Resources exploitation and nature protection in the border lands of Qing China

Much research has been devoted to the impact of the expanding
European empires and settler colonies in the 18thand
19thcenturies and their impacts on nature and resources. Not much
attention has been paid to a similar story unfolding at the same
time in Qing China: the increasing expansion of the exploitation
of natural resources such as fur, mushrooms, pearls and timber in
China’s expanding imperial frontiers. China’s demand for these
products was so pronounced, that by the first decades of the
19thcentury many of these resources were commercially exhausted
and many of the animals that provided these products were on the
brink of local extinction. In response the Qing rulers
created protected areas and limited harvests in response to these
environmental impacts.


Jonathan Schlesinger, a scholar of imperial China at Indiana
University in Bloomington, studied Manchu and Mongolian archives
to track the trade in furs, pearls and mushrooms across the Qing
empire’s borderlands in the 18th and 19th centuries. On this
episode of the Exploring Environmental History Podcast
Schlesinger discusses how Qing rulers responded to declining
resources and negative environmental impacts. In addition he
considers if it is possible to compare “western” environmental
history with Chinese environmental history or whether we need to
think outside a Western paradigm.


 


Music credits


"From China To USA" by  Stefan Kartenberg


"Old performer in new time" by  Subhashish
Panigrahi


 Both tracks available from ccMixter