decolonizing Environmental Pasts
- Location:
- Linnanmaa Campus, L9
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 20 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
European colonialism in the tropics has left environmental and socioeconomic legacies for the 21st century. We combine diverse methodological and international perspectives to explore the consequences of pre-colonial and colonial activities on biodiversity and climate on regional and global scales.
Long Abstract:
Tropical forests are globally recognised as biodiversity hotspots and habitats that are critical for climate regulation, soil stability, and the carbon cycle, including the need to keep global warming to 1.5-2.0°C of pre-industrial levels. Emerging archaeological and historical evidence is highlighting the long-term and extensive nature of past social interactions with these environments, raising the question of the degree to which pre-industrial human land-use change might also have resulted in significant earth systems feedbacks. Particularly notable in this regard are the potential effects of the arrival of European colonialism in the tropics, with pan-tropical empires controlling and exploiting equatorial forests, flora, fauna, minerals, resources, and peoples. In these interdisciplinary panels, we present comparative case studies of pre- and colonial land-use and their potential regional and global ramifications as European colonialism brought non-tropical societies, economies, and politics into closer connection with the landscapes and populations of the tropics, a connection that continues to shape global sustainability issues in the 21st century.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 20 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
We highlight the ways in which human land use in tropical forests has changed through human history and the consequences for different aspects of the Earth system. We discuss the importance of interdisciplinary research for understanding past tropical land use and its legacies for the 21st century.
Paper long abstract:
The ‘Anthropocene’ refers to an epoch in which humans have become a dominant geological force on the planet. Land use is one of the major ways in which our species is making itself felt by the Earth system, with land cover changes having major impacts on biodiversity, soils, and climate. This paper argues that, thanks to their critical role in the function of different parts of the planetary system, exploring the impacts of land use on tropical forests through time is essential for exploring deep time pathways into the Anthropocene – from the emergence of food production to the impacts of European colonialism. Reviewing the available archaeological, historical, palaeoecological, and modelling toolkit available to researchers, we argue that better characterizing changes in tropical land use can reveal important legacies that shape our current relationship with the Earth and can help us to charter more just, sustainable routes forward into the future.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the impact of colonialism on East African landscapes using sediment cores from Lake Baringo. The paleorecord findings contradict the notion that colonialism and European settlement exacerbated land degradation in the region.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the impacts of colonial influence on East African landscapes based on evidence in the sediment cores recovered from Lake Baringo. Results from the Lake Baringo paleorecord challenge the prevailing view that colonialism and European settlement in the Lake Baringo ecosystem are the geneses of land degradation in the region. During the colonial period, the European settlers alienated the indigenous pastoralists from their dry season grazing lands by occupying, and fencing off the well-watered highlands to the south and east of Lake Baringo, confining the local pastoralists to the climatically harsh and ecologically fragile lowlands. In addition, the European settler community severed the seasonal grazing areas and watering points from the African herders, condemning them to use the fragile lowlands, which quickly degraded permanently. However, the Lake Baringo record shows no significant change in the high sedimentation rates for both the prehistoric period, before European settlement in the Baringo ecosystem, and after, including more recent times, which questions the widely held view that land degradation became synonymous with the Baringo ecosystem following European settlement and colonization.
Paper short abstract:
Despite their relevance to questions of colonial impacts and legacies, Africa’s tropical islands have been largely overlooked. To bridge this gap, we discuss human-environment relationships, past and present, in São Tomé and Príncipe, one of the most understudied biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Paper long abstract:
Integrated archaeological and paleoecological research on tropical biodiversity hotspots is crucial to understand how historical human-environment interactions affected their resilience and vulnerability, what legacies have been left behind, and how these insights can contribute to the future sustainability of these environments. Africa’s islands, however, have been largely overlooked.
To bridge this gap, our research focuses on São Tomé and Príncipe, one of the most understudied biodiversity hotspots in the world, situated in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea. Being possibly the only country where no systematic archaeological fieldwork has yet taken place, Príncipe, in particular, offers an excellent research opportunity due to its exceptional biodiversity, high level of endemism, recent human presence, small size, low population, and limited urban development.
With our research, we aim to shed light on the historical relationship, past and present, between humans and their environment in the archipelago. Following our earlier paleoecological fieldwork – the first of its kind on Príncipe – we are currently planning the first archaeological research on the island through an archaeological reconnaissance of the entire island using technologies like LiDAR, along with archaeological surveys and test excavations.
Paper short abstract:
Palaeoecological research has shed new light on the impact of people on tropical island’s biodiversity. Here we will discuss how and why island biodiversity changed during the years following human settlement with emphasis on rates of change and the introduction and spread of non-native taxa.
Paper long abstract:
Islands represent 6.67% of the planet emerging land, being home not only to 20% of the world’s biota, but also home to about 10% of the world’s human population, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Palaeoecological research has shed new light on the impact of people on tropical island’s biodiversity. In this talk we will discuss how and why island biodiversity changed significantly during the years following human settlement. For example, we will show evidences of an increase of rate of change and the role of people on the introduction and spread of non-native taxa.
Paper short abstract:
We discuss our work within the PANTROPOCENE project integrating archival analysis into land use models for the Philippine Archipelago prior to and throughout the Spanish Colonial Period (1565-1898), and how this novel methodology strengthens understandings of past land use and environmental change.
Paper long abstract:
Land Use Modelling (LUM), despite finding increasing acceptance amongst archaeologists, anthropologists, and political scientists, remains largely eschewed by historians. Here, we argue that LUM provides a platform and methodology for multidisciplinary collaboration that historians can contribute to and improve. For the last four years, the PANTROPOCENE project has worked to create land use models for the Philippine Islands just prior to and throughout the Spanish Colonial Period (1565-1898 CE). In this paper, we draw on our research integrating archival analysis into LUM to show how each can enrich the other and contribute to a deeper understanding of land use change and environmental practices in the past.
Paper short abstract:
This paper maps the history of rubber as a commodity, including its role in shaping state frontiers in the Amazon and Congo basins, its conversion into a plantation crop in Southeast Asia, the development of synthetic rubber, and the turn to sustainable wild rubber extraction in modern-day Brazil.
Paper long abstract:
This paper maps out the historical impacts of rubber as a commodity on Indigenous peoples, nation-state formation and tropical rainforests in South America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia. In the late nineteenth century, latex harvested from plants such as the Pará rubber tree in the Amazon rainforest, the Liana vine in the Congo rainforest and the Gutta-percha tree in the Malay Archipelago became a key component of industrial capitalist development.
While there have been many excellent regional studies of the rubber boom and associated genocides against Indigenous peoples in South America, this history has never been systematically and transnationally visualised. This study draws on material collected across regional archives in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Brazil to map out the expansion of rubber extraction and the consolidation of nation-state borders across the Amazon rainforest. Simultaneously, it catalogues the resistance techniques used by Indigenous groups in these regions, including evasion and direct conflict.
The paper will also analyse the parallel expansion of wild rubber extraction in the Congo basin; the subsequent eclipse of South American and African rubber production by the plantation system in Southeast Asia; and the development of synthetic rubber in the US and Germany during the Second World War. Plantation rubber production in Southeast Asia continues to be a leading driver of deforestation today, fuelling a new wave of capitalist expansion. In the Brazilian Amazon, contrastingly, traditional communities are now seeking to revive wild rubber extraction as a sustainable alternative to soy cultivation and cattle ranching, conserving the rainforest.
Paper short abstract:
We compare colonial and biocultural maps of abandoned villages in Gabon’s Ivindo forest using historic participatory mapping and GIS (1880s-present). Colonial and modern maps severely underrepresent forest history when compared to biocultural maps, invisibilising Bakota biocultural landuse.
Paper long abstract:
Additional authors: H. Assatsi, Emboukangoye, B., J. Epong, A. Embamenet, S. Ekazama Koto, G‐R. Ibembi Moandondo, Itsetsamé, P. Ihamboua, L. Ikakaboua‐Moazeonz, G. Kotomoukaye, B.L. A.S. Moimangombe, G. Mabomaya, D. Ngoapaza, C. Ngoubassèkoua, T. Mahombi Mokounga D. Louma, D. Mbazadjia, V.P. Malingui Toukou, F. Makala, S‐A. Madjamaza, J. Mako.
We compare colonial and biocultural maps of abandoned villages in Gabon’s Ivindo forest landscape. French colonial resettlement policy was enacted from the 1900s-1970s, leaving a legacy of abandoned villages. Recent processes seek to recognise some village territories. We ask how colonial and biocultural maps can foster recognition of settlement. We compare eight colonial-era and present-day maps with biocultural mapping of former settlements and sacred sites (1880s-2022). Kota members of Massaha village used historic participatory mapping to document their history. Using GIS, the colonial maps were digitised, compared with biocultural maps, and village layers were created. Colonial maps show no trace of settlement in the colonial era. By contrast, biocultural maps show 15 historic settlements and many sacred sites. Comparing colonial maps, which helped to plan railroads, source labour, and impose taxes, with a biocultural view of village historic settlement and heritage, we find the colonial and modern maps severely underrepresent forest history and invisibilise people’s territories and land stewardship. We conducted this exercise with a second community in the southern Ivindo forest with similar results. When we bring together different maps, we understand how Kota communities have been impacted by colonial resettlement policy and despite this, they maintain their biocultural land use.