Session 1. 10.

Historical archives preserve an important but very scattered collection of documents related to accountability in local communities that managed common resources (water, pastures, forests...). In the Spanish case, the use of accounting techniques in the service of accountability in this type of communities has been documented since the 16th century. What motivated these communities to establish protocols to control the management carried out by the officials appointed to govern them and to account for it? This paper will attempt to ponder the importance of the different sources of motivation that could justify these practices. In the first place, we will assess those that have to do with the balance in the interaction between the human group and the natural environment, in order to guarantee their long-term viability. Secondly, we will consider moral reasons, derived from a certain vision of the world order impregnated with religious prejudices and with effects on the political system. Finally, we will also consider economic concerns, which sought to find solutions to the dilemmas of tax burden sharing and the relief of debts assumed by corporations. In short, we will try to investigate the motivations underlying the innovations in the techniques of control of the representatives of the collectivity and of the more or less ritualized daily practices that cohesionized the group and ensured its continuity in its relations with its natural and political environment.

This paper explores the development of environmental consciousness in the Ottoman Empire, with a particular focus on the Southeast European provinces and Istanbul, from the late 18th to the end of the 19th century. This period, marked by early examples of industrialisation, witnessed significant changes in resource use, spurred by new mining activities, the establishment of factories, and an increased interest in resource extraction by both Ottoman and foreign investors. Simultaneously, the Ottoman administration began implementing regulations on the usage of common lands, such as forests, grazing lands, rivers, mills, and lakes, to preserve communal resources and balance the growing demands of industrial and infrastructure projects. In short, during this era, traditional relationships with nature faced serious pressures from emerging industrial and administrative changes, when people began to express these changes through their impact on the nature.
Through a detailed investigation of unpublished archival materials from the Ottoman State Archives, this paper uncovers how local communities responded to such developments. It examines the administrative discourse on environmental management, regulations on common lands, and reclamation projects that often placed these areas at risk. By highlighting local voices and reactions, the paper demonstrates how growing environmental pressures led to a budding awareness of resource management within the Ottoman state and among its citizens. This research reveals the complexities of environmental governance at the onset of Ottoman modernisation and contributes to our understanding of early environmental awareness among people during significant socio-economic transformations.

Water quality was a hot topic in the early modern city of Haarlem (Holland, United Provinces of the Netherlands). This is hardly surprising, because the city earned its prosperity from two rivaling trades: brewing - which needs pure water to obtain a potable product - and the notoriously polluting cloth industry. In addition, the city had to cope with the impact of a growing population and was prone to flooding by brackish water from a nearby sea-arm. We can consider water of the right quality as a common-pool resource for the inhabitants of Haarlem. The stakeholders had to make arrangements and clashed frequently with each other while doing so. In this paper, we explore the interplay between stakeholders with divergent institutional backgrounds, who each in their own way took responsibility to control water quality: provisional collective action groups of bleachers, the established institutions for collective action of the brewers’ guild (local) and waterboards (supra-local), and the municipal government that represented the communality of inhabitants. How did they address the sustainability challenge at their doorstep, what was at stake for each of them, how did their problems interrelate, and to what extent did they succeed guarding their precious resource?

This paper investigates the role of small-scale fishers’ organizations, specifically the cofradías in Spain and the prud’homies in France, in fostering environmental literacy among their members. By examining archival records, we illuminate how these organizations utilize the dense, multiplex social ties within their communities to intertwine environmental stewardship with other normative systems, such as religious practices. This integration ensures that environmental rules do not stand alone but are supported by a broader spectrum of communal norms, thereby enhancing their enforceability and acceptance. The empirical analysis reveals that such an approach not only strengthens compliance with environmental regulations but also plays a crucial role in the socialization process of the fishers, embedding environmental consciousness into the fabric of their daily lives. The paper argues that leveraging the multifaceted relationships within communities can significantly increase environmental literacy by ensuring that ecological conservation becomes a communal responsibility rather than an external imposition. Through this lens, the study contributes to the understanding of environmental literacy, proposing that the success of environmental policies may hinge on their ability to align with existing social and cultural frameworks. By extrapolating from the experiences of the cofradías and the prud’homies, we propose policy solutions that capitalize on the concept of environmental literacy, suggesting that future efforts should focus on integrating environmental objectives with the pre-existing values and norms of communities. This approach, we argue, can enhance the effectiveness of environmental policies and foster a more sustainable and ecologically conscious society.