Militarized landscapes in the twentieth-century: Britain, France and the United States

上世纪60年代，越南丛林遭到橙剂的大面积破坏，1990年至1991年海湾战争期间，油井燃烧冒出的黑烟将媒体和公众的注意力引向了战争对环境的影响。然而，即使在第一颗原子弹投下之前，军国主义和战争准备就已经从物质上和想象上重塑了景观和环境。然而，这种形式的军事动员仍未得到充分研究。本项目旨在通过对军事动员土地以准备战争和发动战争的比较分析来纠正这种忽视。我们还将探讨军事用地作为生物多样性储存库的作用，与周围受集约化农业实践和其他惯常人类侵占形式影响的非军事化景观相比，军事用地的“绿色”价值往往更高。这一高保护价值与作为没有人类居民和平民活动的景观的国防庄园的地位之间的关系是我们研究的核心内容。同样重要的是研究生态恢复和以军事建筑为代表的历史环境保护之间的紧张关系（以及人性化景观的前军事特征）。随着第一次和第二次世界大战之间日益强大的武器的发展，欧洲军事组织拨出了越来越多的土地来训练新兵和测试硬件（英国在20世纪40年代达到顶峰，但法国一直持续到20世纪70年代）。目前，军方是法国最大的土地所有者，英国国防部控制着大约1%的英国领土。该项目将侧重于军方控制国家领土的理由及其为维持其权威而采取的战略。它还将考虑那些寻求进入和参与决策和控制的人对军事化景观的挑战：当地社区、保护组织、环保主义者和其他政府机构，如国家公园管理局。这里特别令人感兴趣的是保卫国家和保卫自然的必要性之间的相互作用。然而，非人类的本性也是这个故事不可或缺的一部分。对军事遗址环境历史的分析将解决战争与环境关系中的一个核心悖论，即军事化景观有时会成为稀有动植物物种意想不到的避难所。法国军队与法国环境部签署了保护协议，建立了“动植物生态利益自然区”，并宣传了自己的生态资质，指出在其基地内集约化农业和城市化受到限制。在英国，国防部拥有170多个具有特殊科学价值的地点。军事当局是如何以及为什么接受自然保护政策的？迄今为止，还没有关于法国和英国（也没有关于这些国家的海外属地）军事化景观的环境史。除了探索军事和环境保护主义等社会力量如何相互作用外，该项目还研究了军事化景观如何成为景观和环境、自然价值和历史价值、国防和国家遗产等相互竞争的主张和概念的场所。我们的案例研究将主要来自法国（包括枫丹白露森林、Vercors和Canjeurs）和英格兰西南部/南威尔士（包括达特穆尔、索尔斯伯里平原、泰纳姆山脉、卡斯尔马丁和布雷肯灯塔）。这些将被一个美国案例研究（科罗拉多州退役的武器制造厂，其旧址现在是国家野生动物保护区）所补充。这种比较焦点有助于打破“军国主义”和“军事化景观”等单一概念。对英国、法国和美国历史的关注将揭示各国军事文化之间的共同点和分歧，以及它们对景观的表达和影响的地方、国家和大陆特殊性。这个项目本质上是跨学科的，它借鉴了地理、历史和自然科学，因为它试图探索军事化景观的物质和文化历史，以及权威和通道、定居和运动的主题。通过揭示这一大部分未被触及的历史研究领域，该项目为军事力量和环境责任等高度热门问题提供了重要的历史视角。

The decimation of Vietnamese jungles with Agent Orange in the 1960s and the black smoke billowing from burning oil wells during the Gulf War of 1990-1991 directed media and public attention toward war's environmental impact. Yet even before the first bomb is dropped, militarism and the preparation for warfare materially and imaginatively reshape landscapes and environments. However, this form of military mobilization remains under-researched. This project seeks to rectify this neglect through a comparative analysis of military mobilization of land to prepare for and to wage war. We will also explore the role of military lands as reservoirs of biodiversity often superior in 'green' value to surrounding non-militarized landscapes subject to intensive agricultural practices and other customary forms of human encroachment. The relationship between this high conservation value and the status of defence estates as landscapes emptied of human residents and civilian activities is a central ingredient of our study. Also integral is the study of tensions between ecological restoration and the preservation of the historic environment represented by military structures (also the pre-military features of the humanized landscape).With the development of increasingly powerful weaponry between the first and second world wars, European military organizations appropriated ever more land for training recruits and testing hardware (acquisition peaking in Britain during 1940s but continuing in France into the 1970s). At present, the military is the largest landowner in France and the British Ministry of Defence controls approximately one percent of UK territory. This project will focus on the military's justification for its control of national territory and the strategies it adopts to maintain its authority. It will also consider the challenges to militarized landscapes from those seeking access and a share of decision making and control: local communities, conservation organizations, environmentalists and other government bodies such as national park authorities. Of particular interest here is the interplay between the imperatives of defending the nation and defending nature. Yet nonhuman nature is also an integral part of the story. An analysis of the environmental history of military sites will address a central paradox in the war-environment relationship, namely, the suggestion that militarized landscapes sometimes become unexpected refuges for rare species of animals and plants. The French army has signed conservation agreements with the Ministry of the Environment, established 'Natural Zones of Ecological Interest for Flora and Fauna,' and advertises its ecological credentials, pointing to restrictions on intensive agriculture and urbanization on its bases. In Britain, Ministry of Defence lands hosts over 170 Site of Special Scientific Interest. How and why have military authorities embraced nature conservation policies? No environmental histories of militarized landscapes in France and Britain (nor of these nation's overseas holdings) have been written to date.As well as exploring how the military and social forces such as environmentalism interact, this project investigates how militarized landscapes have become sites for competing claims and conceptions of landscape and environment, natural value and historic value, and national defence and national heritage. Our case studies will be drawn principally from France (including sites in Fontainebleau forest, the Vercors, and Canjeurs) and southwest England/South Wales (including Dartmoor, Salisbury Plain, Tyneham Range, Castlemartin and the Brecon Beacons). These will be supplemented by an American case study (decommissioned weapons manufacturing plants in Colorado, whose former sites now host national wildlife refuges). This comparative focus contributes to the breaking down of monolithic concepts such as "militarism" and "militarized landscapes". The focus on British, French and American histories will bring out the common ground and divergences between national military culture and the local, national and continental specificity of their expression and impact on the landscape. This project is inheriently interdisciplinary, drawing on geography, history, and the natural sciences as it seeks to explore the material and cultural histories of militarized landscapes as well as themes of authority and access, and settlement and movement. By uncovering this largely untouched area of historical study, this project provides a vital historical perspective on highly topical questions of military power and environmental responsibility.