Download or read book Environmental History of Oceanic Islands written by Tod F. Stuessy and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Juan Fernández Archipelago is located in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile at 33° S latitude. Robinson Crusoe Island is 667 km from the continent and approximately four million years old; Alejandro Selkirk Island is an additional 181 km west and only one million years old. The natural impacts of subsidence and erosion have shaped the landscapes of these islands, resulting in progressive changes to their subtropical vegetation. The older island has undergone more substantial changes, due to both natural causes and human impacts. After the discovery of Robinson Crusoe Island in 1574, people began cutting down forests for lumber to construct boats and homes, for firewood, and to make room for pastures. Domesticated plants and animals were introduced, some of which have since become feral or invasive, causing damage to the local vegetation. The wealth of historical records on these activities provides a detailed chronicle of how human beings use their environment for survival in a new ecosystem. This book offers an excellent case study on the impacts that people can have on the resources of an oceanic island.
Download or read book The People of the Sea written by Paul D'Arcy and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countering the dominant paradigms of recent Pacific Islands' historiography, which tend to limit understanding of the sea's importance, this volume emphasizes the flux in the maritime environment and how it instilled an expectation and openness toward outside influences and the rapidity with which cultural change could occur in relations between various Islander groups." "Students and scholars of Pacific history and environmental and cultural studies will welcome this re-evaluation of the sea's influence in Oceanic history."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands written by Patrick Vinton Kirch and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pacific Ocean islands have long been considered a natural laboratory where the evolution of human cultures can be studied in the context of thousands of island ecosystems. This text presents research in the ecological history of the Pacific Islands. Focusing on the environmental impact wrought by the Oceanic populations before the advent of Western contact, it challenges earlier views that the islands underwent dramatic environmental change only after European colonization. They demonstrate instead that in some cases the indigenous peoples had an often irreversible effect on the landscapes and biotas of the Pacific Islands and assert that these effects often had important consequences for island societies, economies, and political systems.
Download or read book Fluid Frontiers written by John Gillis and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY, MEANING AND MATERIALITY OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT There is a blue hole in environmental history. The thirteen essays in this very accessible collection fill it by closing the gap between land and sea, by exploring the ways the earthly and maritime realms influence one another. What has too often been described as the 'eternal sea' is shown to be remarkably dynamic. Ranging widely from Australia to the Arctic, from ocean depths to high islands, a new generation of humanists and scientists trespass the boundaries of their own fields of inquiry to tie together human and natural histories. They reflect contemporary concerns with declining fisheries, damaged estuaries, and vanishing coastal communities. Here the history of oceanic sciences meets that of literary and artistic imagination, offering vivid insights into the meanings as well as the materiality of waves and swamps, coasts and coral reefs. In their introduction, John Gillis and Franziska Torma suggest the directions in which the fluid frontiers of marine environmental history are moving.
Download or read book The Pacific Islands written by Moshe Rapaport and published by Bess Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Academic survey of the Pacific Islands. Includes maps, photographs, tables, diagrams, atlas, and detailed index.
Download or read book Plants of Oceanic Islands written by Tod F. Stuessy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive view of the origin and evolution of the plants of an entire oceanic archipelago.
Download or read book What is Environmental History written by J. Donald Hughes and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is environmental history? It is a kind of history that seeks understanding of human beings as they have lived, worked, and thought in relationship to the rest of nature through the changes brought by time. In this new edition of his seminal student textbook, J. Donald Hughes provides a masterful overview of the thinkers, topics, and perspectives that have come to constitute the exciting discipline that is environmental history. He does so on a global scale, drawing together disparate trends from a rich variety of countries into a unified whole, illuminating trends and key themes in the process. Those already familiar with the discipline will find themselves invited to think about the subject in a new way. This new edition has been updated to reflect recent developments, trends, and new work in environmental history, as well as a brand new note on its possible future. Students and scholars new to environmental history will find the book both an indispensable guide and a rich source of inspiration for future work.
Download or read book Natives and Exotics written by Judith A. Bennett and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2009-07-15 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ambitious in its scope and scale, this environmental history of World War II ranges over rear bases and operational fronts from Bora Bora to New Guinea, providing a lucid analysis of resource exploitation, entangled wartime politics, and human perceptions of the vast Oceanic environment. Although the war’s physical impact proved significant and oftentimes enduring, this study shows that the tropical environment offered its own challenges: Unfamiliar tides left landing craft stranded; unseen microbes carrying endemic diseases disabled thousands of troops. Weather, terrain, plants, animals—all played an active role as enemy or ally. At the heart of Natives and Exotics is the author’s analysis of the changing visions and perceptions of the environment, not only among the millions of combatants, but also among the Islands’ peoples and their colonial administrations in wartime and beyond. Judith Bennett reveals how prewar notions of a paradisiacal Pacific set up millions of Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, and Japanese for grave disappointment when they encountered the reality. She shows that objects usually considered distinct from environmental concerns (souvenirs, cemeteries, war memorials) warrant further examination as the emotional quintessence of events in a particular place. Among native people, wartime experiences and resource utilization induced a shift in environmental perceptions just as the postwar colonial agenda demanded increased diversification of the resource base. Bennett’s ability to reappraise such human perceptions and productions with an environmental lens is one of the unique qualities of this study. Impeccably researched, Natives and Exotics is essential reading for those interested in environmental history, Pacific studies, and a different kind of war story that has surprising relevance for today’s concerns with global warming.
Download or read book Oceanic Islands written by Patrick D. Nunn and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1994-01 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In most accounts of geographical phenomena, islands in the middle of the oceans are marginalized and implicitly viewed as of little importance. This is a convenient rather than a rational view and one which is comprehensively disposed of in this book which examines the great diversity of island environments worldwide and the controls on their development. This book also demonstrates what are for most people the unusual qualities of many island environments: their often simple geology and structure (which hold such important clues to ocean-basin evolution), and their dominantly maritime climates, which together make oceanic islands natural laboratories without equal. Yet this book does not dwell solely on these unusual qualities but also gives a thorough account of oceanic islands worldwide. Dr. Nunn draws his examples from oceanic islands across the globe: of the seventeen case studies in this book, five come from the Atlantic (two from the Caribbean), two from the Indian Ocean, and ten from the Pacific. This book should be of interest and accessible to anyone with an interest in oceanic islands, their origins and development, and should prove informative to a variety of specialists including geographers, geologists, geophysicists, oceanographers and prehistorians.
Download or read book The Marshall Islands written by James P. Terry and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "...the book covers a wide range of topics on the Marshall Islands, including chapters on the geography and physical environment, the ecosystems and flora, early human settlement and post-colonial history, traditional Marshallese medicine, and topics on modern applied science related to the exploitation of sand, gravel and rock aggregate, waste management, and the use of geographical information systems (GIS) for socioeconomic analysis. Authors of chapters include Dr. Terry and Dr. Terry, Professor Randy Thaman, Dr. Irene Taafaki, Director of the USP Marshall Islands Centre, ex-geography lecturer, John Morrell, and staff of SOPAC." --Publisher.
Download or read book Sea and Land written by Harry C Black Professor of History Philip J Morgan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-13 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sea and Land provides an in-depth environmental history of the Caribbean to ca 1850, with a coda that takes the story into the modern era. It explores the mixing, movement, and displacement of peoples and the parallel ecological mixing of animals, plants, microbes from Africa, Europe, elsewhere in the Americas, and as far away as Asia. It examines first the arrival of Native American to the region and the environmental transformations that followed. It then turns to the even more dramatic changes that accompanied the arrival of Europeans and Africans in the fifteenth century. Throughout it argues that the constant arrival, dispersal, and mingling of new plants and animals gave rise to a creole ecology. Particular attention is given to the emergence of Black slavery, sugarcane, and the plantation system, an unholy trinity that thoroughly transformed the region's demographic and physical landscapes and made the Caribbean a vital site in the creation of the modern western world. Increased attention to issues concerning natural resources, conservation, epidemiology, and climate have now made the environment and ecology of the Caribbean a central historical concern. Sea and Land is an effort to integrate that research in a new general environmental history of the region. Intended for scholars and students alike, it aims to foster both a fuller appreciation of the extent to which environmental factors shaped historical developments in the Caribbean, and the extent to which human actions have transformed the biophysical environment of the region over time. The combined work of eminent authors of environment and Latin American and Caribbean history, Sea and Land offers a unique approach to a region characterized by Edenic nature and paradisiacal qualities, as well as dangers, diseases, and disasters.
Download or read book The Pacific Islands written by Moshe Rapaport and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pacific is the last major world region to be discovered by humans. Although small in total land area, its numerous islands and archipelagoes with their startlingly diverse habitats and biotas, extend across a third of the globe. This revised edition of a popular text explores the diverse landforms, climates, and ecosystems of the Pacific island region. Multiple chapters, written by leading specialists, cover the environment, history, culture, population, and economy. The work includes new or completely revised chapters on gender, music, logging, development, education, urbanization, health, ocean resources, and tourism. Throughout two key issues are addressed: the exceptional environmental challenges and the demographic/economic/political challenges facing the region. Although modern technology and media and waves of continental tourists are fast eroding island cultures, the continuing resilience of Pacific island populations is apparent. This is the only contemporary text on the Pacific Islands that covers both environment and sociocultural issues and will thus be indispensable for any serious student of the region. Unlike other reviews, it treats the entirety of Oceania (with the exception of Australia) and is well illustrated with numerous photos and maps, including a regional atlas. Contributors: David Abbott, Dennis A. Ahlburg, Glenn Banks, John Barker, Geoffrey Bertram, David A. Chappell, William C. Clarke, John Connell, Ron Crocombe, Julie Cupples, Derrick Depledge, Colin Filer, Gerard J. Fryer, Patricia Fryer, Brenden S. Holland, E. Alison Kay, David M. Kennedy, Lamont Lindstrom, Rick Lumpkin, Harley I. Manner, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Nancy McDowell, Hamish A. McGowan, Frank McShane, Simon Milne, R. John Morrison, Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Stephen G. Nelson, Patrick D. Nunn, Michael R. Ogden, Andrew Pawley, Jean-Louis Rallu, Vina Ram-Bidesi, Moshe Rapaport, Annette Sachs Robertson, Richard Scaglion, Donovan Storey, Andrew P. Sturman, Lynne D. Talley, James P. Terry, Randolph R. Thaman, Frank R. Thomas, Caroline Vercoe, Terence Wesley-Smith, Paul Wolffram.
Download or read book The Oceans and the Environment written by DIANE Publishing Company and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1994-04 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of a conference for representatives of the Pacific Islands community to discuss the threat of global warming and sea-level rise, waste disposal, ozone depletion, marine resource management, endangered species protection and the many other pressing environmental issues of our time.
Download or read book Island Biogeography written by Robert J. Whittaker and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-11-30 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Island biogeography is the study of the distribution and dynamics of species in island environments. Due to their isolation from more widespread continental species, islands are ideal places for unique species to evolve, but they are also places of concentrated extinction. Not surprisingly, they are widely studied by ecologists, conservationists and evolutionary biologists alike. There is no other recent textbook devoted solely to island biogeography, and a synthesis of the many recent advances is now overdue. This second edition builds on the success and reputation of the first, documenting the recent advances in this exciting field and explaining how islands have been used as natural laboratories in developing and testing ecological and evolutionary theories. In addition, the book describes the main processes of island formation, development and eventual demise, and explains the relevance of island environmental history to island biogeography. The authors demonstrate the huge significance of islands as hotspots of biodiversity, and as places from which disproportionate numbers of species have been extinguished by human action in historical time. Many island species are today threatened with extinction, and this work examines both the chief threats to their persistence and some of the mitigation measures that can be put in play with conservation strategies tailored to islands.
Download or read book Island Historical Ecology written by Peter E. Siegel and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first book-length treatise on historical ecology of the West Indies, Island Historical Ecology addresses Caribbean island ecologies from the perspective of social and cultural interventions over approximately eight millennia of human occupations. Environmental coring carried out in carefully selected wetlands allowed for the reconstruction of pre-colonial and colonial landscapes on islands between Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Comparisons with well-documented patterns in the Mediterranean and Pacific islands place this case study into a larger context of island historical ecology.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania written by Ethan E. Cochrane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania presents the archaeology, linguistics, environment and human biology of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. First colonized 50,000 years ago, Oceania witnessed the independent invention of agriculture, the construction of Easter Island's statues, and the development of the word's last archaic states."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Biology of Island Floras written by David Bramwell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-21 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oceanic islands offer biologists unparalleled opportunities to study evolutionary processes and ecological phenomena. However, human activity threatens to alter or destroy many of these fragile ecosystems, with recent estimates suggesting that nearly half of the world's insular endemics are threatened with extinction. Bringing together researchers from around the world, this book illustrates how modern research methods and new concepts have challenged accepted theories and changed our understanding of island flora. Particular attention is given to the impact of molecular studies and the insights that they provide into topics such as colonisation, radiation, diversification and hybridisation. Examples are drawn from around the world, including the Hawaiian archipelago, Galapagos Islands, Madagascar and the Macronesian region. Conservation issues are also highlighted, with coverage of alien species and the role of ex situ conservation providing valuable information that will aid the formulation of management strategies and genetic rescue programmes.
