Paris, 6 January 2009

Dear friends, ESEH members,

I am taking the opportunity of the New Year to give you some news of ESEH Board’s work. But let me first wish you and your families a very Happy and Healthy Year 2009. The economical prospects are quite bad in our countries, and many people will suffer from the consequences of the financial crisis within the coming years. As scholars, many of us are protected from unemployment, but not all, and I heartily wish those who have no permanent position to find one as soon as possible. Let’s also hope that the current crisis will open perspectives for the development of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly economy.

But let me give you some news of our Society. As you know, ESEH will hold no conference of its own in 2009, as we will blend in with the World Congress in Environmental History to be held in Copenhagen and Malmö next Summer. Almost 500 hundreds papers and posters have been accepted and the Programme Committee is confident that this congress will be an exciting event. May I remind you that the deadline for registration is mid-February (and not March 8^th, as displayed on some pages of the website). So please think of registering soon on http://wceh2009.org/ if you have not done so yet . Also think of your accommodation. We can but regret that the cost of the event is so high but the longer you will wait, the more difficult it will be to find a reasonably priced accommodation.

In January 2008, ESEH Board met in Düsseldorf and opened a number of new works you have been informed of. Where are we now in all this fields? It takes time to bring a project to fruition, but we are progressing. The most advanced project is the creation of a book series in environmental history, which should help us to publish our research and give them a good international visibility more easily. Final negotiations are being held these days with Berghahn, international academic publisher (Oxford/New York) and we hope to be able to inform you of the launching of the series soon.

Then there is the project of a Summer School in environmental history. This also is progressing. A consortium is being formed between several European universities and the ESEH. The coordinator of the project will be the University of Klagenfurt. The draft of a formal agreement has been elaborated in German, then translated in English. It is currently examined by all the parts and should be finalised and signed within the next months. The Summer School should be held every two years, and the first one could be welcomed in 2010 by the Central European University of Budapest. Of this also you will be informed as soon as the project will be finalised.

We have also planned a revision of our constitution, aimed at improving the representation of all parts of Europe in our Board and making its work more efficient. After rejection by the Board of a first proposal drafted by your President last year, a commission is working on a new one, that will be examined at our next meeting.

Finally, and this is excellent news, the preparation of our 2011 ESEH conference is now on the tracks! It will be held in Turku, Finland, and our Nordic country Regional Representative, Timo Myllyntaus is already at work to secure funding, venues etc. Turku’s proposal has been chosen by the Board among several others. The fact that we had received several proposals compelled us to elaborate guidelines for applications. Candidates had to indicate the facilities they offered in a range of areas such as meeting facilities, transportation, accommodation, etc. This guideline will be useful also for our future conferences.

There has been many written exchanges inside the Board since our last year meeting in Düsseldorf, and I hope its members would agree with me that it has become a truly collective and lively instance of decision. Nonetheless, we need to meet physically, once a year or so, not only to discuss our policy, but also to create a sense of belonging to a community which is not only virtual. This is why the Board will meet again in March, over a week-end. The meeting will be held in Lyon, France, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure where our French Regional Representative, Stéphane Frioux, has booked a free meeting room and cheap accommodation. We will take stock of the work done so far and discuss aims that prove more difficult to reach.

ESEH Regional Representatives have made a great job since our Amsterdam conference. Not only have they worked on the issues I listed above, but they have also worked “on the field”: almost all the regions that make up the ESEH have now a newsletter in their own language. These newsletters often contain a fascinating amount of news dealing with environmental history. They attest (whatever we can think of this!) to the need for a communication in our own languages… Please have a look, if you haven’t already, at the ESEH Notepads in Environment and History (remember that you have  a free online access to the last year issues, as a member of the Society, password available on demand if you have lost it). You will learn more on the state of environmental history in our European regions, thanks to a series of reports we opened. Stéphane Frioux and Jan Oosthoek have already given a contribution for France and UK, other will follow.

I would like to conclude on a reminder, and a celebration: ten years ago, in the Spring of 1999, a small number of us met for two days in Dietramzell (Bavaria) with the project of creating a European Society for Environmental History. Some of us had taken part in a previous attempt, a few years before. Sadly, this first attempt had failed. Let us celebrate the fact that this time, we have succeeded! We are still a young society, with little means, but I do not think we are anymore threatened of disappearing. We have begun to expand to Central and Eastern Europe, and have shown abundantly that we are able to organise exciting conferences. We can be proud of this.

But we also must think of doing even better and develop. The number of our members (341) is increasing slowly, but it remains rather low compared to what it could be. Yet the number of our members is a significant indicator, not least if we want to find partners and sponsors. This is why I suggest that we celebrate our anniversary in trying to persuade one colleague, in our respective circles, to join the ESEH. If each of us managed to do so, our number would (of course!) double ! This aim does not seem impossible to reach progressively, if we try hard. I am sure it would give our future presidents an useful argument to find sponsors.

I renew my warmest wishes to all, and hope to see a maximum of you in Copenhagen.

Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud
President of ESEH