Arcadia

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.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 2

Nature Conservation in Ski Country? The Vanoise National Park

Isabelle Mauz

The Vanoise National Park was created in 1963 in the northern French Alps, along with numerous large ski resorts. Born as twins, the park and the resorts grew up at best as strangers, at worst as foes.

Arcadia, 2014, no. 1

“I Prefer to Die on the Mountain”: Local Resistance to National Park Development on Mount Merapi

Steven Rodriguez

In 2004, the government of Indonesia declared Mount Merapi to be the nation’s thirty-ninth national park. However, since the mountain is a key feature of the sacred landscape of central Java, the creation of Merapi National Park was greeted with widespread protests from the villagers and farmers.

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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