Erk Volkmar Heyen:
Editorial, VII-XII
(Volltext: http://www.uni-greifswald.de/~lo1/ed11.htm)

I. Themenschwerpunkt

Konrad Ott, Thomas Potthast, Martin Gorke, Patricia Nevers:
Über die Anfänge des Naturschutzgedankens in Deutschland und den USA im 19. Jahrhundert, 1-55

The article analyzes the writings of several authors from the middle to the end of the 19th century who might be regarded as the German founders of the idea that some particular parts of wild, rare or undisturbed nature deserve protection by means of the law: Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, Ernst Rudorff, Wilhelm Wetekamp, and Hugo Conwentz. Special attention is given to philosophical backgrounds, to notions and concept-formation, to critical diagnoses of the destruction of nature in the process of industrialization, to main patterns of reasoning, to mutual influences, to practical conclusions, and to political proposals. The article also outlines the philosophical ideas of the leaders of the US-American preservationist movement (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, John Muir) in order to compare some aspects of the German with the North-American tradition, both important within the European context. Major influences upon law-making, the formation of political institutions and the protection of nature reserves are reconstructed.
The article claims that the German origins of nature preservation can be understood more adequately in the broader context of conservative political ideas, Romantic aesthetics and, last but not least, of historism. The pattern of arguments are shown to be thoroughly anthropocentric. The American origins of wilderness-protection have to be seen from a quite different cultural and ideological background but even there no distinctive "ecocentric" arguments can be found. At the end the article points out some highly problematic relationship between the origins of the German preservationist-movement and National Socialism and offers some reflection on the relation between historical understanding and tradition building in contemporary environmentalism.

Christoph Sonnlechner, Verena Winiwarter:
Recht und Verwaltung in grundherrschaftlichen Waldordnungen Niederösterreichs und Salzburgs (16.-18. Jahrhundert), 57-85

The article deals with forest regulations in two different seigniorial estates located in modern day Austria: the monastery of Göttweig, approximately 70 km upstream from Vienna and located in mainly hilly terrain with mixed agricultural and forest uses, and the seigneurie of the Archbishop of Salzburg, where one can speak of alpine forests. These forest regulations deal with what was, from a seigniorial viewpoint, a central part of commercial economy and proto-industrial development: timber.
In the 16th century Göttweig had been heavily under pressure during the Reformation and only after some time set up as a monastery with monks again. Its forest regulation (in fact, more an expert guideline than a regulation proper) first and foremost tried to secure the resource for firewood and building use both in the monastery and for the use of their subjects. The management was devised in a hierarchical way, based on controlling the administrative clerks paid by the monastery. At the same time, Salzburg was in its prime as to the production of salt from the Hallein salt-works. Proto-industrial forest use was managed by a central administration with foresters from the peasant communities as their lowest rank officials.
In the 18th century, the value of the Hallein salt-works had diminished sharply due to political struggle between Bavaria and Salzburg. The 1713 regulation for Salzburg reflects this development. Nevertheless, the administration of the scarce resource is still under development, and a new system of forester instalment is devised. In Göttweig, then much more settled and less under economic and political pressure, a regulation which tries to subsume all different kinds of multifunctional forest use, such as hunt and chase ground, pasture and wood resource is developed.
All four sources under scrutiny can only be interpreted in the contextual framework of the agriculture system that had reached several intrinsic limits by the 16th century. Forests became ever more important for the agro-ecosystem as sources of additional nutrients. Therefore, peasant economy rested heavily on them. New lands could not easily be put under the plough, therefore the increase in – first and foremost – urban population had to be covered from intensified use of the existing agricultural lands. At the same time, seigniorial estate owners made less profit from the agricultural parts of their estates and came to rely on forests for an increasingly monetarized economy. This combination of factors increased the demand for forest uses, both agricultural and sylvicultural, and therefore regulations were developed almost everywhere. While forest regulations could be seen as precursors of a wise-use mentality, their ecological wisdom is limited and solely meant for the sake of wood.

Bo Fritzbøger:
Forest Legislation and Management in Scandinavia, 1660-1850: Natural Resources between Market Economy and Conservation, 87-109

As today, the Early Modern extent and nature of Scandinavian woodland resources varied greatly. Therefore, it formed a perfectly disparate basis for forest use, legislation and management. In major parts of present day Norway, Sweden and Finland, excessive coniferous woodlands served as the foundation for lucrative exports of timber and wood derivates such as charcoal, tar, potash and (indirectly) metals. In Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, on the contrary, sparse deciduous forests were only able to satisfy a minor part of the domestic demands for timber and fuel wood.
This contrast formed the basic framework, in which differing developments in the formulation (legislation) and implementation (management) of forest policies should be understood. Furthermore, social and property relations developed rather differently. Among Northern Scandinavian peasants a de facto self-determination prevailed, whereas their Danish fellows were submitted to the feudal domination of manorial economy. Accordingly, the first played a far more explicit political role than the latter. Swedish peasants were directly involved in the formulation of national forest policies, whereas legislation in absolutist Denmark was a totally closed process.
In both parts of Scandinavia, however, individual use and property rights were generally subordinated to various kinds of common rights, i.e. between lord and peasant or among peasants. These rights often complicated state attempts to regulate nature resource management and by legislators they were considered a vice. Hence, their gradual dissolution was a general trend in the forest legislation of the period.
Since local self-sufficiency with timber and fuel wood was never really questioned, Norwegian and Swedish forest policy was mainly concerned with the maintenance of saw mills and mining industries. This resulted in various forms of protective legislation as well as in a series of industrial privileges. In Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, on the other hand, the primary aim was to curtail forest reduction in order to maintain rural self-sufficiency of fuel wood at a minimum level as well as to secure unhampered state supplies. So, even if the motives were dissimilar, the overall restrictive character of forest legislation was very much the same.
From the late 18th century, however, a distinctive diversification of legislation took place. In Sweden (and Norway) still more vigorously liberal economic policies gradually caused i.a. the abolition of all privileges regarding the use and sale of wood products as well as the traditionally conservative restraints upon peasant forestry. In Denmark, on the other hand, general Land Reforms made possible the concluding obliteration of traditional common forest ownership by the issue of an extremely restrictive forest law in 1805. This Forest Conservation Act effectively terminated centuries of deforestation and, hence, made out the formal basis of modern forestry. In Norway and Sweden, on the contrary, correspondingly restrictive policies were not implemented until the last decades of the century.

Mario Sulli, Bruno Vecchio, Alessandra Zanzi Sulli:
Forestry Legislation and Management in Italy, 1861-1923: Environmental Needs and Social Dynamics, 111-138

At first the article illustrates some of the peculiar features of Italian forest areas, from both an environmental and a social point of view: the potential for forestry, pasture and agricultural use of mountain areas and the full exploitation in fact exerted because of the high density of the population and all-year-round human settlements in the Italian mountains and hills. Any Italian forestry policy was thus obliged to take into consideration the high priority of the subsistence of the poorer classes on the one hand and on the other the hydrogeological consequences of the interaction between agriculture and mountain, usually more far-reaching than in central-northern Europe.
The 1877 forestry law considers the link between deforestation and hydrogeological disruption as the essential reason for drafting a forestry policy and in the name of the public good it attributes a decisive role to special restrictions. Therefore it presents serious negative practical consequences, probably due to the limitation in the law’s underlying philosophy: the restrictions became mere prohibitions, not followed up by positive actions in the dissemination of technical and reafforestation knowledge. The greatest consequence of this forestry law is that of having paved the way for the deforestation activities that in just a few years reduced the forests in Italy to half their previous size.
During the last decade of the 19th century and until the outbreak of World War I, the severe deterioration of Italy’s forested areas drew the attention of public administrators, of landowners and intellectuals. The periodical "L'eco dei campi e dei boschi" (1894-1899) and the National Forestry Congresses (from 1897 onwards) succeeded in bringing together politicians, technical experts, hydraulic engineers and economists, in a lively exchange of ideas and experiences aimed at determining the most suitable means by which to guarantee the preservation and improvement of the country’s forest-covered areas and the strategy for an overall mountain economy.
The new forestry policy gradually takes shape in the economic writings of Arrigo Serpieri and the scientific work of Aldo Pavari within an economic and social context and a new production model based on integrating agriculture and industry. The 1923 forestry law did not specifically contemplate operations of land transformation and improvement for productive purposes, but did promote an organic plan for the reorganization of mountain zones and for the management of Italian forest environments and all areas with a delicate ecological balance.

Raymond Smith:
Nature and Water Pollution in 19th-Century Britain: Insights from Debates of Engineers and Administrators, 139-162

Urbanisation led in the early 19th century to increased unregulated discharges of faecal waste into rivers, with occasional health scares. The accumulation of waste in poorer areas, combined with the miasma theory of disease, inspired the introduction of the water carriage system from the 1840s and so caused more river pollution. In London in particular, the problem produced a foul smelling river, and by the 1860s a new sewage system to divert the sewage down into the estuary was set up to control the "nuisance". Outside of London local authority policies were influenced by local topography, administrative traditions, attitudes to central government, economic conditions and ideology.
"Disinfectants" were used nationally to control smells, although the chemicals were known to kill fish. Pressure from anglers achieved legislation in 1861 to protect salmon fisheries from pollution, but the new law was not applied. It was anticipated, however, that the material in the sewage could be recovered to manure crops, so that there would be no reason to pollute the rivers. Given the evolving state of knowledge in agricultural science (which implied changing attitudes to nature), and the "High Farming" boom in the mid-19th century, there was considerable enthusiasm for re-use.
There was also a protracted debate about the safety of re-using water that had been polluted by sewage. The terms of this debate shifted as miasma theories gave way to beliefs in water-borne diseases, which were attributable to specific germs. Although arguments that only untainted water should be used imply less concern to prevent river pollution, river water continued to be re-used, with considerable reliance on the self-purification of the rivers. Engineers and others considering this problem generally worked within a rationalist approach of investigating nature. Many participants in the debate argued in terms of natural laws on which human policy, including technical practices, should be based. This was also very much within the Enlightenment tradition.
With the demise of attempts to re-use the material in sewage from the 1870s, the emphasis shifted to controlling the nuisance in the rivers. For many, sewage came to be seen as an enemy to be removed as far as possible, and disposal at sea via various routes became more popular. By the 1870s there had been considerable parliamentary investigation of pollution and a legislative approach was implemented in 1876. This legislation was generally seen as a failure, as it made too many concessions to manufacturers, and the local authorities responsible for enforcing it were themselves polluters. The combination of some rather empirical investigations of land treatment of sewage with the science of microbiology which was slowly entering the country from Europe in the 1870s produced a revolution in sewage treatment. Biological filters which were developed from the 1890s have formed the basis of treatment through the 20th century. Parallel to this were signs of a more ecological understanding of the inter-relation of organisms.

John Hassan:
Dealing with Coastal Pollution in Health Resorts in England and Wales, 1800-1960: Policies and Politics of Local Authorities, 163-181

The coastal situation of British seaside resorts made them highly attractive holiday destinations. From the beginning the notion that a seaside holiday was immeasurably good for the health formed an important part of their appeal. The basis of this claim lay almost entirely with the resorts' attractive environment. However, their success in attracting growing numbers of customers placed this environment under stress. This article focuses on one aspect, namely how resort expansion created a serious conservation problem. In the event it proved too tempting just to exploit the sea as a global lavatory.
The discharge of untreated household and trade effluent led to worsening coastal pollution. It became so serious by the 1950s as to be perceived by many as a risk to health. The article examines the inability to address the problem effectively before 1960. The discussion revolves around four themes. Firstly, it is conceded that the stress in the literature on the problem of municipal economism is correct: there was widespread ratepayer resistance to costly public works. Secondly, local government faced a number of economic dilemmas in relation to the conservation of the coastal environment, especially the free rider problem, which discouraged investment in projects where the chief beneficiaries had made no contribution to the cost. Thirdly, however, a small minority of resorts primarily because of the particular market niche they strove to cater for, endeavoured to overcome the institutional and economic obstacles they faced and sought, more vigorously than most, to combat beach pollution. However, the main theme of the article is that, given the particular economic and physical characteristics of coastal waters that called for a regional solution, quite inappropriate administrative arrangements were applied to coastal management before 1960. This is presented as a major obstacle to the effective planning and management of coastal resources.

Andrée Corvol:
Associations pro-nature et administrations forestières: France et Belgique, 1850-1950, 183-206

The rift between areas of sylviculture and agriculture, the decline in peri-urban forests which lost their function of production in the course of the 19th century, the desire to transform forests into green areas with recreation as the main aim – these are the three factors responsible for the intrusion of new decision-makers in forestry politics: the urban elite.
Their message gained ground at the turn of the century. It was spread among citizens by the opposition newspaper press for, due to their forestry measures criticized by pro-nature associations, the public authorities were being blamed. The groups which wanted to protect a certain type of landscape carried out lobbying with a double aim: firstly to obtain measures which would prevent the dwindling away of the area perimeters and which would protect those sites most vulnerable i.e. highly frequented because of their exceptional character; secondly to obtain grants without which they would be unable to organize events designed to rouse opinion or to develop paedagogical activities designed to educate families through their children, or to reclaim woods belonging to private individuals, woods in constant danger of becoming denaturalized once they become popular. The article examines those sites which have become a focus of attention, and how the associations made use of this attention.

John Sheail:
"The Mobilizing Wave": the Administrator, the Scientist and the Emergence of Nature Conservation in Britain, 1890-1970, 207-226

The absence of any consistent pattern and process in the emergence of nature protection in Europe reflects the many, and often contested, perceptions of wildlife and the natural environment. The article focuses on the pioneering period in Britain, illustrating how local and knowledge-based initiatives, most obviously taken through field clubs and the early development of the science of ecology, stimulated moves to protect wild life. The self-assurance that came from association, and enterprise shown by key personalities through "networking", led not only to the vigorous promotion of nature conservation, but to its taking institutional form in the Government's establishment of a research council, the Nature Conservancy, in 1949. There was acute awareness that little would be secured without the informed support and, therefore, political weight of the voluntary conservation bodies and the public generally. Such initiatives as the "Countryside in 1970" conferences and the European Conservation Year played a significant part both in raising awareness as to the threats to wild life and encouraging a second "mobilizing wave".

Henny J. van der Windt:
The Rise of the Nature Conservation Movement and the Role of the State: the Case of the Netherlands, 1860-1955, 227-251

Even by the end of the 19th century, amateur naturalists, foresters and animal protectionists were influential. The first act with respect to nature conservation was the Useful Animal Act (1880), to protect some (useful) wildlife, mostly birds and mammals. After an action of amateur naturalists to save the bird paradise Lake Naardermeer, the Society for Preservation of Nature in the Netherlands was founded in 1905 to purchase this lake as the first nature reserve. Biologists and merchants played a main role on the board of this society. The State Forest Service created the first state owned nature monument in 1908, but in the beginning of the 20th century the State played still a minor role.
From 1920 onwards, the character of nature conservation changed, with respect to goals, activities, institutions and social composition. New groups entered the scene, such as landscape planners and culture experts. The most important new private organisation was the Contact Committee of Nature and Landscape Protection, founded in 1932. It paid much attention to landscape protection and physical planning, partly caused by the rapid changes in agriculture. Conservationists now focused more on heath and grasslands, and in the 1950s the rural areas as a whole became matters of interest. The relation between the nature conservation movement and the State became closer. Several new governmental institutions were involved in nature protection, such as a special Department of Nature Conservation at the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, and the State Agency National Plan at the Ministry of Housing and Building. This change was reflected in new legislation for forestry, nature scenery, bird protection, country planning and nature conservation and in an increasing budget for the purchase of nature reserves.
Foreign examples strongly influenced Dutch nature conservation, but romantic and nationalistic sentiments, and individual-oriented ethical arguments were less important than in some other countries. Compared to Germany, conservationists paid little attention to natural elements in agricultural landscapes. Furthermore, because of the private financing of the majority of nature reserves, no wilderness areas could be found in the Netherlands in the 1950s. The minor role of the State, compared to the USA and Germany, resulted in the absence of official National Parks. However, in the mid-1950s the situation in the Netherlands, with respect to legislation and the total area of nature reserves, hardly differed from those in the USA, the UK and Germany.

Erk Volkmar Heyen:
Öffentliche Verwaltung aus gesellschaftlicher Bewegung: zur Entstehung pommerscher Vogelschutzgebiete nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, 253-278

Under recent German legislation citizens and private associations can be engaged – on a voluntary basis and on condition of adequate knowledge – in the public administration of nature conservation. What seems to be due to the implementation of "new public management" concepts of the 1990s has its roots in the very beginning of this field of administration about a century ago. An essentially private initiative serves as an example: waterfowl protection in the 1920s on the Baltic Sea coast near Greifswald and Stettin (Pomerania, belonging to Prussia). However, the type of ecological and political reasoning involved in the shaping of this initiative, due to the self-made ornithologist Paul Robien, was exceptional. It shows no romantic conservatism but – apart from scientific interest, especially in migrating birds –anti-militarist and anti-capitalist anarchism. This is dealt with in detail. The attitudes of different administrative authorities involved in the protection project prove to be complex. Private initiative and further private engagement was welcomed, but reduced to its local ornithological scope, whereas its political impetus was clearly rejected and neutralized.

Vida Azimi:
Le préfet français, un protecteur "naturel" de la nature?, 279-306

From its inception to this day, the prefect has been entrusted, by tradition and by law, with the responsibility to protect nature, the environment and quality of life. Close to the people under his administration, aware of daily problems, assisted by appropriate technical experts, long-standing connoisseur of questions of industrial pollution, the prefect embodies supremely, as a holder of great powers of policing, the "natural" relay for governmental action and is the main officer to implement a law of environment, originally born of administrative law. The most ancient laws as well as the latest statutes, the doctrine as well as practical administration illustrated by the archives, thus put the prefect at the very heart of the appliance of preservation. The general tendency, over two centuries, has been towards an enforcement of his competences and a deepening of the conception of prefectoral duties.
As an economic agent, called to encourage the progress and control and penalize its misuses, the prefect is historically a regulator, in the first place to fight against nuisances aggravated by the rise of industrialization and by gaps in the French Revolution's law. The legislation of the First Empire on factories and workshops classified as unhealthy, inconvenient or dangerous, that of the Monarchie de Juillet on hunting, the supervision of mines and quarries are the classical fields of intervention of the prefect, justified by public hygiene or security, but only lately in the name of an exclusively ecological interest.
Since the end of the 19th century, more specific preoccupations of protection of natural spaces and elements have modified the prefectoral functions. Regulator of harmful human activities, the prefect has also become the warden of spaces of the national historical and natural heritage. New times have come: public authorities and opinion are more exacting; the imprecise concept of nature and the all-embracing notion of heritage refer as well to the natural, biological, cultural and architectural aspects, in an ever-growing vision of environment. Within the framework of this new spirit, the prefect has been appointed protector of the patrimony to oversee, for example, the conservation of waters, of cultural heritage, natural monuments and sites.

Björn-Ola Linnér, Ulrik Lohm:
Administering Nature Conservation in Sweden during a Century: from Conwentz and back, 307-334

Early conservation administration in Sweden was inspired by the German botanist Hugo Conwentz and his focus on the drawing up of maps, inventories and registers of natural monuments. Consequently, the Prussian model of nature protection as a government responsibility was introduced into Sweden. Gradually, however, the reasons for protecting nature changed so that the originally eclectic concept of conservation, partly controlled by different groups of the scientific sphere or by a patriotic heritage rationale, has gradually become an important social issue and an essential part of the policy making of the welfare state.
This article analyses the early history of environmental administration in Sweden. It depicts the process of the shift of power in environmental management from the late 19th century until the environment is established as a political field the 1960s. It deals with those agents who have taken on the role of representing the environment in Swedish politics as well as with the discursive elements that formed Swedish conservation administration and legislation. It reflects on the growing political interest in nature conservation and the gradual shift of power from the individual to the State, and how this transfer of power is authorised.
The article concludes that today the evolution of Swedish environmental administration, especially on a regional county administrative level, has in a sense reverted to its origin. At present we are witnessing the revival of the Conwentz model, where nature protection relies heavily on biological inventories, mapping and listing threatened biotas. In the wake of the Brundtland report and the Rio-Conference, biodiversity has come to the fore of the inventory model. Endangered species, even old domestic ones such as the ancient Swedish cow breed "Rödkulla", have become the natural monuments of today.

II. Forum

Salvador Parrado Diez:
The History of Spanish Administration: Some Notes from an Administrative Science Point of View, 337-353

The article starts by referring to the boundaries of the discipline, it discusses its chronological limits and it also exposes the methodological debate between holistic history and sector histories and between different disciplinary approaches. Following the previous methodological framework, a review of authors from the administrative science field that have written on the history of Spanish public administration is offered. The last section shows the role the history of Spanish public administration plays in universities and public institutions. The article presents the argument that this role is not well developed due to several reasons: there are not enough studies on the field; scholars from different disciplines do not join their efforts in order to obtain interdisciplinary results; public institutions do not support the study of the history of Spanish public administration sufficiently although there are good pieces of work.

Anschriftenverzeichnis, 367