Project description
How pre-industrial humans in the tropics changed the planet
Humans are causing mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluting oceans, and altering the atmosphere. Various studies have shown that climate change signals started appearing globally as early as the 1830s. Local deforestation can have regional and global feedbacks and 20th-21st century human actions in tropical forests are seen as a key part of the Anthropocene – or the anthropogenic domination of earth systems. The EU-funded PANTROPOCENE project will study the degree to which combined pre-colonial and colonial impacts on tropical forests across the bounds of the former Spanish Empire, particularly across the under-studied region of the Philippine Archipelago, initiated changes to climate, geomorphology and the atmosphere, and whether such feedbacks represent the origins of a pre-industrial Anthropocene and left legacies that societies are still dealing with today.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
Host institution
80539 Munchen
Germany
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Beneficiaries (2)
80539 Munchen
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0200 Canberra
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