DUNES Workshop, 8-10 May 2024, School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon
Sunny Portugal in early April, while Prince Edward Island is only starting to think about Spring? Sign me up! Although it wasn’t the weather that took me there, it was the opportunity to talk about the environmental history of coastal dunes with like-minded scholars at the DUNES – Sea, Sand, People workshop, organized by Project Director and former Rachel Carson Center fellow, Dr. Joana Gaspar de Freitas.
Portugal was never high on my list of places to visit, mostly because I didn’t know anyone there and my expertise in the language is basically limited to “eu não falo português” (pronounced incorrectly, no doubt). But then again, I’d never heard of environmental history until five years ago, and never dreamed I would be pursuing a master’s degree with a thesis on the environmental history of island coastal dune systems.
Admittedly, Canada is not well-known for its coastal sand dunes, other than a few National Parks and Ontario Provincial Parks on the Great Lakes, so I was surprised to find that over half of the north shore of Prince Edward Island can be classified as dune systems.1 After building a cottage near the dunes at St. Peters Harbour on the north-east shore of PEI, I became fascinated by the dynamism of the beach-dune system and the settlement history of the area, so when casting about for research proposal topic for my master’s thesis at the University of Prince Edward Island in September, 2022, I decided to focus on the resilience of our coastal dunes.2
After building a cottage near the dunes at St. Peters Harbour on the north-east shore of PEI, I became fascinated by the dynamism of the beach-dune system and the settlement history of the area.
Only a week later, Hurricane Fiona sent an estimated 40% of the north shore’s dune mass out to sea, and it’s only starting to return now.3 As I later discovered, the science of coastal dunes – their geomorphology and their ecology – has been extensively studied; it’s the historical context and application that is lacking.4
The DUNES Project
So, it was a relief to find that someone had already been looking into the historical context of coastal dunes through the DUNES project. I was maybe a little late to the game, with the five-year project wrapping up this April, but that meant that most of the research results were already published, and I was far enough in my own reading to position the state of PEI’s coastal dunes relative to multiple global case studies. Added bonus: the opportunity to travel to sunny Portugal and rub shoulders with the scholars that I had already found in my literature review. Although I was the most junior attendee (in terms of educational credentials, not age) my questions and contributions were welcomed.
Joana led the presentations with her own background as a historian, initially researching dune afforestation efforts in Portugal. Echoing her numerous publications, she argued that dunes are hybrid environments, with social and cultural factors shaping the dunes as much as natural.5 With this context, stories are necessary to understand our relationship with the coast: how are we going to change, or are we going to be forced to change?
A roundtable discussion of a transdisciplinary science of dunes and beaches followed. It was refreshing to hear contributions from a wide range of panelists included scientists from varied backgrounds, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, coastal managers, and even an artist. While there was general consensus that an interdisciplinary approach helps us to ask the right questions, to understand the relationships between human activity and dynamic processes, there was also some lamenting of the difficulties in publishing transdisciplinary work in the siloed academic publishing culture. I don’t think this will come as a surprise to NiCHE readers!
The biggest challenge seems to be in managing people, not nature, and the workshop participants agreed that it’s not a lack of knowledge or science, but a need to reach people and make coastal management more of a priority.
Day two encompassed presentations by members of the DUNES project as well as posters from other researchers (including one on Prince Edward Island, of course), addressing a variety of perspectives and locales. The second afternoon’s roundtable centred on dunes and beaches in coastal management. A lively discussion ensued over whether we can and should “let nature be nature,” given the role of people in nature – a theme that arises repeatedly in environmental history but was enhanced by the contributions from across disciplines. The biggest challenge seems to be in managing people, not nature, and the workshop participants agreed that it’s not a lack of knowledge or science, but a need to reach people and make coastal management more of a priority.
On this note, the workshop proper concluded, but not the end of my adventure.
Costa de Caparica and the ReDuna Project
Left: The village of Caparica c1930. Note the dark forest cover planted in the late 19th century to reclaim the dunes. Photo courtesy César Andrade, University of Lisbon.
Right: Costa de Caparica, looking north to Lisbon across the Tagus River, April 2024. Original village is dwarfed by new development, spreading into forested area. Photo by Barbara Rousseau.
On the sunny but breezy Wednesday morning, we headed to Lisbon’s resort area, a prime example of human modification over the centuries.6 First stop: on the cliffs above, overlooking the beach area. Here we could see from the still-crumbling cliffs, across reclaimed farmland to the increasingly built-up resort area. Dr. César Andrade, retired Professor of Geology in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon, and Celso Pinto, Coastal Manager with Portugal’s Environment Agency, illustrated through hydrographic charts how the prevailing winds and coastal currents move to move sediment from south to north along this particular stretch of coast.
Graphics courtesy of César Andrade, University of Lisbon.
From there we drove down to the main seawall along the resort area, where we saw an example of a beach nourishment project that had been – and will continue to be – required to maintain the beach in front of the sea wall. Based on my research, I am not a proponent of beach nourishment, but in this case, I can see the logic: if the sand is local (here dredged from the Port of Lisbon anyways) and applied with an understanding of the transport mechanisms, it can also be used to help rebuild dunes and protect existing infrastructure.
For an example of this dune rebuilding, we walked along the seawall to a wide stretch of beach with foredunes rising at the edge. The former dunes were washed away in during Storm Christina in January 2014 (which also overtopped the sea wall), and have been rebuilt by the ReDuna project, using sand fences of willow branches, and plantings of Ammophilia arenaria (native European marram grass), among other steps.7
It looks promising, but have the beach nourishment and dune plantings been a success? It depends who you ask and what their objectives are. From an academic perspective, though, it is a successful implementation of interdisciplinary research, combining scientific, historical, social, and engineering knowledge to address current concerns. Still, the ReDuna project is funded due to the importance of this beach-dune system to a significant percentage of the Portuguese population – I’m left with the question of how to manage beach-dune systems in eras of increasing recreational use, but limited attention and funds?
I’m left with the question of how to manage beach-dune systems in eras of increasing recreational use, but limited attention and funds?
Nevertheless, it was refreshing to be able to walk barefoot on the sand, pick up a few seashells – and get my first sunburn – so early in the year.
Artwork by the author, based on personal photos, April 2024.
Bonus Lectures
But wait, there’s more!
Following the field trip, we heard from three research scientists in lectures for the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Sciences. Topics ranged from geomorphological processes and dunes as indicators of environmental change to the protective role of dunes and coastal ecosystems as “ecological membranes” to modelling coastal dune dynamics under climate change.8 Although some of the science is beyond me, especially when it comes to modelling equations (you wouldn’t know that I have an earlier degree in Math), I think it is key for environmental historians to understand the science, in order to place it in context, to communicate the implications of decisions past, present, and future.
I think it is key for environmental historians to understand the science, in order to place it in context, to communicate the implications of decisions past, present, and future.
Which leads me to Thursday’s lecture by Dr. Christof Mauch, the founder and Director of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München). Speaking to “What are the Environmental Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities,” he posed the question of whether Environmental Humanities is a discipline or field? Since I didn’t know what “environmental humanities” are (is?), let alone the distinctions in academic terminology, I was relieved when he answered his own question: a new discipline that brings together existing disciplines into something new and creative. But what’s wrong with the term “environmental history?” For many – including those with the funding – it is too narrow, and often difficult to find a place in existing institutional structures. On reflection, the DUNES workshop was an excellent example of environmental humanities, illustrating how people from a broad range of fields can bring together multiple perspectives to create new narratives.
So if the challenges are to make EH – whatever the H represents – relevant, the opportunities are there too: we understand the importance of stories in making sense of the world; we can identify what was done right in the past as well as wrong (note to self: include more of this aspect in research); we can look to memory and culture to understand how people think and adjust the message accordingly; we can illustrate that change takes time, that there is room for what Dr. Mauch calls slow hope.9
Climbing Up and Winding Down
Setting aside thoughts of coasts, beaches and dunes left an afternoon to pound the cobblestone pavement of old Lisbon. Climbing to the Castelo de São Jorge, a hilltop nest of walls that housed Arabs, Moors and Franciscan monks until the earthquake of 1755, I was rewarded with a glorious view and a bunch of discordant peacocks.
Photos: Barbara Rousseau
The reward on the way back down was a traditional Pastel de nata – a warm egg-custard tart, but I never did get a chance to sample port. Oh well, there’s always next time. And now I know at least one more word of Portuguese: obrigada.
Acknowledgements: I am extremely grateful to Dr. Joana Gaspar de Freitas and her team for the organization of this workshop and the warm welcome to Lisbon. Thank you also to Dr. César Andrade for sharing his knowledge on dune management. Thank you as well to my thesis supervisor Dr. Joshua MacFadyen, for introducing me to the Dunes project. Lastly, I am also grateful that this research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Feature Image: Costa de Caparica, Portugal, with Lisbon in the distance. Barbara Rousseau, April 2024.
Notes
1 PEI and Mike Davies, “Geomorphic Shoreline Classification of Prince Edward Island,” Atlantic Climate Adaptation Solutions Association, 2011, https://climatlantic.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/217.pdf
2 Barbara Rousseau, “The Disappearing Harbour: Navigating the Environmental History of St. Peters Harbour, Prince Edward Island,” Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE), July 5, 2022, https://niche-canada.org/2022/07/05/the-disappearing-harbour-navigating-the-environmental-history-of-st-peters-harbour-prince-edward-island
3 Barbara Rousseau, “Such quantities of sand: Coastal change after the storm,” Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE), November 7, 2022, https://niche-canada.org/2022/11/07/such-quantities-of-sand-storm-surges-and-coastal-change-on-prince-edward-island
4 For Prince Edward Island, refer to the work of Robin Davison-Arnott, Jeff Ollerhead and Ian Walker at PEI National Park, Greenwich sector, and Chris Houser and the University of Windsor’s COASTIE program.
5 Freitas, Joana G. “Making a Case for an Environmental History of Dunes.” Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman 1, no. 1 (2020), 1-5. For related publications, see https://dunes.letras.ulisboa.pt/en/publications/.
6 Monique Palma, Ana Marcelino, D.M.R. Sampath, João Alveirinho Dias, and Joana G. Freitas, The Sand of Caparica: A history of human intervention in beach-dune system (Portugal), Storymap, DUNES Project, March 2021, https://dunesopenarchive.letras.ulisboa.pt/portal/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=2b49dabba6a74a868ccba6fbdf13e332
7 See https://networknature.eu/casestudy/22495 for more information.
8 M. Luisa Martínez, Rodolfo Silva, Jorge López-Portillo, Rusty A. Feagin, and Esther Martínez, “Coastal ecosystems as an ecological membrane,” Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95 (2020): 97-101.
9 Christof Mauch, “Slow Hope: Rethinking Ecologies of Crisis and Fear,” RCC Perspectives (2019, No. 1): 1-43, Munich: Rachel Carson Centre.
Barbara Palmer Rousseau