Arcadia

Arcadia, 2014, no. 12

What Would Indigenous Taxonomy Look Like? The Case of Blandowski's Australia

Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll

In 1862, Wilhelm von Blandowski produced The Encyclopedia of Australia as a large visual atlas of 142 plates dedicated to a comprehensive representation of the continent Australia.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 11

The Canal System of Bolshoy Solovetsky Island

Ekaterina Kalemeneva

With the foundation of the most northerly Orthodox monastery in 1436, monks and settlers began to create an extensive canal system on Solovetsky Island between the island’s more than five hundred lakes, thus transforming and adapting the environment to accommodate the needs of human settlers.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 10

A Muddy Transnational Park: The Wadden Sea

Anna-Katharina Wöbse and Hans-Peter Ziemek

Several national parks along the Wadden Sea coastline between the Netherlands and Germany have become part of the United Nations transboundary Wadden Sea World Heritage site.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 9

A Latecoming Pioneer: Austria's Hohe Tauern National Park

Patrick Kupper and Anna-Katharina Wöbse

Between 1981 and 1992 the Austrian federal states of Carinthia, Salzburg, and Tyrol established the Hohe Tauern National Park as Austria’s first national park in the Alpine mountain range of the same name.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 8

Zolotitsa: How Diamond Mining Threatens the Ecological Conditions of a River Region

Ekaterina Kalemeneva

The river Zolotitsa is located in what is now Arkhangelsk province and flows into the White Sea. The 1980 discovery and subsequent open-pit mining of a large diamond deposit severely transformed the landscape and is threatening to destroy the ecosystem of the upper Zolotitsa region.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 7

The St. Petersburg Flood of 1824

Kseniya Barabanova

The St. Petersburg flood of 1824, in which the level of the river Neva rose to the 4 meter 20 centimeter mark, is the greatest in the history of the city. The city did not recover from the destructive effects of the flood until the mid-1830s.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 6

The First Cholera Epidemic in St. Petersburg

Kseniya Barabanova

The first cholera epidemic in St. Petersburg, then capital of the Russian Empire, brought to light the city’s enormous sanitary problems. During the course of the epidemic 12,540 people sickened and 6,449 died.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 5

The Man-Made Environment of Valaam Island

Grigory Suzi

Valaam Island on Lake Ladoga is the location of the Orthodox Valaam Monastery. Due to the creation of alleys and gardens carefully cultivated by the monks, many non-endemic trees and plants acclimatized successfully. As a result, Valaam’s largely man-made environment is today considered to be one of the most dense and diverse biospheres in Europe.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 4

A Laboratory for the Implementation of "Wilderness" in Central Europe—The Bavarian Forest National Park

Bernhard Gissibl

The Bavarian Forest National Park, situated in South-Eastern Germany along the boundary with the Czech Republic, was established as the country’s first national park in October 1970.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 3

Bitten by Success: Conflicts Over Tourism Revenue and Natural Resources at Komodo National Park

Steven Rodriguez

The expanding popularity of Komodo National Park has engendered conflicts over access to its resources and tourism revenue.

About Arcadia

Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History is an open-access, peer-reviewed publication platform for short, illustrated, and engaging environmental histories. Embedded in a particular time and place, each story focuses on a site, event, person, organization, or species as it relates to nature and human society. By publishing digitally on the Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia promotes accessibility and visibility of original research in global environmental history and cognate disciplines.

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