The land now called Australia was settled by humans between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and the lands and waterways sustained balanced life until 1788 when a fleet of British soldiers, settlers and convicts landed on the central east coast. This chapter traces the ways theatrical works stage ‘land’ that has been transformed and depleted by the interrelated actions of colonialism, deforestation and pastoralism. It features the ecological content and staging of three works: Yanagai! Yanagai! by Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai woman Andrea James (2003), Louis Nowra’s (1985) The Golden Age and The White Earth by Andrew McGahan and Shaun Charles (2009). These depict violent land-grabs violent land-grabs, massacres, stubborn farming practices and ignorance of the environment as an ecosystem with a long history of human habitation. This chapter looks at the problem of ongoing ecological damage and struggles to develop sustainable land practices.

Six: I again reverse the focus so as to reflect on the cormorant’s role as an icon of indigeneity providing an unexpected parallel to the role of its cousin the pelican, outlining the latter by way of the Australian children’s book Storm Boy and then turning back to the cormorant to show how it too has at times acquired status both as a marker of indigeneity and as a local victim of human environmental destruction, notably in images of cormorants affected by oil spills, drawing in particular on a Gulf War poem by Tony Harrison and on an image in the writing of Jean Baudrillard. I conclude by returning to the longstanding association of cormorants and China through an analysis of an advert for HSBC (‘The World’s Local Bank’), assessing the co-option by capital of the cormorant’s new-found and hard-earned sense of global belonging.

I introduce the cormorant and its cultural history as ‘hated’ bird, noting that the book is both the history of a bird and a book about greed and prejudice. I distinguish between the zoological cormorant and the cultural cormorant, and I describe the cormorant’s centrality to conflict between the fishing industry and environmentalists, not least in Europe, and I also address the tendency of tree-nesting cormorants to kill their nest trees with their droppings. I then turn to parts of the world (Norway, Japan, China) where cormorants have at times been viewed positively, but I finish by noting the variety of ways – often contradictory ways – in which the bird has been understood as evil and has been the object of prejudice.

Chapter 6 tackles the environment in which the social life of the image takes place. The image interpretation is situated within the immediate material environment where the image appears, which includes the medium, genre, and placement of the image. Then the interpretation takes into account the broader time and space surrounding the image, which includes the extended historical, social, cultural, and political context that the image exists within. The method of photo documentation is presented and applied on the case example of graffiti images.

Scholars have noted that many of the surviving tablets from Dodona pose agriculturally related questions of a general manner. My essay suggests this is because agricultural resources were religiously framed in the ancient Greek world. In this context, I argue that oracles functioned as sites where material practices of daily life could be negotiated with the gods in a ritual as well as communal context. Oracles, in other words, presented a way of communicating with the natural world. On the other hand, they were also places where the individual could present himself (or herself) in relation to this world: how he or she depended on its fruits for survival; but also how he (or she) could make or remake the resources it had to offer so that it would flourish. As I want to show, this particular interrelationship between agricultural labour and oracular consultation relied as much on the performative act of enquiry as it did on practical knowledge. In order to illustrate these interconnections, the essay draws on recent trends in environmental history and in resilience studies. It will reconsider the ancient evidence of the Zeus Oracle at Dodona in light of these approaches.

In principle, economic development can be environmentally sustainable and compatible with the rights of the poor to the commons – forests, water and land. In practice, however, the economic transformation of India since independence – rapid increase in agricultural productivity, industrialization, urbanization and the building of much-needed infrastructure, has come at the expense of environmental degradation and the rights of the poor to common property resources. Indian economic policy has for the most part favoured ‘development’ over environmental concerns. But India is a democracy in which civil society and the people can protest and exert pressure to prevent environmental degradation and defend their rights to the commons. The Indian judiciary, the Supreme Court in particular, has also been proactive in intervening to protect the environment. As of now, the impetus toward natural-resource-intensive and polluting growth is winning the day, but the struggle to find a better balance continues. Climate change is making the task much harder.

The chapter analyses how the climate change action plan developed by the European Central Bank (ECB) as part of its monetary policy strategy review in 2020-2021 is aligned with the ECB’s mandate set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty on European Union. The Treaties require the ECB to integrate climate change considerations into its monetary policy and to contribute to the EU’s objectives regarding climate change, as established by Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, the European Climate Law. However, there are also legal limits on the action the ECB can take in this field. The chapter examines the key measures proposed as part of the plan from a legal perspective, including measures related to macroeconomic forecasts and models, the collection of statistical information for climate change risk analysis, the enhancement of risk assessment capabilities, asset purchase programmes, and possible changes to the collateral framework. It also considers the questions regarding the ECB’s democratic legitimacy and accountability that arise in this context.

By the end of the nineteenth century, British-ruled India faced an ecological crisis due to the extension of cultivation, deforestation and desiccation. Famines since the 1870s had led to a decline in population in some regions. While colonial authorities attributed the famines to climatic factors, others held taxation, institutional reforms and economic policies responsible for these disasters. Colonial science emerged as a significant tool in managing and monitoring environments at the same time. The chapter examines the interlinked economic and ecological history of India in these times and the responses by the British imperial authorities and scientists to the perceived crisis.

At the conclusion of the war, Major General Roy Burston, the Army Director General of Medical Services and Chair of the national VAD Council, wrote, ‘The past seven years have brought about a complete change in our attitude towards the employment of women in the armed forces.’ Throughout the war Burston supported the employment and development of VAs and then the AAMWS in the military. Their indispensability had been recognised. Yet, with the end of the war, AAMWS were discharged and Burston’s suggestion to maintain a cohort of women ready to serve in the event of a future war was, as he wrote: ‘…that the [civilian] VADs provide an organisation under which this training could be most effectively carried out in peace time. In addition, it is felt that there would be many advantages in maintaining the [civilian] VADs with their tradition of service which has been built up over the past 30 years or more.’ The war had provided an environment for women to expand their job opportunities, and it gave servicewomen space in the military to demonstrate the value not only of historically female dominated duties but of women’s labour generally. But the end of the war effectively erased this recognition.

Humans are born helpless and require others to nurture and care for them for a lengthy period. This requires paid parental leave policies, which the US, almost uniquely, doesn’t have, thereby compromising our health. During our forager-hunter era, vigilant sharing took place. The advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago led to a decline in health as exploitation began. This reversed only in the last few hundred years due to advances in sanitation, standard of living, and basic medical care. Population health is much more than adding up factors affecting individual health, with political context and governance being the most significant factors. Income inequality impacts health in three realms. Health promotion requires action by policy makers and national leaders. Women live longer than men. Geography matters, with a wide range of health outcomes across US counties. Culture and racism have strong impacts. Diets are less important. Physical and chemical environmental hazards impact health outcomes, mostly to a lesser degree

This chapter demonstrates that multinationals have been major contributors to environmental challenges. Before 1960 multinationals were clustered in natural resources and in developing countries, where they contributed to deforestation, poisoning soil and water systems, and the creation of monocultures resulting in biodiversity loss. Oil companies were a driver of climate change because of the industry’s role in greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile the spread of consumer goods multinationals encouraged conspicuous consumption and wasteful packaging. After 1960 rising environmental awareness and government regulations in the West led some multinationals to adopt sustainability policies, yet major oil companies deliberately obscured climate science to delay regulation. After 2000 many multinationals engaged in greenwashing while continuing harmful practices. Despite corporate commitments, shareholder value maximization often overrode genuine environmental responsibility. Environmental damage committed by multinationals continued, especially in countries where regulation and enforcement were fragile.

How and when did New Zealand Aotearoa begin? In human history the short answer is recently. New Zealand was the last major landmass settled by people, which is fundamental to understanding New Zealand’s distinctiveness. Before humans arrived, birds and lizards were the dominant land animals. Archaeologists have agreed, after decades of debate, that the first humans arrived from the late thirteenth century, about 750 years ago. These adventurers undertook epic, oceanic voyages in large, double-hulled waka hourua (voyaging canoes) from their legendary homeland of Hawaiki, in East Polynesia, southwards to the temperate region of ‘South Polynesia’, a term coined to encompass both New Zealand’s main islands and its outlying islands. Today, the indigenous people trace their ancestors to over 40 celebrated waka (canoes). South Polynesia as a concept reminds us that New Zealand is a far-flung archipelago that stretches from Raoul Island, in the subtropical Kermadec group, to the subantarctic Auckland Islands, and to the Chatham Islands, which lie 800 kilometres to the east of the South Island.

Firms operating in environmentally vulnerable contexts will inevitably face difficult cases where long-term profits clash with environmental values. This remains true even with enlightened management and strong regulation. Yet, business models fail to acknowledge this inconvenient truth. This chapter explains why current business models reach an "outer boundary" in their ability to incorporate intrinsic values such as environmental integrity. It introduces two key concepts: the efficiency model and the value gap. Efficiency models use terminology designed either to optimize the allocation of scarce resources toward measurable future goals or to explain the optimal achievement of past goals. A value gap arises when ideal social corporate action diverges from ideally efficient corporate action. The presence of large, recurring value gaps in extractive industries signals the need for fundamental changes – both in corporate decision-making and in the business models that shape it.