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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Forest Dreams

For Monday, April 4th: read Nancy Langston, Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares: The Paradox of Old Growth in the Inland West (U. of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 3-200, 247-264, and 296-306 (the first 6 chapters, the fire chapter, and the conclusion). 

  • Activity--Hanna and Roxanne: explore the use of field data in forest history (we'll go for a walk in the woods, if the weather cooperates, so wear outdoors clothing).
BLOG Due 11:30: QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

How did different sides in the 1990s old growth debates deploy different versions of forest history to support their positions?


OR:


Explore the ways that ecological and social processes influenced each other in shaping landscape change in fire-adapted forests of the West. 

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Soluri, Banana Cultures

Read Soluri, Banana Cultures, pp. 1-127 and 193-end.

For your blog post you may discuss the ways Soluri integrates agroecology, labor history, and medical history to explore the ways bananas transformed forests and people in Honduras.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Amazonia March 21

Dean, With Broadax and Firebrand, pp. 1-143, and final chapter, 348-364. For a global overview of deforesting the tropical world, Williams, Deforesting the Earth, 318-358 is valuable.

Then each of you will read ONE of the later chapters carefully (please skim the other). In class, you will have 3 minutes to summarize that chapter’s arguments for other students, so come prepared with an outline of the chapter’s central argument and supporting evidence. This will reduce the reading load for each of you, and it will also give you experience in teaching the main points of an argument to other students.

Chapter 11 (239-264):  Jo, Emily, Mallory, Diana, Roxanne
Chapter 12 (265-291): Hanna, Dee, Erin, Sam
Chapter 13 (292-318): Alev, Kendall, Katie, Cory
Chapter 14 (318-347): Amanda, Stevie, Matt, John, 



BLOG Due 11:30: QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Discuss whether Dean seems to believe that the loss of the Atlantic rainforest is irrevocable, or whether the forest can be restored. How could conservationists use forest history to restore the rainforest? For more information about current restoration efforts in the Atlantic forest, you can visit the Nature Conservancy's website for their "plant a billion trees" campaign (all in the Mata Atlantica).

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

African forests March 7

3/7  African forests
Fairhead and Leach, selections, Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic (course mywebspace folder).

For your journal, you may consider: what sources of evidence do Fairhead and Leach use to support their central argument? How else might you interpret those same sources of evidence? 

PAPERS: bring to class one or two potential topics that interest you. In class, we will work in small groups to pose good questions about your potential topics.