THE ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIES OF EUROPE AND JAPAN, 12 – 14 September 2007

Japan and Europe are unusual as two long-settled and long-developed areas where environmental change has been internally generated instead of being imposed from the outside by colonial settlement, as was largely the case in America, Africa, Australasia and much of India and south-east Asia. That is not to say that Europe and Japan have been immune from external environmental change, climatic or otherwise, and both have impacted on the rest of the globe by their demands for food and raw materials.

The purpose of the seminar will be to consider the experience of the two regions in parallel in the centuries of industrialisation and rapid growth since 1800, and to open up discussion of their environmental history in a global and regional context.

PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME

DAY 1:                        Wednesday, 12 September

Introduction and the Global Setting

09.00 – 09.10      Introductory remarks:     The Organisers.

09.10 – 10.10      Professor John R. McNeill, Georgetown University:

‘Planet Earth since 1800: Global Contexts for Environmental History’.

10.10 – 10.40                        BREAK

Theme 1: Attitudes to Nature

10.40 – 11.25      Professor Kazunobu Ikeya, Japanese National Museum of Ethnology:

  ‘The environmental history of relationships between wild animals and humans since 1800’.

11.25 – 12.10      Dr John Sheail, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology of the Natural Environment Research Council, UK:

‘European attitudes to National Parks’.

12.10 – 13.40                        LUNCH BREAK

13.40 – 14.25       Professor Miranda Schreurs, University of Maryland:

‘Japanese and American attitudes to nature contrasted’.

14.25 – 14.40                                                          BREAK

Theme 2: Climate Change and its Impact

14.40 – 15.25        Professor Rűdiger Glaser, University of Freiburg:

                                  ‘Climate change in Central Europe since 1800, and its consequences’.

15.25 – 16.10       Professor Hye-Sook Park, Mie University:

                                   ‘Global warming: the actual and potential impacts on Japan in a historical context’.

16.10 – 16.40                                   BREAK

16.40 – 17.25      Tom Dawson and Katinka Stentoft, University of St Andrews:

                                   ‘The implications of climate change on coastal heritage
in northern Europe’.

DAY 2:                        Thursday, 13 September

Theme 3: Agriculture and Land Use

09.00 – 0.9.45      Dr David Moon, University of Durham:

                                  ‘Agriculture and land use on the Russian steppes since ca. 1800’.

09.45 – 10.30       Dr David Sprague, National Institute for Agro-environmental Sciences, Japan:

                        ‘The history of rural land use in the Kanto plain’.

10.30 – 11.00                          BREAK

11.00 – 11.45       Associate Professor Doo-Chul Kim, Okayama University:

                                   ‘Birds and rice paddy in history’.

11.45 – 12.30       Professor Chris Smout, University of St Andrews:

                                   ‘Farming and biodiversity loss in 20^th century Britain’.

12.30 – 13.30                        LUNCH BREAK

13.30 -  15.00                                      POSTER SESSION

This session is designed  to enable researchers, especially young researchers, to present their work to a wider audience

Theme 4: Pollution and Waste

15.00 – 15.45      Professor Satoshi Murayama, Kagawa University:

                                ‘A polluted island in the Inland Sea of Japan’.

15.45 – 16.30      Professor Sabine Barles, Institut Français d’Urbanisme, University of Paris:

                                ‘The birth of urban waste in France, 1790­–1970’.

16.30 – 17.00                          BREAK

17.00 – 17.45       Dr John Clark, University of St Andrews:

                                ‘Out of sight, out of mind? The history of waste in Britain’.

18.30 – 20.00                        CONFERENCE DINNER

DAY 3:                        Friday, 14 September

Theme 5: Fisheries

09.00 – 10.00        Professor Poul Holm, Rektor, Roskilde University, Denmark:

                                  ‘The exploitation of the seas in historical perspective’.

10.00 – 10.45        Professor Ken-ichi Nonaka, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan:

                        ‘Inland fisheries in Japan’.

10.45 – 11.15                          BREAK

11.15 – 12.00        Dr Akiko Ikeguchi, Nagoya Sangyo University:

                                  ‘Fishing ground use and shellfish collecting in a Japanese diving fishery’.

12.00 – 13.30                        LUNCH BREAK

Theme 6: Forests

13.30 – 14.15        Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, Osaka University:

                                   ‘The environmental history of forests and humans in Japan’.

14.15 – 15.00        Professor Michael Williams, University of Oxford

                                   ‘How Europe and Japan met their timber needs, 1800-2000’.

15.00 – 15.30                        BREAK

Concluding Session: the Comparison with China

15.30 – 16.30          Professor Mark Elvin, Australian National University:

                                     The Chinese comparison in a longer time perspective.

16.30 – 16.50          Discussion led by Professor Mei Xue-qin, Beijing Normal University.

16.50                       General conclusion followed by tea and dispersal.

                *   *   *   *

Organisers for the seminar:

Professor Tsunetoshi Mizoguchi, University of Nagoya, Japan.

Professor T.C. Smout, University of St Andrews, UK.

Professor Poul Holm, University of Roskilde, Denmark.

Contact e-mail of Professor Mizoguchi, for participants from Japan:

k46523a@cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Contact e-mail of Professor Smout, for  participants other than those from Japan:

christopher@smout.org