Ecology and empire Book

This is an extended review of this collection of essays.

At first glance, the title of this collection of essays appears contradictory. Ecology, a science featuring the study of the natural world and relationships within it, paired with Empire, a political term with connotations of dominance and subjugation. Though these terms seem difficult to reconcile this book attempts to do just that. Inspired by (and often adopting the terminology of) the work of Alfred Crosby in his 1986 classic Ecological Imperialism, editors Griffiths and Libby have complied a group of fifteen essays addressing the issue of ecology’s relationship to empire.

Unfortunately, the anthology’s leadoff hitter strikes out. Stephen Pyne’s essay attempts to demonstrate the ubiquity of fire use among indigenous peoples all over the world to manage their landscapes. However, all he demonstrates is an ability to assert sweeping generalizations without much specific evidence or many dates to put things in context. Readers specializing in the history of fire and ecology will enjoy this first essay. Others, however, will come away with little other than a vague idea that native people used fire often and for many reasons, producing some environmental changes in the process.

Eric Rolls is far more successful in describing the uses of fire in Australia. He describes how the original Australians (with an estimated population of at least 1.5 million at European contact) used fire for specific purposes such as thinning out forests and encouraging growing plants that would attract game for hunting. These original inhabitants were one of four great disturbances that shaped the history of the Australian continent, the others being Australia’s original separation from Gondwanaland in its deep geological past, the arrival of large numbers of Europeans in the 1800s, and the multiculturalism that has come to the continent since the 1950s. This long-term approach to Australian history sets up his other points, including how and why exotic, introduced organisms wreaked havoc on native species. Timothy Flannery also takes this deep-time approach in his essay discussing how empire evolved in both high- and low-energy ecosystems. Flannery provides a concise yet enlightening explanation of how Australia’s low-energy environment influenced the evolution of flora and fauna.

Several authors discuss how the science of ecology buttressed the British Empire historically. Co-editor Libby Robin describes the strong link between government and science in Australia through the colonial period and beyond, and how a conservationist approach modified the link after 1940. Thomas Dunlap and William Beinart discuss how ecological study advanced the economy of the British Empire in Australia and South Africa, respectively. Both tell how increased knowledge of animals, grazing practices, and animal health contributed to more efficient economic development in their regions. Beinart, in particular, applies recent research in ecology to the grazing practices of South Africa in the 1870s and 1880s to reach conclusions about the overall effect of grazing there.

In J. M. Powell’s essay on water management in Australia, readers of the environmental history of the American West find numerous parallels. As far back as the 1860s, Australian intellectuals (with some help from George Perkins Marsh’s book, Man and Nature) already recognized the relationship between tree cover, precipitation, erosion, and water supplies. A largely arid land, Australia faced many of the same problems as the western United States with issues such as locating areas with reliable rainfall, defining water rights, and questions of water quality. These parallels with the United States are also evident in Shaun Milton’s essay on beef production in South Africa’s Transvaal region. Milton describes how, early in the twentieth century, the inadequate rainfall and low carrying capacity of the land in the Transvaal created debates on the size of a viable farm or ranch, mirroring the questions raised a generation earlier by John Wesley Powell in America. In addition, increased production of beef for World War I in South Africa, like increased wheat production in America at the same time, encouraged expansion onto marginal lands and brought environmental degradation and a severe economic slump to the industry when the war ended.

While Powell and Milton leave the reader to draw connections in their essays, Michael Williams explicitly compares Australia and the United States in terms of imperialism’s role in deforestation. Pointing out that for most of American history, cutting down forests was a sign of advancement and industriousness, in Australia things were different because so little of the continent contained forests in the first place. As a result, Australia became part of a global timber trade, importing large supplies from the United States where it was plentiful. Williams also takes his analysis to India, showing how Britain’s Imperial Government, with its desire for the immediate revenue produced by cash crops, encouraged their production, leading to deforestation and significant localized environmental damage. He finishes outside the British Empire in China, describing the ruinous amounts of deforestation there as well.

As expected in any anthology, the overall quality of the essays in Ecology and Empire varies. Most are insightful, demonstrating how the British Empire attempted to study and manipulate local ecology in Australia and South Africa, and the extent to which local ecology sometimes forced regions of the Empire to modify their practices. Others do not add nearly as much to the book, either in terms of interesting writing or the conclusions presented. Elinor Melville’s conclusions do not really fit with the body of her essay on globalism and the Latin American environment, and her use of deliberately provocative terms will seem distasteful to some readers. John MacKenzie uses his historiographical essay on the Imperial environment to take pot shots at the provincialism of American environmental historians, which, deserved or not, come across sounding very petty without adding significantly to the essay.

Another issue with Ecology and Empire is its misleading title. A more proper title would have been Ecology and the British Empire because almost every essay focuses on Britain’s former imperial possessions, Australia above all. Accordingly, a working knowledge of the structure and history of the British Empire is a great advantage to readers of this volume. Those without this knowledge will benefit far less. Finally, a dearth of maps to accompany the essays (there is only one, in chapter eight) is a severe handicap when discussing ecology. Essays discussing a science depending so greatly on local geography require knowledge of local geography; it is a shame that only one author provided this information. With these criticisms in mind, however, readers with a specific interest in how the British Empire dealt with ecological issues, and how those issues in turn affected the Empire, will enjoy this book and gain from most of the essays it contains.