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An Environmental History of Plants and People

Inaugural Lecture - Professor Bronwen Whitney

This lecture will take place on campus, in Lecture Theatre 002, Business & Law Building, City Campus East (full address at the bottom of the page). Refreshments will be served from 12.30pm outside of the lecture theatre. The lecture will also be available to stream online - please register for the event and a link will be sent to you to access the live stream.

An Environmental History of Plants and People

The study of past environmental change provides insights on how societies historically created and managed landscapes, grew crops, tended arboreal resources, and adapted these methods to a changing climate. Past environmental change is inferred through the analysis of layers of sediments in water bodies, peats and wetlands that preserve signals of the surrounding landscapes and human activities at the time of their deposition.

Professor Bronwen Whitney’s inaugural lecture explores past socio-environmental change through an examination of archives situated not in urban centres, but within landscapes that were managed for the plants of everyday use.

Professor Whitney’s research is based in the tropical Americas, where she explores socio-environmental interactions before and after the significant alteration of land use caused by European colonisation. She also explores how environmental archives give voice to non-elites in history and enable us to understand domestic production and management of natural resources in past environments.

About the Speaker

Professor Bronwen Whitney is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences. She studied for her PhD at the University of Edinburgh (2005 – 2009) where she examined climate and vegetation change from the last glacial period until present in the world’s largest tropical wetland.  She continued her research into human and climatic causes of tropical environmental change and joined Northumbria University in January 2015.

Professor Whitney’s research is based in the tropical Americas, where she explores socio-environmental interactions before and after the significant alteration of land use caused by European colonisation. She also explores how environmental archives give voice to non-elites in history and enable us to understand domestic production and management of natural resources in past environments.

To register for this free lecture, please fill in the form below.