The next American Society for Environmental History conference will be in San Francisco (USA) 12-16 March 2014. Unfortunately, premodern environmental history is woefully underrepresented on the program, with only one paper mentioning the medieval period in the title: Maïka De Keyzer, The disappearance of the tragedy of the commons. Sand drifts and collective action during the Late Middle ages in the Campine area, Southern Low Countries (on Panel 5-G).

Luckily, the 2nd World Congress for Environmental History in Portugal 8-12 July promises to make up for the ASEH’s paltry offerings. A review of the draft program yielded the following presentations on medieval environmental history:

8 July

Session: Wetland Cultures

Jim Galloway, Wetlands and Woodlands: Interactions around the Thames Estuary (SE England) in the Middle Ages

9 July

Session: Aquacultures: Promises, Practices, Problems, I

Richard C. Hoffmann, Domesticating Common Carp in Medieval Europe

Session: Comparative Fisheries

Antonio M. Teixeira & Cristina Brito, Digging into our Whaling Past Portugal (Mainland) as a Former Whaling Nation

Session: Coping with Pests

Elina Gugliuzzo & Giuseppe Restifo, Locust Invasions and Climatic Factors in the Mediterranean

Session: European Animals — Real and Imagined

Rob Lenders, “An Hund Wildra Horsa and Sextene Tame Hencgstas” – The Myth of wild Horses in Medieval Europe

Hannele Klemettila, “Qu´on ne les Tuast pas Faussement”. Gaston Fébus on the Decline of Wild Life at the End of the Middle Ages

Session: Changing Views of Primates

Catarina C.N. Casanova & Cecília Veracini, Animal Distribution in Guinea-Bissau and how Non Human Primates Were Perceived in the 16th and 17th Century Chronicles: From Anatomical Descriptions to Tool-use Behaviour

Session: Program Committee Selection

Francis Ludlow, The Environmental Contexts of Subsistence Crises, Mass Mortalities and Social Conflict in Ireland, 425-1649 CE

Session: Ligurian Landscapes: 20 Years of Interdisciplinary Case Studies

Charles Watkins, Ross Balzaretti & Diego Moreno, Historical Rural Landscapes in the Apennines and Climate Changes

10 July

Session: Fueling Pre-modern Economies: Energy Production and Consumption before the Industrial “Revolution”

Rick Keyser, Wood for Burning: Firewood Production and Collection in Medieval France

Session: The Socio-political Leverage of Extreme Weather Events in Late Medieval Europe

Martin Bauch, More than Divine Wrath – Perception of Extreme Weather Events in Late Medieval Italy

Thomas Labbé, “Toute Chose se Desnature”: Environmental Changes of the 14th Century from the Perspective of Contemporary Witnesses (c. 1330-1400)

Linnéa Rowlatt, Some Religious Perceptions of Nature in Late Medieval Alsace

Session: Ways as a Means of Space Exploration

Irina Konovalova, Route Data as a Tool of Describing the World in Islamic Geography of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries

Tatjana N. Jackson, Ways (Vegar) of Medieval Scandinavians

Galina Glazyrina, The Way as a Representation of Moral and Ethical Transformations in the Icelandic Sagas

11 July

Session: Poster Presentations

Pavel Raska & Vilem Zabransky, A Central-European Perspective on the Learning-through-the-Past Paradigm in Disaster Studies

Renata Pavelkova Chmelova & Jindrich Frajer, Extinct Ponds in tbe Czech Republic

Session: Urban Farming throughout History – Part 1: More than Shovels, Henhouses and Seed: Urban Farming as a Promoter for Structural and Cultural Change from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century

Dolly Jørgensen, Foul Fowl: The Challenges of Keeping Birds in Medieval Urban Spaces

Chantal Camenisch, Cabbage, Beans and Apples: Agricultural Production within the City Walls in the Western Part of the Swiss Confederacy during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

12 July

Session: Marine Cultural Environments

Eva Panagiotakopulu, Medieval Cultural Landscapes: Interaction and Subsistence in the North Atlantic Region

Session: Changing Coastlines. The Impacts of Human Activities in Coastal Zones

Maria Rosário Bastos, Olegário Pereira, Sérgio Rodrigues, João Pedro Tereso, & João Pedro Ribeiro, Vegetation in the Portuguese Coastal Interface in a Broad Diachronic Perspective. Case Studies from the West Coast, near the Aveiro Lagoon

Session: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death

Richard D. Oram, Timor Mortis Conturbat Me: Death and the Scots c.1350-1500

Alasdair D. Ross, Verus Valor: A Mid-14th Century Scottish Reaction to One or Two (or all) of the Four Horsemen?