#industrial ecology

[fatehbaz]

Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. Endangered South Asian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. European companies claim the ecosystem. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite, so their monoculture approach of eliminating companion species was self-defeating. French perfumes and the creation of "Sandalwood City".

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Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

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Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

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Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

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Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

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The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

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Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Volume 51 (2014), Issue 1, pages 41-70. First published online 10 March 2014. DOI: 10.1177/0019464613515533 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[plethoraworldatlas]

Oregon’s gray wolf population did not increase last year due in part to a large number of wolves killed by people, causing concern among conservationists and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials.

The latest Annual Wolf Report found the population remained steady at 178 wolves, marking the first time in eight years that their numbers didn’t increase. Typically, the population has grown by 6% a year. Among the 36 wolf deaths in 2023, 33 were caused by people. The state sanctioned the killing of 16 wolves following livestock deaths and 12 were killed illegally, the report said. 

“The amount of poaching and other suspicious deaths is alarming, impacts our conservation goals and could affect our ability to manage wolves in Oregon,” Bernadette Graham-Hudson, the agency’s wildlife division administrator, said in a news release.

[heretic-child]

“We need to understand ourselves as part of nature, but with the acknowledgement of course that the capitalist system has made us alienated from nature. In the case of the Kurds, for example, the mountains have historically always been a very strong protector of people who have been persecuted. In 2014, when ISIS attacked the Yazidis, the first thing that they did was to flee to the mountains. Landscapes, natural geographies, and water have always been sites of protection for people. This is not because nature is there to serve humans, but rather because humans are part of nature. Until the creation of states, big cities, and especially capitalism and industrialism, people understood how to live together with nature. I know this from my own grandparents’ village. They have a very different relationship to the animals they raise. They sing songs to the mountains, not about the mountains. I think many different cultures, especially indigenous people, have this kind of relationship with nature, which is very much a comradeship. For the Kurds and other groups who have always understood themselves in relation to a specific geography, who have never been part of a dominant state, and who have in many ways very local ways of organizing their lives, relying on geography to survive, the relationship to nature is like a friendship rather than an alliance.

Destroying nature is part of a policy of assimilation on the part of the dominant nation-states. The less people are aware of their link with nature, the more likely they are to become liberal individuals, with loyalty only to the state. So the more we are connected to nature through geography, the more likely we are to be conscious of ourselves, be conscious of our place in the universe, our place in ecology in general. The state is actively trying to destroy that because the state is very well aware of the connection between humans and nature. The state knows that in order for it to be legitimized and justified, it needs to break this link between humans and nature.”

Ecofeminist Practices Between Internationalism and Globalism

[cantsayidont]

I am generally fond of the Peter Jackson LORD OF THE RINGS movies (much more so than THE HOBBIT trilogy, which is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish), but I still feel that it was a tremendous error to remove "The Scouring of the Shire" from the ending of RETURN OF THE KING. I think I understand the rationale for omitting it — it further complicates what's already a protracted finale, and it is kind of a downer — but I suspect it's one of the changes to which Tolkien himself would have most objected.

First, it's an essential element in the arc of Frodo. Frodo has already been wounded in a way that even Elrond and Gandalf can't entirely fix, even after they remove the notch of the Morgul-knife. After enduring an impossible ordeal, he returns to the Shire to find that the war has come home in a way that, at least for him, can't be fully set right even after Saruman is dead and much of the immediate damage repaired. Frodo's original conflicts have been seemingly resolved: At the beginning of the book, he's seen in Hobbiton as an irresponsible youth of dubious background who grows into another suspicious eccentric like Bilbo, but by the end, they want to make him the mayor (to which Frodo only very reluctantly and temporarily agrees), and even his feud with the Sackville-Bagginses is ended. Even so, Frodo is left far more alienated than he ever was to start with, which is why he finally chooses to go over Sea rather than live out his life in the Shire.

Second, while it is superficially rather grim, I think Tolkien might have argued that it's actually his most hopeful chapter. Tolkien says in the introduction to the second edition that "The Scouring of the Shire" had its roots in his own childhood:

The country in which I lived in childhood [in Warwickshire] was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important.

Thus, it seems significant that the shabby destruction of the Shire at the hands of Saruman and his men is actually set right remarkably quickly. As soon as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin return, they're able to rouse the other hobbits to action and drive out the ruffians within a matter of days, and Sam is even able to use Galadriel's gift to replace most of the trees that have been carelessly destroyed, with a magnificent mallorn-tree in place of the beloved Party Tree. The Shire hasn't wholly escaped the scars of industrialization, but the hobbits have come to their senses and turned back before it was too late.

That is really the most optimistic element of the story's finale. Aragorn's coronation means a restoration of order to the West, but magic and wonder are fading away or departing over Sea. Arwen has made the choice of Luthien and is doomed to eventually fade and leave the world; in the Appendices, after Aragorn's death, she returns to Lórien, now deserted, and essentially lies down and dies. Tolkien did not feel the Ents would ever find the Ent-wives, so they too will probably never flourish again. However, the Shire endures, in a way that the country where Tolkien grew up did not — not by remaining completely aloof from the world, but by rejecting the new mill and the smokestacks, and by "thousands of willing hands of all ages" deliberately tearing down everything built by Saruman and using the bricks "to repair many an old hole, to make it snugger and drier."

[noneedtofearorhope]

from wiki:

"As of 2018, the Haber process produces 230 million tonnes of anhydrous ammonia per year.[65] The ammonia is used mainly as a nitrogen fertilizer as ammonia itself, in the form of ammonium nitrate, and as urea. The Haber process consumes 3–5% of the world's natural gas production (around 1–2% of the world's energy supply).[4][66][67][68] In combination with advances in breeding, herbicides, and pesticides, these fertilizers have helped to increase the productivity of agricultural land:

With average crop yields remaining at the 1900 level the crop harvest in the year 2000 would have required nearly four times more land and the cultivated area would have claimed nearly half of all ice-free continents, rather than under 15% of the total land area that is required today.[69]

The energy-intensity of the process contributes to climate change and other environmental problems such as the leaching of nitrates into groundwater, rivers, ponds, and lakes; expanding dead zones in coastal ocean waters, resulting from recurrent eutrophication; atmospheric deposition of nitrates and ammonia affecting natural ecosystems; higher emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), now the third most important greenhouse gas following CO2 and CH4.[69] The Haber–Bosch process is one of the largest contributors to a buildup of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere, causing an anthropogenic disruption to the nitrogen cycle.[70]

Since nitrogen use efficiency is typically less than 50%,[71] farm runoff from heavy use of fixed industrial nitrogen disrupts biological habitats.[4][72]

Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber–Bosch process.[73] Thus, the Haber process serves as the "detonator of the population explosion", enabling the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018.[74]

[...]

The use of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers reduces the incentive for farmers to use more sustainable crop rotations which include legumes for their natural nitrogen-fixing ability."

[ponku-po]

This graphic shows the years 1982-2022 in shades of blue and 2024 in red. 2023 has been omitted to help give context for how fast things have changed. Unedited graphic below vvv

[overdoso]

O crime e a tragédia da indústria pesqueira.

[yaoigagarinsblog]

[drumlincountry]

I've taken like...4 classes on peatland restoration now, which isn't enough that they'll let me restore any peatland but IS enough that i can see when a peatland is damaged and needs restoration. Maximum distress minimum autonomy. Caught in the valley of despair. The learner's hellcrotch.

[pellinni-photo]

chopped firewood. sustainable energy concept. wood texture. outdoor scene of everyday rural life. ecological fuel background

[dailyanarchistposts]

Leninism: Why Not

Red Fascism has its roots in Leninist thought, an analysis dating back to critiques in 1939 with The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism by Otto Rühle[28] and 1921 The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party by “Four Moscow Anarchists”.[29] The latter states:

[State Communism] is not and can never become the threshold of a free, voluntary, non-authoritarian Communist society, because the very essence and nature of governmental, compulsory Communism excludes such an evolution. Its consistent economic and political centralization, its governmentalization and bureaucratization of every sphere of human activity and effort, its inevitable militarization and degradation of the human spirit mechanically destroy every germ of new life and extinguish the stimuli of creative, constructive work.

As Gabriel Kuhn declares in his review of Malm’s recent publications:

As long as it is not clear how future Leninism of any stripe – anti-Stalinist, ecological, whatever – will be able to avoid these pitfalls, I really don’t find it terribly reassuring to suggest that, well, somehow it’ll turn out alright this time.

In a similar fashion, Malm does not add new elements to the discussions on escalation of tactics in the environmental movement, contrary to his book’s promise. It might be this hollow radicality that entertains bourgeois circles and will grant him a broad audience separate from the core of radical change.

Furthermore, his ability to brag about his own past flirtations with direct action, from the comfort of middle-class existence in a social democracy, shows that he really has no understanding of ecological struggle. People who actually risk themselves struggling for their land, their survival, our planet, face death or decades in prison. They do not get to put their actions on their resumé to sell books after just a few years. To put it plainly, Malm does not know the meaning of struggle. His expertise is in writing academic papers, securing a comfortable, privileged existence for himself, and climbing the class ladder.

Malm tries to ridicule James C. Scott for his not very popular nor influential book Two Cheers for Anarchism (2012), where he makes silly comments on traffic lights. If you’re familiar with Scott’s work, it becomes apparent that Malm’s attack might be caused by Scotts critique of Lenin in Seeing like a State (1998), exposing Lenin as controlling and elitist. Scott’s work will be mentioned further in the next sections.

[empirearchives]

Napoleon’s decree in 1810: First regulation limiting pollution in French history

Source: Décret impérial du 15/10/1810

This comes after the creation of the Public Hygiene and Health Council of the City of Paris on 6 July 1802, and each department getting its own Health Council.

In addition, the ordinance of the Prefect of Police on 12 February 1806 concerning preliminary investigations then authorization necessary for factories, workshops and laboratories producing polluting or dangerous products.

According to Éloi Laurent (Towards Social-Ecological Well-Being):

“The first laws regulating French industrial establishments and in particular the imperial decree of October 15, 1810 was the first legislation in the world regulating pollution (it was extended by the law of December 19, 1917).”

Below is an English translation of the 1810 decree.

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Imperial decree of 10/15/1810 relating to factories and workshops that emit an unhealthy or inconvenient odor.

NAPOLEON, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation;

On the report of our Minister of the Interior;

Considering the complaints brought by various individuals against factories and workshops whose operation gives rise to unhealthy or inconvenient exhalations;

The report made on these establishments by the chemistry section of the physical and mathematical sciences class of the Institute;

Our Council of State heard;

We HAVE DECREED and DECREE the following:

Article 1 of the decree of 15 October 1810

As of the publication of this decree, factories and workshops which emit an unhealthy or inconvenient odor may not be formed without permission from the administrative authority: these establishments will be divided into three classes.

The first will include those who must be located away from private homes.

The second will include factories and workshops whose distance from homes is not strictly necessary, but which should only be set up once it is certain that the operations carried out there will not inconvenience or cause damage to neighboring homeowners.

In the third class will be establishments which can remain near homes without inconvenience, but must remain subject to surveillance by the police.

Article 2 of the decree of 15 October 1810

The necessary permission for the formation of factories and workshops included in the first class will be granted, with the following formalities, by a decree issued by our Council of State.

Permission for the operation of establishments in the second class will be granted by the prefects, on the advice of the sub-prefects.

Permissions for the operation of establishments in the last class will be issued by sub-prefects, who will first obtain the opinion of the mayors.

Article 3 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Permission for first class plants and factories will only be granted subject to the following formalities:

The request for authorization will be presented to the prefect, and posted, by his order, in all communes within a five kilometer radius.

Within this period, any individual will be allowed to present grounds of opposition.

The mayors of the communes will have the same right.

Article 4 of the decree of 15 October 1810

If there is opposition, the Prefecture Council will weigh in, with the exception of a decision by the Council of State.

Article 5 of the decree of 15 October 1810

If there is no opposition, permission will be granted, if necessary, on the advice of the prefect and the report of our Minister of the Interior.

Article 6 of the decree of 15 October 1810

If it concerns a soude[*] factory, or if the factory is to be established within the customs area, our Director of Customs will be consulted.

Article 7 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Authorization to form factories and workshops in the second class will only be granted after the following formalities have been completed.

The entrepreneur will first send his request to the sub-prefect of his arrondissement, who will forward it to the mayor of the commune in which the establishment is to be formed; by instructing him to carry out a de commodo et incommodo[**] enquiry. Once this is completed, the sub-prefect will issue a decree which he will forward to the prefect. The prefect will make the decision, unless any interested parties appeal to our Council of State.

If there is opposition, it will be decided by the Prefecture Council, except for an appeal to the Council of State.

Article 8 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Factories or establishments in the third class can only be formed with the permission of the Prefect of Police, in Paris, and the mayor in other towns.

If complaints arise against the decision taken by the Prefect of Police or the mayors, on a request to form a factory or workshop included in the third class, they will be judged by the Prefecture Council.

Article 9 of the decree of 15 October 1810

The local authority will indicate the place where the factories or workshops included in the first class may be established, and will specify its distance from private dwellings. Any individual who carries out construction in the vicinity of these factories and workshops after their establishment has been authorized will no longer be allowed to request their removal.

Article 10 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Establishments that emit an unhealthy or inconvenient odor will be divided into three classes in accordance with the table appended to this imperial decree. It will serve as a rule whenever it comes to deciding on requests for the formation of these establishments.

Article 11 of the decree of 15 October 1810

The provisions of this decree will not have retroactive effect: consequently, all establishments currently in operation will continue to operate freely, with the exception of any damages to which contractors may be liable in the event of damage to the property of their neighbors; such damages will be settled by the courts.

Article 12 of the decree of 15 October 1810

However, in the event of serious inconvenience for public health, culture, or the general interest, first-class factories and workshops causing such inconvenience may be suppressed by virtue of a decree issued by our Council of State, after having heard the local police, taken the opinion of the prefects and received the defense of the manufacturers.

Article 13 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Establishments maintained under article 11 will cease to enjoy this benefit as soon as they are transferred to another location, or if there is a six-month interruption in their work. In either case, they will fall into the category of establishments to be formed, and they will not be able to resume activity until they have obtained a new permit, if necessary.

Article 14 of the decree of 15 October 1810

Our Ministers of the Interior and the General Police are each responsible for the execution of the present decree, which will be published in the Bulletin of Laws.

NAPOLEON

By the Emperor:

Minister Secretary of State,

H. B. DUKE OF BASSANO

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My notes:

Attached to this decree is an appendix with

“nomenclature of factories, establishments and workshops emitting an unhealthy or inconvenient odor, which may not be set up without permission from the Administrative Authority.”

Some of the substances listed can be translated and some cannot. I recommend going to the link at the top of this post to check it out if interested.

[*] Soude definition

[**] De commodo et incommodo definition

Public Hygiene and Health Council of the City of Paris is a translation of Conseil d'hygiène publique et de salubrité de la Ville de Paris

An additional source on this legislation: Fondation Napoléon

[plethoraworldatlas]

Somewhere on a remote mountainside in Colorado’s Rockies, a latch flipped on a crate and a wolf bounded out, heading toward the tree line. Then it stopped short.For a moment, the young female looked back at it’s audience of roughly 45 people who stared on in reverential silence. Then she disappeared into the forest.

She was one of five gray wolves Wildlife officials released in a remote part of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains on Monday to kick off a voter-approved reintroduction program that was embraced in the state’s mostly Democratic urban corridor but staunchly opposed in conservative rural areas where ranchers worry about attacks on livestock.

...

It marked the start of the most ambitious wolf reintroduction effort in the U.S. in almost three decades and a sharp departure from aggressive efforts by Republican-led states to cull wolf packs. A judge on Friday night had denied a request from the state’s cattle industry for a temporary delay to the release.

The group watched as the first two wolves — 1-year-old male and female siblings with gray fur — were set free. The male bolted up the golden grass, running partially sideways to keep an eye on everyone behind, then turning left into the trees.

The crowd watched in silence, then some hugged each other and low murmurs started up.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

hey um not to be parasociall but how did the meeting with your advisor go???? also would it be possible for you to switch advisors/program or something so you can change your research interests if that's the issue? Im a doctoral student as well so I get how tricky that stuff can be depending on your program.... Anyway I hope things better for you xoxo

Lol, ur fine! It went alright

[nando161mando]

"#Greece is still burning. An Air Force munitions depot near Nea Anchialos caught fire and all the bombs and missiles are exploding. Perimeter of 3 kilometers is evacuated #wildfires"

[fatehbaz]

[M]onk seals continued to live in large herds along the largely unexplored Atlantic seaboard of northwest Africa. It was not until 1434 that Portuguese explorers landed on these [supposedly] untamed coasts, and discovered thousands of monk seals. Almost immediately, an intensive and lucrative trade in skins and oil was established [...]. Constantly vying with Spain [...], Portugal was determined to increase its sphere of influence in Africa. While Spain eventually became preoccupied with Columbus’ elusive vision [...] [and] his celebrated 1492 expedition [...] Portugal’s colonial influence in Africa was reaching its height by 1500. The first expeditions to Africa’s Gold Coast were recorded for posterity by an official chronicler, Gomes de Zurara [...]. In his book [...] he relates how the Portuguese Infante [royal prince], eager [...], dispatched explorer Afonso Gonçalves Baldaya in a cargo vessel to make contact with the mysterious “moors” or “pagans” who were believed to inhabit the region (Zurara, 1437).

“But these are people, no matter how beastlike they may be,” proclaimed the Infante, “and they need to be governed... I command you to penetrate this land as far as you can and that you work in order to learn about those people, perhaps taking one captive, so that you may become acquainted with them.”

It was in “the year [...] one thousand four hundred and thirty-six” that Alfonso set sail [...]. [T]he barinel eventually reached the shores of the Gold River, the Rio de Oro, situated at the Bay of Dakhla in the western Sahara. [...] Afonso and his crew sighted their first seals. Literally thousands were suddenly in their field of vision. [...] “Upon seeing on a reef at the mouth of the river a large number of sea-wolves,” relates Gomes da Zurara, “which, according to the estimates of some, amounted to five thousand, he ordered killed those that could be killed and had their furs loaded onto the ship [...].” Despite the windfall in skins and oil, Afonso was still dissatisfied, having failed to take captive any of the elusive natives. He therefore ventured a further 50 leagues “to see if he could capture a man or at least a woman or child in order to satisfy the will of his master.” [...]

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[In] 1437 [...] another Portuguese ship was dispatched to the Gold River to fill its hold with the furs and oil of the sea-wolves. [...] In 1441, [...] the Infante ordered his young wardrobe keeper, Antão Gonçalves, to captain a small ship and return to the Gold River. [...] “[T]he reason for this voyage, as instructed by his Lordship,” writes da Zurara, “was none other than to load that ship with a great quantity of hides and oil from those sea-wolves.” It appears to have been a lucrative undertaking. “ [...]

Antão Gonçalves had fulfilled the command of his master, his ship’s hold brimming with hides and casks, but the young man was eager to pursue his adventures rather than return home as ordered. He assembled his 21-man crew on deck, and addressed them with a rousing speech: “Friends and brothers, our cargo is complete, as you can see, so the principal aim of our mission has been accomplished, and we could well return should we wish to limit our toil…” He then proposed an adventure that would gladden the men’s hearts, providing relief from the laborious and tedious task of hunting, skinning and melting-down seals - a hunt for native slaves [...].

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These first tentative expeditions to the Gold River paved the way for hunting on a more intensive, industrial scale, with 15th century Portuguese explorers dividing their time between lucrative massacres of seals and the equally profitable slave trade [...].

Indeed, within a few years of the sea wolf discovery, a purpose-built installation to process seal hides and oil had been constructed on Ylha de Lobos [...] in the estuary of the Rio de Oro [...]. Around Cap Barbas [...] no less than three sites once bore the name of the sea wolf [...]. [T]he [French and British] colonial plundering of the region [in the early twentieth century] [...], like [...] [Portuguese] conquest before them, were also portrayed as essentially idealistic endeavours. Just as the conquest of the Rio de Oro by massacre and slavery [...] “proves anew that the pursuit of disinterested geographical knowledge [...] were never the only motives of colonial conquest, so the slaughter [...] [today] would today be called “rational exploitation” [...]”,

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All text above by: William M. Johnson. “Monk Seals in Post-Classical History: The role of the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) in European history and culture, from the fall of Rome to the 20th century”. Mededelingen 39. The Netherlands Commission for International Nature Protection. 2004. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]