Marine Environmental History

In the twenty-first century, we are challenged with a transformation in human collective intelligence. The key features of this transformation involve the " digital " replacing the " analogue " ; design thinking and post-secularism supplanting tradition, and human perception and agency emerging as the main drivers of planetary change. The Digital Anthropocene is defined by the twenty-first century confluence of the digital revolution, global warming and social, economic, and political conflict. The digital environmental humanities can be seen as an academic response to these challenges. This chapter contends digital and geographical information science (GIScience) approaches to " Humanities Big Data " in conjunction with multidisciplinary studies on oceans and cities will be crucial in coming to terms with global climate change. This chapter defines and describes digital environmental humanities practices by featuring two case studies in this emerging field. First, the digital/GIS work-in-progress component of an Environmental History of the North Atlantic 1400–1700 project will be discussed, followed by the Imagineering of SmartCity Lifeworlds as urban-cybernetic dimensions of the " Digital Anthropocene. " Lastly, the chapter argues that literacy in the digital environmental humanities will be necessary to tackle the global humanitarian and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.

The report examines the question of how the oceans
can help satisfy the global demand for food, either through the direct production of food or through the harvesting of biomass (wild or cultivated) that can be used as feed in food production. It also addresses how the socio- economic context can support more e cient food production, as part of a systems-based approach.

Marine environmental history analyses the changing relationships between human societies and marine natural resources over time. This is the first book which deals in a systematic way with the theoretical backgrounds of this discipline. Major theories and methods are introduced by leading scholars of the field. The book seeks to encapsulate some of the major novelties of this fascinating new discipline and its contribution to the management, conservation and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems as well as the cultural heritages of coastal communities in different parts of the world.

Over the last century, Pacific herring, a forage fish of tremendous cultural, economic, and ecological importance, has declined in abundance over much of its range. We synthesize archaeological fisheries data spanning the past 10,000 y from Puget Sound in Washington to southeast Alaska to extend the ecological baseline for herring and contextualize the dynamics of modern industrial fisheries. While modern herring populations can be erratic and exhibit catastrophic declines, the archaeological record indicates a pattern of consistent abundance, providing an example of long-term sustainability and resilience in a fishery known for its modern variability. The most parsimonious explanation for the discrepancy between herring abundance in the ancient and more recent past is industrial harvesting over the last century.

As a feature of the Fish Revolution (1400–1700), the early modern “invention” of the Grand Banks in literary and cartographical documents facilitated a massive and unprecedented extraction of cod from the waters of the north Atlantic and created the Cod/Sack trade Triangle. This overlapped with the southern Atlantic Slave, Sugar, and Tobacco Triangle to capitalise modern European and North American societies. In 1719, Pierre de Charlevoix claimed that the Grand Banks was “properly a mountain, hid under water,” and noted its cod population “seem to equal that of the grains of sand which cover this bank.” However, two centuries later in 1992, in the face of the collapse of the fishery, and fearing its extinction, a moratorium was placed on five centuries of harvesting Grand Banks cod. The invention and mining of its waters serves as a bellwether for the massive resource extractions of modernity that drive the current leviathan and “wicked problem” of global warming. The digital environmental humanities narrative of this study is parsed together from 83 pieces of Grand Banks charting from 1504 to 1833, which are juxtaposed through Humanities GIS applications with English and French cod‐catch records kept between 1675 and 1831, letters regarding Cabot's 1497 voyage, Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' (1611) and scientific essays by De Brahms (1772) and Franklin (1786).

We propose the concept of the "Fish Revolution" to demarcate the dramatic increase in North Atlantic fisheries after AD 1500, which led to a 15-fold increase of cod (Gadus morhua) catch volumes and likely a tripling of fish protein to the Euro-pean market. We consider three key questions: (1) What were the environmental parameters of the Fish Revolution? (2) What were the globalising effects of the Fish Revolution? (3) What were the consequences of the Fish Revolution for fishing com-munities? While these questions would have been considered unknowable a decade or two ago, methodological developments in marine environmental history and historical ecology have moved information about both supply and demand into the realm of the discernible. Although much research remains to be done, we conclude that this was a major event in the history of resource extraction from the sea, mediated by forces of climate change and globalisation, and is likely to provide a fruitful agenda for future multidisciplinary research.

Marine environmental history analyses the changing relationships between human societies and marine natural resources over time. This is the first book which deals in a systematic way with the theoretical backgrounds of this discipline. Major theories and methods are introduced by leading scholars of the field. The book seeks to encapsulate some of the major novelties of this fascinating new discipline and its contribution to the management, conservation and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems as well as the cultural heritages of coastal communities in different parts of the world.

The UNESCO Chair "Ocean's Cultural Heritage" held by NOVA University (Lisbon, Portugal) since 2016 is unique worldwide and brings to the spotlight the importance of obtaining knowledge on and of the management of tangible and intangible cultural and natural heritage of the open oceans, underwater realm and coastlines. Supported on a transatlantic network of researchers and their respective scientific and educational activities, topics under the umbrella of the early modern history of oceans such as underwater archaeology, maritime cultural landscapes, marine environmental history, cultures and societies, environments and resources management, are to be addressed and developed. These themes are part of the current international agendas for science, development and cooperation, and the UNESCO Chairs programme offers the adequate framework for the establishment of networking, for new common and integrated projects. This Chair also enhances the UNESCO principles of knowledge sharing, social solidarity, and establishing the basis for the development of good practices. As such, social sciences and humanities can contribute to inform on multiple societal challenges such as the changing conditions of marine ecosystems, climate change, heritage preservation and, also, ocean literacy. Here we are presenting the insights and motivations to develop such a UNESCO Chair and a related networking European project, both including components of research, education and outreach. Not aiming at presenting research or a global review, we intend to present main goals of the UNESCO Chair "Ocean's Cultural Heritage" and to highlight how different disciplines can contribute to the construction of knowledge and preservation of memory about the Atlantic since early modern times. A Cátedra UNESCO sobre o património cultural dos oceanos: Uma breve nota sobre história, ciência e literacia dos oceanos RESUMO A Cátedra UNESCO "O Património Cultural dos Oceanos" atribuída à Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Portugal) em 2016 é única a nível mundial e revela a importância da gestão e preservação do património cultural e natural, tangível e intangível, dos oceanos, incluindo o espaço subaquático, e das zonas costeiras. Assim, com base numa rede transatlântica de investigadores e suas atividades científicas e de disseminação, diversos tópicos da história moderna dos oceanos, nos domínios da arqueologia subaquática, paisagens culturais marítimas, história ambiental marinha, culturas e sociedades, gestão ambiental e de recursos, serão abordados de forma integrada. Estes temas fazem parte das atuais agendas internacionais para a ciência, desenvolvimento e cooperação, para os quais o programa de Cátedras UNESCO é uma ferramenta ideal para a criação de redes. Esta Cátedra elege como linhas orientadoras os princípios da UNESCO de partilha de conhecimento, solidariedade social e desenvolvimento de boas práticas. Para tal, as ciências sociais e as humanidades podem contribuir para informar em diversos desafios societais, tais como sejam as mudanças nos ecossistemas marinhos, alterações climáticas, preservação de património e, ainda, a literacia para os oceanos. Aqui, apresentamos as motivações para o desenvolvimento desta Cátedra UNESCO e também de um projeto europeu relacionado, incluindo as vertentes de investigação, educação, disseminação e transferência de conhecimento. Não sendo um trabalho de investigação ou de revisão, pretendemos dar notícia dos principais objetivos da Cátedra UNESCO "O Património Cultural dos Oceanos" e salientar brevemente o recurso a várias disciplinas para a construção de um saber e memória sobre o Atlântico desde o início da modernidade.