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Explorations in Environmental History

Arcadia is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal for short, engaging environmental histories.
Arcadia, Spring 2026, no. 3

A Paradise in Spring: An Ecological Account of Birds, Fishes and Hunters in the Bāburnāma

by
Smarika Nawani

Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur’s autobiography anticipates an ecological and multispecies way of understanding the environment, highlighting confluence rather than divergence between humans and nonhumans.

Arcadia, Spring 2026, no. 3

Beaches to Blazes: Remembering the 1887 Cape Cod Wildfires Ahead of a Potentially Fiery Future

by
Samuel C. Gilvarg and Andrew L. Vander Yacht

Although known today more for beaches than blazes, Cape Cod experienced severe wildfires in 1887 that—when remembered—draw attention to the region’s inherent flammability and need for fire-adaptive management.

Arcadia, Spring 2026, no. 2

Insisting on Boars: How Villagers of Karaburun Employ their Knowledge of Multispecies Entanglements in Local Power Struggles

by
Efe Cengiz

Villagers witness and push to maintain ecological relations in the face of development that has decimated olive groves and scattered fences and turbines.

Arcadia, Spring 2026, no. 1

Between Salt and Water: The Environmental Crisis at Sambhar Lake, Rajasthan, India

by
Deborah Sutton

Across a century and a half, colonial, private and government salt farming at Sambhar has transformed the ecology of the lake and caused a slow cataclysm of pollution, affecting wildlife and livelihoods.

Arcadia, Autumn 2025, no. 14

State Natural Areas and the Evolution of Land Conservation in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin

by
Nathan Kiel

Land conservation initiatives underwent rapid change in early twentieth-century Wisconsin, culminating in the protection of hundreds of local natural areas scattered across the state.

Arcadia, Autumn 2025, no. 13

Of Rust and Mold—The Insect Pin as a Token of Transimperial Cooperation

by
Alina Marktanner

Tropical humidity necessitated a quest for rust-proof insect pins, determining which specimens could be preserved, which tools could be used, and ultimately what knowledge could be produced in the Dutch East Indies.

Arcadia, Autumn 2025, no. 12

More Than Territory: The Cultural and Ecological Importance of Indigenous People’s Ties to the Andean-Amazonian Conservation Area Cordillera Escalera

by
Ximena Sevilla

The Andean-Amazonian conservation area Cordillera Escalera reveals the history of a forest whose ecological integrity is due to the native population’s efforts to preserve it.

Arcadia, Autumn 2025, no. 11

Making Methane Visible: From Local Leaks to EU Regulation

by
Ariane Desroches-Touchain

To what extent did the unveiling of gas leaks “scale up” a Romanian technical problem into an EU environmental issue?

Arcadia, Autumn 2025, no. 10

Freshwater Fish Invasion as Deliberate Neglect: Unpacking Multispecies Colonialism in West Papua

by
Hatib A. Kadir

Indonesian state experts introduced invasive species into West Papua, a deliberate ecological disruption that advances a colonial agenda disguised as development.

Arcadia, Summer 2025, no. 9

Roças and queimadas: Changing Landscapes of Fire in Twentieth-Century Portugal

by
José Miguel Moura Ferreira, Miguel Carmo, Inês Gomes, and Marta Silva

In 1966, historian Albert Silbert highlighted the longstanding importance of fire in the traditional Portuguese rural economy, at a time when such practices were being erased from the landscape.

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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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All Arcadia Collections

Coastal History
Disaster Histories
Diseases and Pests in History
Global Environmental Movements
Histories across Species
Multispecies Intellectual History
National Parks in Time and Space
The Nature State
Notions and Nature
Religion and Place
Rights of Nature Recognition
Technology and Expertise
Terms of Disaster
Water Histories
Rachel Carson Center Ludwig Maximilians Universität München Deutsches Museum Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
The Environment & Society Portal is a project of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an institute founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of LMU Munich and the Deutsches Museum. Read more about the Portal in English and in German.
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