Chris Tamasi
Encounters with Nature
Dunlap Abstract
Thomas Dunlap, Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Dunlap sets out to find the ways in which the Anglo settlers of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. have sought to understand their surroundings in the past two centuries by using science. He discusses the ways the land shaped the settlers, but includes the destructive ways in which the settlers adapted their surrounding land as well. Natural history was a powerful tool capable of organizing the natural world in a formal way and became a hobby as well as a study. The settlers destroyed native ecosystems in attempt to connect with land. The importations of certain species to adapt the land for recreational purposes created both biological and social consequences for those involved and lead to the development of wildlife preservation. Agricultural expansion reached its limits as it began to threaten shortages and societies were forced to stop having nature take its form based of the societies needs, but the other way around. This lead to the shift from natural history to ecology as ecologists developed the intellectual foundations for the environmental revolution, getting rid of the popular vision of the people. Dunlap uses a variety of different sources to strengthen his argument of how the land shaped the settlers, not just the settlers shaping the land. He views these two sides of the spectrum in unison, as our relationship with nature develops over time.
In the latter half of Dunlap’s reading, he discusses the effects of the settlers taking advantage of the land through scientific and technological means. Ecologists such as Leopold, who appreciated the natural world, were taking scientific steps to try and understand people’s relationship with the world’s natural systems. The circumstances in which ecologists and settlers were trying to understand their place with the land were far different than earlier years. As time progressed into the future, scientists and citizens still continue to learn about ecology and apply them to society. Scientific efforts were put forth to develop many ways to manage nature, by creating parks to preserve wildlife for example. Ecology shaped a new kind of conservation for the land and settlers all over the world now have a whole new perspective on what it means to live with the land and become a part of it. Dunlap does an excellent job of conveying his message to his readers by outlining his writing very clearly. I found the direction of his book challenged the perceptions of his readers to think differently about nature.