According to many, we currently live in an ‘Age of Ecology’. A continuing confusion exists, however, on what this actually means. Part of this confusion is due to the twofold meaning of the term ‘ecology’ itself. It refers both to the social movement of environmentalism and to one particular discipline of the life sciences. Both obviously relate to each other, but this relation is not clear-cut. Some professional biologists engage in the environmental movement and nature protection, but others have no connection with it at all (or even actively oppose the movement). Some groups of environmentalists and nature protectors for their part have picked up a scientific discourse, while others explicitly exclude science from their writing. Where science and environmentalism actually meet is, in other words, a topic of continuing discussion.
In a one-day colloquium we will explore this theme historically. How did life scientists and early environmentalists actually meet in the past? And what happened in the border region between biology and nature protection? Attention will be paid to the role professional biologists played in the protection of landscapes, species and ecosystems, but also to the ways in which scientific arguments and terminology were picked up in the nature protection movement at large.
The geographical focus of the colloquium is Europe, which (both with regard to the history of scientific ecology and the history of nature protection) remains little explored in comparison with the United States. As to chronology, the colloquium will concentrate on the early developments of ‘scientific’ nature protection, starting with the first preservation attempts developed by scientists at around 1900 up until 1960. After 1960, environmentalism and nature protection seem to enter a new phase – a phase of which the foundation of the WWF (in 1961) and the publication of Rachel Carlson’s widely-read Silent Spring (in 1962) are indicative. Then, so it seems, the actual ‘Age of Ecology’ took a start. It is the prehistory of this ‘Age’ that will be analysed in the colloquium.
WEBLINK
http://cultuurgeschiedenis.wordpress.com/science-and-nature-protection/
PROGRAMME
10.00
Reception (with coffee)
10.30
Geert Vanpaemel (KULeuven) General Introduction
10.45
Thomas Potthast (Tübingen University) Emphatic world view versus sober expertise? The science of ecology and its contested role for nature protection in Germany
11.15
Raf de Bont (K.U.Leuven) and Rajesh Heynickx (Sint-Lucas Brussels/Ghent, Antwerp University) Landscapes of nostalgia: Biologists and artists protecting Belgium’s ‘wilderness’.
11.45
Comments and Discussion
12.15
Lunch
13.45
Bert Theunissen (Utrecht University) Victor Westhoff (1916-2001) and the beginnings of nature conservation in the Netherlands
14.15
Joachim Radkau (Bielefeld University) Ecology and Beauty: Naturschutz between aesthetics and science.
14.45
Comments and Discussion
15.15
Coffee Break
15.45
Josquin Debaz (EHESS, Paris): Development of species and conservation of races: Nature protection in the twentieth century French colonies
16.15
Timothy Boon (Science Museum, London) The professionalisation of natural history filmmaking: The role of Julian Huxley, biologist.
16.45
Comments and Discussion
Commentator:
Peter J. Bowler (Queens University, Belfast)
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
* Participants are asked to register before May 15 by emailing to: sofie.onghena [at] arts.kuleuven.be
* Registration fee is set at 15 euro and includes coffee and lunch.
VENUE
‘Louis Jansens Zaal’
Heilige Geest-College
Naamse Straat 30
3000 Leuven, Belgium