On history and environment

By Kim Ji-myung

There are numerous incidents in history which could only be properly explained after seemingly remote factors ― that of humans along with environment and ecology ― and their interactions were found and connected.

One broad example is the fact that the success or failure of sea-faring countries in the Imperialist period between the 15th century to around 1910 largely depended on their skills to cope with the climate, sea and the unfamiliar, tropical regions.

For another example, we can look to Japan and their approach to the occupation of Manchuria. At the time, a medical scientist and official named Shimpei Goto (1857-1929) held multiple key roles in Japan’s occupation, becoming the political minister at the Government General in Taipei, and then the president of the Southern Manchuria Railway Company in 1906.

But why would the Japanese assign a medical scientist to important governing positions in colonial territories? Well, Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 was due in part to the nation’s superior knowledge of and programs for military hygiene.

So the Japanese authorities understood that hygienic governance would be a crucial factor for success in Manchuria. This led to Shimpei, who studied medicine at Tokyo University and then studied bacteriology and public hygiene under hygienist Max Joseph von Pettenkofer in Germany, being placed in such a key role of the occupation.

Over the past decades, as research continues across academic borders, the relationships between the history of civilization and the natural environment and ecology have been newly defined.

And in order to focus greater effort toward research activities on this growing area of importance, a group of academics - from many areas including Korean and Western history, social science and natural sciences - has recently launched the Korean Society of Ecological and Environmental History (KSEEH).

“Ecological and environmental factors are deeply linked to the daily lives of people. By adding this dimension of space to the time and people dimension of historical research, we may come up with valuable answers to issues on human-environment relationships,” stated the KSEEH, which is led by president, Dr. Kim Dong-jin, of the Korean National University of Education.

The launching symposium of KSEEH, which will be held at Yonsei University, Seoul, in January 2016, will feature many guest speakers, including Prof. Micah S. Muscolino of Oxford University. Muscolino authored The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950, and Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China in North China. He concludes that “efforts to procure and exploit nature's energy in various forms shaped the choices of generals, the fates of communities, and the trajectory of environmental change.”

Other participants, either giving presentations or contributing papers, will include: Dr. Lee Hyun-sook of Yonsei University, a scholar of ancient medical history of Korea who is heading the Korean Institute of Ecological and Environmental History, an affiliate of the KSEEH; Prof. Zheng Xianyue of Daren University, China, an expert in the medical history of diseases, especially in relation to the environment; and Prof. J. Donald Hughes of the University of Denver, well known in Korea as an environmental historian.

Environmental history is concerned with the interaction between human societies and the rest of the natural world. It regards the environment as a major force in historical events and in the course of nations and civilizations.

Prof. Hughes takes the case of Easter Island as an example of a society that destroyed its own resource base through deforestation and overpopulation. Yet how can an environmental historian explain what happened on Easter Island before and after Europeans encountered the island?

Written historical sources on the topic are few. There are the accounts of explorers, including ship logs. On April 5, 1722, Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen sighted and named the island, describing it as bare of trees, with a small population and a number of large standing statues. Other explorers followed, including English Captain James Cook. There are also writings of 19th-century missionaries and 20th-century anthropologists.

These reveal that the islanders pushed down all the statues by the mid-19th century. The ones now standing were re-erected by the Europeans, Americans, and Japanese in the 20th century. There was even a native written language on Easter Island, but when most of the population was enslaved and taken off the island in the mid-19th century, the knowledge necessary to read it was lost, and it remains undeciphered.

From these sources alone, the ecological disaster is inexplicable, although without them the rest of the evidence could not be integrated into an historical account. Pollen analysis reveals the presence of forests until about 500 years ago. This indicates that a densely forested island became deforested during the period of human occupation. Dwelling sites show agricultural activity almost everywhere on the island by 1500.

It is evident that in the environmental history of Easter Island, historical source work and science supplement one another nicely.

There are, of course, many other debates on the topic, such as professionalism, environmental determinism as opposed to anthropogenic causation and so on.

As in any emerging area, the debate surrounding these kinds of issues seems unlikely to decline; rather, it is more likely that it will intensify. Vigorous discourse between differing viewpoints will sharpen analysis by scholars. In that regard, the birth of a research group on the topic is drawing attention and interest.

The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.