For five days this past July, environmental historians from around the world convened in for the . This is the main event for the . It brings together scholars from nearly every corner of the globe every five years to share new research in the field and to think about environmental history from a global perspective.

This year, several scholars from Canada attended the conference (as they did five years ago). They took the opportunity to learn from colleagues in other national fields and they shared research findings from the Canadian context.

There were dozens of panels and round tables, big plenary lectures, and a poster session, so much that no one person could see it all. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with a group of environmental historians who attended the Second World Congress for Environmental History.

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

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Guests:

Stephen Bocking
Jessica DeWitt
Matthew Evenden
Alexander Hall
Tina Loo
John Thistle
Jocelyn Thorpe

Works Cited:

Music Credits:

• by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)
• by Pitx

Citation:

Kheraj, Sean. Nature's Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast. 24 September 2014.

The post 1st Nature's Past Podcast of 2014-15 Season appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

Canada is a country of regions and from a biogeographic perspective, it can be useful to take a regional approach to exploring its environmental history. In 2004, published a special issue on the environment of Canada’s Pacific region and earlier this year, Acadiensis Press published , an anthology of essays edited by and Robert Summerby-Murray that explores numerous aspects of the environmental histories of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, parts of Quebec, and Newfoundland & Labrador.

The history of Canada’s Atlantic coastal region offers a number of important insights into environmental history that are both representative of the greater nation-state of Canada and unique to the particular biogeographic conditions of the region. In some ways, Atlantic Canada shares much in common with the rest of the country as a British settler colony, formerly colonized by the French, and originally inhabited by a long-standing population of indigenous North Americans. From the sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century, Atlantic Canada experienced significant ecological transformations as different human communities inhabited the region and exploited its resources over the centuries.

This is the broad subject of Land and Sea, and to learn more I spoke with the editors and one of the authors from this new anthology.

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at and subscribe to our YouTube page .

Works Cited:

• Campbell, Claire Elizabeth and Robert Summerby-Murray, ed. . Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 2013.

Music Credits:

• by Jason Pfaff
• by Jason Pfaff
• by Kirkoid

The post Nature's Past: Episode 40- The Environmental History of Atlantic Canada appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

In 1888, the City of Vancouver officially opened its first urban park to the public, Stanley Park. The park lies adjacent to downtown Vancouver, encompassing a nearly 1,000-acre peninsula. It is one of the best-known parks in Canada and its history has for more than a century.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, North American city officials have created parks for leisure and recreation within urban environments. The shape, meaning, and idea of city parks has changed over time. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with environmental historian Sean Kheraj about his new book .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Works Cited:

• Kheraj, Sean. . Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013.

Music Credits:

• by Plastic3
• by audiotechnica
• (Acoustic)" by Plastic3

The post Nature's Past: Episode 39- The Environmental History of Stanley Park appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

In 1888, the City of Vancouver officially opened its first urban park to the public, Stanley Park. The park lies adjacent to downtown Vancouver, encompassing a nearly 1,000-acre peninsula. It is one of the best-known parks in Canada and its history has for more than a century.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, North American city officials have created parks for leisure and recreation within urban environments. The shape, meaning, and idea of city parks has changed over time. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with environmental historian Sean Kheraj about his new book .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Works Cited:

• Kheraj, Sean. . Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013.

Music Credits:

• by Plastic3
• by audiotechnica
• (Acoustic)" by Plastic3

The post Nature's Past: Episode 39- The Environmental History of Stanley Park appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

The northern Alberta tar sands (or bitumen) resource is the most well-known environmental issue in Canada today. Representing both a significant component of the nation’s resource economy, and the single greatest threat to ecosystems across the country, the development of tar sands petroleum in western Canada has contributed to a restructuring of the nation’s political economy, a reconsideration of regulatory legislation and government oversight, and a transformation of the perception of Canada internationally. Indeed, the development of the tar sands has become a primary objective of the current government. In December 2012, representatives of the Energy Framework Initiative (who represent the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, and the Canadian Gas Association) , Minister of the Environment, and Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, to request “regulatory reform” of “out-dated” legislation that would allow for “timely licensing and permitting” of major resource projects in Canada’s energy sector without “duplication and overlap between federal and provincial processes.” In the letter, the National Energy Board Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Fisheries Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and the Navigable Waters Protection Act were all listed by name as “existing laws and regulations related to energy regulation, environmental assessment, and environmental protection” that the authors felt were worthy of reform. Four months later, in April 2012, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-38, which included significant changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, and the National Energy Board Act. Six months after that, in October 2012, the government introduced Bill C-45, which altered the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In many respects, the political pressure exerted by the tar sands industry is not new. As early as the 1930s, the Alberta government experienced pressure from Imperial Oil and other smaller producers to limit conservation legislation, which these companies saw as a deterrent to outside investment in the development of the province’s oilfields. After the Second World War, the development of oil resources in Alberta came to dominate the provincial economy, generating enormous revenue from royalties that allowed the government to pay off debts and provide important social services, while at the same time assuming a larger role in federal politics. By the 1970s, the oil and gas industry “accounted for almost 40 percent of all value added in the province.” [1] Throughout the early years, efforts to prevent over-production or regulate the industry came up against political expedients that saw the best interests of the province met through industry royalties. Since then, the importance of the tar sands to the provincial economy has grown considerably. For instance, between 1947 and 1967, public revenues from the industry totaled $2.25 billion. In 2010-2011, the province received $3.7 billion in revenue from tar sands production. The rapid growth of the industry in the twenty-first century has also translated into much more influence for Western Canadian interests in federal politics. When considered within a larger historical context, the close relationship between tar sands development, economic growth, and political power in the country today reflects the important place natural resources have always occupied in Canadian history. Canadian historians have long debated the importance of natural resources, or ‘staples’ (cod, fur, timber, wheat), in shaping society, economy, and politics. Bitumen seems destined to rejuvenate this historiographical debate. Indeed, a recent report on tar sands mega-development, released in early 2013 by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, has referred to the bitumen deposits in northern Alberta as Canada’s newest “staples trap”. While many features of tar sands development are unprecedented, the similarities with previous staples economies are striking.

This episode features an interview with , a climatologist from University of Victoria and recently elected Green Party of BC Member of the Legislative Assembly. It also includes the plenary session from the 2013 American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting titled, "The Fossil Fuel Dilemma: Vision, Values, and Technoscience in the Alberta Oil Sands," featuring Warren Cariou, Sara Dorow, Imre Szeman, and Graeme Wynn.

[1] Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 100

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Suggested Readings:

• Breen, David H. Alberta’s Petroleum Industry and the Conservation Board. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1993.
• Chastko, Paul A. Developing Alberta's Oil Sands: From Karl Clark to Kyoto. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004.
• Clarke, Tony, Jim Stanford, Diana Gibson, Brendan Haley. . Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013.
• Climate Action Network Canada’s
• Finkel, Alvin. The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989.
• Gilmour, Don. The Walrus, April 2005.
• Gismondi, Mike, and Debra J. Davidson. “Imagining the Tar Sands 1880-1967 And Beyond” Imaginations, Issue 3-2 (2012), 68-103.
• Goodine, Claudia. The Walrus, July/August, 2012.
• Homer-Dixon, Thomas. The New 91��ɫ Times, April 3, 2013.
• Kheraj, Sean. Active History, 12 June 2012.
• Lemphers, Nathan and Dan Woynillowicz. . Pembina Institute, May 2012.
• Nikiforuk, Andrew. Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2010.
• Pratt, Larry. The Tar Sands: Syncrude and the Politics of Oil. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1976.
• Weinhold, Bob. “Alberta’s Oil Sands, Hard Evidence, Missing Data, New Promises” Environmental Health Persepctives, Vol.119, No.3 (March 2011), pp.A126-A131.

Works Cited

• Weaver, Andrew. Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World. Toronto: Viking, 2008.

Music Credits

• by copperhead
• by Javolenus
• Doxent Zsigmond
• by Kara Square

The post Episode 38 Histories of Canadian Environmental Issues, Part 8- Tar Sands appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

The history of Canadian food and agriculture is an enormous topic with both a global and deeply personal scope. All humans require food to live and agricultural products become food for our consumption, demonstrating the profound interrelatedness of food and agriculture. Beyond sheer survival, food serves social and cultural purposes for all people, from planting and harvesting, through preparation, and ultimately with consumption. Communities and families coalesce around these activities and have done so for all of human existence. Food is a source of pleasure and for many people is intricately linked with spirituality. Examining the environmental history of food and agriculture in Canada reveals the ways in which our complex relationships with nature and each other inform this most intimate aspect of our daily lives.

A primary element of agriculture is a relationship with the earth. In order to cultivate crops to harvest and consume, humans must manipulate the natural environment. Since the arrival of Europeans to North America, agriculture has largely involved a perceived human domination of the environment including physical manipulation (tilling, seeding, deforestation, filling wetlands), technological innovation (genetically modified crops, mechanized equipment, fertilizer, pesticide), and transportation of agricultural products (railways, highways, airports, canals and seaways). Euro-Canadian concepts of liberalism have also influenced the relationship between people and the planet, promoting private property ownership as one of its foundational elements of property, liberty, and equality. The ideal of the yeoman farmer, an entrepreneurial agricultural producer, is fundamental to the Canadian founding myth. In order to create Euro-Canadian farms on the landscape, however, indigenous peoples were displaced, intertwining human relationships with the land and also with other humans.

Food and agriculture require and inform our relationships with each other. In the process of colonialism, European-style agriculture was adopted by and foisted upon indigenous peoples through political mechanisms. Politics, food, and agriculture continue to be closely tied as demonstrated through food-based political movements, agricultural and food regulation and legislation, international trade policies, and even in Canada’s World War I conscription crisis. Migrations between provinces and immigration policy have been driven by agriculture, and current Canadian politics are focused in many ways on increasing the export of Canadian agricultural and food products. Regional and national dishes and crops inform Canadian identities. The power shift from producer to corporation in Canadian food systems is thought to be a factor in social inequity experienced by people across the globe.

Canadian agriculture and food are crucial components to discussions about health. The quantity of food available dictates both famine and obesity, as does the quality of food. As more is known about the health effects for humans of genetically modified foods, hormone-added foods, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and food-borne infections such as Escherichia coli and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, we are changing how we interact with our food and its suppliers. Agricultural environmental practices also raise concerns about the health of the groundwater we drink and use for irrigation, as well as the air we breathe. Reviewing the history of agriculture and food in Canada helps us understand why we have the systems we do and how they came to be, as well as assess their efficacy for our contemporary needs and desires as humans always in need of nourishment.

To begin this look at agriculture and food in Canadian history, we look at the case study of chicken breeding in North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On this episode of the podcast, we spoke about her new book .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Suggested Readings:

• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
• Andrews, Geoff. The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.
• Bradbury, Bettina. “Pigs, Cows, and Boarders: Non-Wage Forms of Survival Among Montreal Families, 1861-91,” Labour/Le Travail, 14 (Fall 1984), 9-46.
• Carter, Sarah. Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.
• Derry, Margaret. Art and Science in Breeding: Creating Better Chickens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Iacovetta, Franca, Valerie J. Korinek, and Marlene Epp. Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Mosby, Ian. “‘That Won Ton Soup Headache’: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and the Making of American Food, 1968-1980.” Social History of Medicine 22, No. 1 (April 2009): 133-151.
• Murton, James. Creating a Modern Countryside: Liberalism and Land Resettlement in British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
• Russell, Peter A. How Agriculture Made Canada: Farming in the Nineteenth Century. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012.
• Turner, Chris. The Walrus, October 2011.
• Wall, Ellen, Barry Smit, and Johanna Wandel. Farming in a Changing Climate: Agricultural Adaptation in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
• Winson, Anthony. The Intimate Commodity: Food and the Development of the Agro-Industrial Complex in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

Works Cited

Music Credits

• by Rædysphere
• by Javolenus
• by unreal_dm

The post History of Canadian Environmental Issues Part 6 (Episode 36) appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

The history of Canadian food and agriculture is an enormous topic with both a global and deeply personal scope. All humans require food to live and agricultural products become food for our consumption, demonstrating the profound interrelatedness of food and agriculture. Beyond sheer survival, food serves social and cultural purposes for all people, from planting and harvesting, through preparation, and ultimately with consumption. Communities and families coalesce around these activities and have done so for all of human existence. Food is a source of pleasure and for many people is intricately linked with spirituality. Examining the environmental history of food and agriculture in Canada reveals the ways in which our complex relationships with nature and each other inform this most intimate aspect of our daily lives.

On this second part of our look at agri-food systems in Canadian history, we discuss Canadian food history and we speak with the editors and authors of a new anthology from University of Toronto Press called, . This round table interview features , , , , and .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Suggested Readings:

• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
• Andrews, Geoff. The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.
• Bradbury, Bettina. “Pigs, Cows, and Boarders: Non-Wage Forms of Survival Among Montreal Families, 1861-91,” Labour/Le Travail, 14 (Fall 1984), 9-46.
• Carter, Sarah. Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.
• Derry, Margaret. Art and Science in Breeding: Creating Better Chickens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Iacovetta, Franca, Valerie J. Korinek, and Marlene Epp. Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Mosby, Ian. “‘That Won Ton Soup Headache’: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and the Making of American Food, 1968-1980.” Social History of Medicine 22, No. 1 (April 2009): 133-151.
• Murton, James. Creating a Modern Countryside: Liberalism and Land Resettlement in British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
• Russell, Peter A. How Agriculture Made Canada: Farming in the Nineteenth Century. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012.
• Turner, Chris. The Walrus, October 2011.
• Wall, Ellen, Barry Smit, and Johanna Wandel. Farming in a Changing Climate: Agricultural Adaptation in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
• Winson, Anthony. The Intimate Commodity: Food and the Development of the Agro-Industrial Complex in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

Works Cited

• Iacovetta, Franca, Valerie J. Korinek, and Marlene Epp. . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Music Credits

• by NiGiD
• by Javolenus
• by NiGiD

The post Histories of Canadian Environmental Issues Part 7 (Episode 37) appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

Hauling in Seines - B.C. Salmon Fisheries. Source: Albertype Company/Library and Archives Canada/PA-031646

The need for thoughtful histories on contemporary Canadian environmental issues has never been more critical than it is regarding the present state of the country’s fisheries. In June 2012, funding for fisheries-related research and protection was significantly curtailed as part of federal government cuts and amendments to the Fisheries Act included in the C-38 omnibus budget bill. These changes, however, are not unprecedented. By placing Canada’s fisheries and marine environments in greater jeopardy than they’ve ever been, the changes fit into a longer pattern of government undermining of the law that go back as far as the 1970s. In response, dozens of environmentalists, researchers and scientists have criticized the cuts as misinformed and dangerous. In to the Globe and Mail soon after bill C-38 was announced, four former Fisheries and Oceans ministers wrote they believe these changes “will inevitably reduce and weaken the habitat-protection provisions” of the Fisheries Act.

Canada’s fisheries have been subjects of controversy and sites of tension for over 200 years. On the east coast, small-scale, inshore fisheries (the norm since the seventeenth century) gave way to large-scale, scientifically-managed commercial fisheries. Technological advances, globalizing market structures, and an ever-increasing reliance on experts, created a context in which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans shifted the purpose of fisheries from meeting human needs to meeting maximum sustainable yields and total allowable catches. The result was the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery in the early 1990s. On the west coast, the defence of the salmon fishery against hydroelectric development on the Fraser River in the middle of the nineteenth century is one bright spot in a story of over-fishing, habitat loss, and the negative side-effects of commercial-scale aquaculture. The artificial state border between Canada and the United States in the Salish Sea, which did not reflect the migratory lives of pacific salmon, created the conditions for unmanageable fish banditry. Inland, freshwater fisheries have experienced similar stories of over-harvesting, threats to fish habitat, and denial of Native resource rights. Around the Great Lakes, First Nations experienced competition from non-native commercial fishermen as early as the 1830s, spent much of the late nineteenth century resisting efforts by the Ontario government to eliminate their traditional rights, and fought a series of legal battles during the twentieth century to regain autonomy over their fisheries.

While certain species have begun to recover in the Great Lakes, several species found in Canada’s coastal waters have not. According to the Fisheries and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, roughly 75% of global fish stocks are fully exploited or have collapsed. Canada has played a leading role in bringing us to the brink of global fisheries collapse. Given this scenario, insights from scholars writing on the history of fisheries in Canada is critical if further catastrophe is to be avoided.

On this episode, we speak with five leading historians of Canadian fisheries, including , , , , and .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Suggested Readings:

• Arnason, R. and L. Felt, eds. The North Atlantic Fisheries: Successes, Failures, and Challenges. Charlottetown: University of Prince Edward Island Press, 1995.
• Bavington, Dean. Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
• Bocking, Stephen."Science, Salmon, and Sea Lice: Constructing Practice and Place in an Environmental Controversy," Journal of the History of Biology (2012) 45: 681–716.
• Bogue, Margaret Beattie. Fishing the Great Lakes: An Environmental History, 1783-1933. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
• Drews, Keven. Winnipeg Free Press, June 21, 2012.
• Galloway, Gloria. Globe and Mail, June 22, 2012.
• Gough, Joseph. Managing Canada’s Fisheries: From Early Days to the Year 2000. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2008.
• Harris, Douglas C. Fish, Law, and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.
• Harris, Douglas C. Landing Native Fisheries: Indian Reserves and Fishing Rights in British Columbia, 1849-1925. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2008.
• Harris, Douglas C. "Food Fish, Commercial Fish, and Fish to Support a Moderate Livelihood: Characterizing Aboriginal and Treaty Rights to Canadian Fisheries" Arctic Review on Law and Politics 1 (2010): 82-107.
• Hubbard, Jennifer. A Science on the Scales: The Rise of Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Biology, 1898-1939. University of Toronto Press, 2006.
• Koenig, Edwin C. Cultures and Ecologies: A Native Fishing Conflict on the Saugeen-Bruce Peninsula. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
• Kinsey, Darin. “ ‘Seeding the Water as the Earth': The Epicenter and Peripheries of a Western Aquacultural Revolution.” Environmental History 11, No. 3 (2006): 527-566.
• Knight, William. "Samuel Wilmot, Fish Culture, and Recreational Fisheries in Late 19 Century Ontario." Scientia Canadensis 30, no. 1 (2007): 75-90.
• MacDonald, Douglas, David McRobert, Miriam Diamond. “How Ottawa fumbled the fisheries file” Globe and Mail, Friday July 6, 2012.
• McEvoy, Arthur. The Fisherman's Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
• Newell, D. and R. Ommer. Fishing Places, Fishing People: Traditions and Uses in Canadian Small-scale Fisheries. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1999.
• Parenteau, Bill. “’Care, Control and Supervision’: Native People in the Canadian Atlantic Salmon Fishery, 1867-1900.” Canadian Historical Review. 79 (1998): 1-35.
• Parsons, L.S. Management of Marine Fisheries in Canada. Ottawa: National Research Council of Canada and Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1993.
• Piper, Liza. The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009.
• Rose, Alex. Who Killed the Grand Banks?: The untold story behind the decimation of one of the world’s greatest natural resources. Mississauga: John Wiley and Sons, 2008.
• Siddon, Tom, David Anderson, John Fraser, Herb Dahliwal, Globe and Mail, June 1, 2012.
• Wadewitz, Lissa K. The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Boundaries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012.
• Young, Nathan and Ralph Matthews. The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.

Works Cited

• Bavington, Dean. . Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
• Bocking, Stephen. Journal of the History of Biology (2012) 45: 681–716.
• Harris, Douglas C. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.
• Harris, Douglas C. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2008.
• Knight, William. Scientia Canadensis 30, no. 1 (2007): 75-90.
• Piper, Liza. . Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009.
• . Environmental History 18.1 (2013): 3-126.

Music Credits

• by Doxent Zsigmond
• by Loveshadow
• by unreal_dm

The post Episode 35 Histories of Environmental Issues appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

[01:02:16]

The environmental movement is one of the most popular topics in Canadian environmental history. At present, the environmental movement in Canada is at a bit of a crossroads. Having finally moved beyond simply outlining worst practices and their consequences, the last decade has witnessed proactive solutions and workable alternatives to every kind of environmental problem. Yet, this comes at the same time as economic turmoil and ideological opposition from government. Recently, David Suzuki has even gone so far as to argue that Given this crossroads, environmental historians offer the context needed to understand the state of the environmental movement in this country today

On this second part of our look at the history of the environmental movement in Canada we speak with a group of leading environmental historians, including Jonathan Clapperton, , , and about the origins of the movement and its transformations since the end of the Second World War.

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Works Cited

Music Credits

• by Pitx
• by Javolenus
• by unreal_dm

The post Episode 34 Canadian Environmental History Podcast appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

The environmental movement is one of the most popular topics in Canadian environmental history. At present, the environmental movement in Canada is at a bit of a crossroads. Having finally moved beyond simply outlining worst practices and their consequences, the last decade has witnessed proactive solutions and workable alternatives to every kind of environmental problem. Yet, this comes at the same time as economic turmoil and ideological opposition from government. Recently, has even gone so far as to argue that Given this crossroads, environmental historians offer the context needed to understand the state of the environmental movement in this country today.

From the earliest efforts to establish national and provincial parks at the end of the nineteenth century to the more politically-conscious groups of the post-WWII era, historians of the Canadian environmental movement have demonstrated how changing ideas of nature informed non-utilitarian approaches to dealing with the non-human world. The inspiration for many of these ideas came from critiques of modernity and capitalism, which saw nature as either a set of commodities or an externality within the wider framework of progress and civilization. In response to this trend, concerned individuals and groups mobilized environmental sciences, such as conservation and ecology, to justify alternative relationships between humans and the natural world. This reaction to modern society and economy was shared with the United States, but also developed its own distinctive Canadian character, as well as specific regional approaches to environmental issues across Canada.

As in the United States, the first efforts to protect the environment in Canada arose out of anxieties about the loss of wilderness and the importance of preserving an essential national character at the end of the nineteenth century. Over half a century later, the postwar environmental movement in Canada evolved alongside that of the U.S. following the publication of Rachael Carson’s . In New Brunswick, activists fought to stop the spraying of DDT, while in Ontario a group known as Pollution Probe used the media to raise awareness of environmental issues, and in British Columbia the provincial government was obliged to enact protective legislation in order to placate opposition from environmentalists. In each case, changing ideas about nature combined with particular Canadian political and cultural contexts to transform the way most Canadians thought about and treated the environment.

On this first part of our look at the history of the environmental movement in Canada we speak with Canadian environmental historian, about his new book .

Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our and to fill out a short listener survey .

Visit the main page at

Suggested Readings:

• Dale, Stephen. McLuhan’s Children: The Greenpeace Message and the Media. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1996.
• Elton, Sarah. University of Toronto Magazine, Winter 1999
• Emond, D. Paul. “‘Are We There Yet?’ Reflections on the Success of the Environmental Law Movement in Ontario.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal Vol.46, No.2 (Summer 2008), pp. 219-242.
• Keeling, Arn. “Sink or Swim: Water Pollution and Environmental Politics in Vancouver, 1889-1975.” BC Studies Vol.142/143 (2004), pp. 69-101.
• Keeling, Arn and John Sandlos. “Environmental Justice Goes Underground? Historical Notes from Canada’s Mining Frontier.” Environmental Justice Vol.2, No.3 (2009): 117-125.
• Killan, Gerald, and George Warecki. “The Algonquin Wildlands League and the Emergence of Environmental Politics in Ontario, 1965-1974” Environmental History Review Vol.16, No.4 (Winter 1992), pp.1-27.
• McLaughlin, Mark J. “Green Shoots: Aerial Insecticide Spraying and the Growth of Environmental Consciousness in New Brunswick, 1952-1973.” Acadiensis Vol.40, No.1 (Winter/Spring 2011), pp. 3-23.
• Mutton, Don. “Dispelling the Myths of the Acid Rain Story.” Environment Vol.40, No.6 (July-Aug 1998), pp.4-34.
• Paehlke, Robert. “Eco-History: Two Waves in the Evolution of Environmentalism.” Alternatives Vol.19, No.1 (1992), pp.18-23.
• Read, Jennifer. “'Let us heed the voice of youth': Laundry Detergents, Phosphates and the Emergence of the Environmental Movement in Ontario.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association Vol.7 (1996), pp.227-250.
• Suzuki, David. David Suzuki Foundation Blog. May 3, 2012.
• Van Huizen, Philip. “‘Panic Park’: Environmental Protest and the Politics of Parks in British Columbia’s Skagit Valley.” BC Studies Vol.170 (Summer 2011), pp.67-92.
• Warecki, George M. Protecting Ontario’s Wilderness: A History of Changing Ideas and Preservation Politics, 1927-1973. New 91��ɫ: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000.
• Zelko, Frank S. “Making Greenpeace: The Development of Direct Action Environmentalism in British Columbia,” BC Studies, Special Double Issue “On the Environment”, Vol.142/143 (Summer/Autumn 2004), pp.197-239.
• Zelko, Frank S. . New 91��ɫ: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Works Cited

• Binnema, Theodore and Melanie Niemi. "'Let the Line be Drawn Now': Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park in Canada." Environmental History 11, no. 4 (2006): 724-750.
• Forkey, Neil S. . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Jasen, Patricia. Wild Things: Nature, Culture, and Tourism in Ontario, 1790-1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.
• Judd, Richard William. The Untilled Garden : Natural History and the Spirit of Conservation in America, 1740-1840. New 91��ɫ: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Loo, Tina. States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006.
• Sandlos, John. Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
• Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Music Credits

• by unreal_dm
• by unreal_dm
• by unreal_dm

The post New Canadian Environmental History podcast available appeared first on Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.