A História Ambiental em Portugal: A emergência de um novo campo historiográfico

Abstract

This text describes the recent developments of the Environmental History in Portugal, their main themes, research projects, institutions and study groups. In spite of a historical geographical tradition on Portuguese historiography, the environment was a neglected theme to Portuguese historians until recently. The authors reveals three major areas of research development in the recent spurt of the environment history in Portugal: one, being part of interdisciplinary research teams to built knowledge regarding urgent global issues, providing historical data and empirical evidence of environmental changes; the second one, concerning historical processes emphasizing the interaction between nature and humans; and the last one, focusing on how resilient societies have built irreversible environmental changes, environmental unsustainability, create predatory governance systems and dealt with environmental conflicts. The final note reflects on the challenges that cultural institutions (archives, libraries and museums) and historians in Portugal had to face to respond to the current society needs to build sustainability and peace.