Event — Workshop

Timescapes of Islands in the Asia-Pacific Region

27/10/2008 - 15:30

 

Timescapes of Islands in the Asia-Pacific Region

27 - 28 October 2008
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

Perspectives from environmental history and the time horizons of management

CAPAS/IIAS Workshop

Most of the islands in the Asia-Pacific region have a dynamic history in terms of human population, biodiversity as well as modes of exploitation of natural resources, including the effects of consciously introduced species of plants and animals. Most of the islands were not only used for local needs but they also became integrated into wider networks of trade and exchange through their valued natural resources. Often political authority over islands was established on the basis of opportunities of resource use or the strategic location of the islands.

Relatively recent is the explicit environmental management aimed at the conservation of islands' biological diversity. Nowadays it is widely realised that islands have an important role to play in the conservation of the world's natural wealth.  

Since the tsunami of December 2004 environmental management of coastal zones, including coral reefs and mangrove forests is receiving more and more attention. Combined with the projected effects of climatic change and the threats of sea level rising, small islands in particular are most likely to suffer most from future environmental hazards which, without doubt, are at least partly invoked by human actions either locally or at distant places.

This workshop aims to bring together scholars with an interest in the environmental history of islands in the Asia-Pacific region to compare the environmental histories of the islands and the island societies on the one hand, and discuss the implications of these histories for environmental management in the future. In other words the workshop is focused on the environmental timescapes of islands from a retrospective as well as a prospective point of view. 

Key questions that will be discussed during the workshop are the following:

  1. What are the key factors that have shaped the environmental histories of islands and island societies in the Asia-Pacific region?
  2. What are the common characteristics and the distinctive features of the islands' environmental histories?
  3. Can we already write a kind of analytical and comparative environmental history of the region's islands? Using which theories? 
  4. What role does environmental management play in determining the future of the islands?
  5. What are the determining factors that dominate the process of environmental management? Who are the key actors in this process and what role do scientists of various disciplines play in this process?  

For further information: capasreg@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Poster:  http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~capas/images/20081027-28Timescapes.jpg