Asian Studies/Environmental Studies/Geography & Urban Studies 238--Spring 2007

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN ASIA

Monday 2:40-5:10, Gladfelter 310

 

 

Instructor Info

 

            Robert J. Mason

            316/330 Gladfelter Hall

            Tel: 215-204-4483

            E-mail: rmason@temple.edu

            Office Hours: Monday and Tuesday, 10:30-12 and by appointment

            My Web:  http://astro.temple.edu/~rmason

            Environmental Studies Web: www.temple.edu/env-stud

 

 

In this course, we survey environmental problems in the industrialized and rapidly industrializing economies of East and Southeast Asia. Some examples from Russia and India also are included. A substantial portion of the course is devoted to Japan's experiences with environmental management.  The Japanese experience is used as a benchmark in assessing environmental priorities and policies in neighboring countries. Japan is important not only as a model, but also in its own right because of its regional and global environmental and economic impacts.

 

Some of the specific issues we examine are food security, aquaculture impacts, rural land-use conflicts, urbanization and urban planning, tropical deforestation, industrial hazards, and ecotourism. Regional cooperation and conflicts in dealing with environmental problems also are explored. In working on your own projects, you will have ample opportunity to study these or other topics in greater depth. Some of your work will be shared with the rest of us. In other words, individual and group projects are vital to the success of the seminar and your full participation is expected.

 

Texts

 

We will use three books and a set of reserve readings, available electronically via the course Blackboard site.  This is our main use for Blackboard for this course, though we may decide to make more use of its features as the course progresses.   Additional materials, such as newspaper articles and other small handouts, may be distributed in class or electronically from time to time. 

 

The required books (available at the campus bookstore) are:

¥ Economy, Elizabeth C. 2004. The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

¥ Fahn, James David. 2003. A Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom. Boulder, CO: Westview.

¥ Roy, Arundhati. 1999. The Cost of Living. New York: Modern Library.

 

 

 

 

Evaluation

 

Midterm                                  20 percent

Final exam                               20 percent

Projects/Assignments              50 percent

Class participation                   10 percent

 

Details about projects and assignments forthcoming.

 

 

Absences and Late Assignments

 

Class attendance record is used in calculating final grades.

 

Late assignments will be marked down and, if sufficiently late, will receive a grade of "0" or "F".

 

You must notify me, in advance by telephone or e-mail, of absence from a due date for an assignment or presentation.  A legitimate medical reason is required and I reserve the right to ask for a doctor's notice.  Failure to comply will result in a failing or lowered grade.

 

 

Withdrawal and Incompletes

 

University policies that must be followed--no exceptions. 

 

á      LAST DAY TO DROP COURSE: 29 January

á      DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION FOR MAY GRADUATION: 15 February

á      LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW:  26 March

 

INCOMPLETE COURSE WORK: Temple policy is this--"Instructors submitting a grade of "I" (Incomplete) for students must file, with the department, a written agreement describing the nature of the work to be completed and the completion deadline. The instructor must report a default grade that will be entered if the student's work is not completed or if the instructor does not change the "I" grade within one year."  Incompletes are to be used only in the most dire of circumstances.

 

 

Academic Honesty: Here is the official Temple policy, and it is my policy, obviously, as well.

 

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person's labor, another person's ideas, another person's words, another person's assistance. Normally, all work done for courses -- papers, examinations, homework exercises, laboratory reports, oral presentations -- is expected to be the individual effort of the student presenting the work. Any assistance must be reported to the instructor. If the work has entailed consulting other resources -- journals, books, or other media -- these resources must be cited in a manner appropriate to the course. It is the instructor's responsibility to indicate the appropriate manner of citation. Everything used from other sources -- suggestions for organization of ideas, ideas themselves, or actual language -- must be cited. Failure to cite borrowed material constitutes plagiarism. Undocumented use of materials from the World Wide Web is plagiarism.

Academic cheating is, generally, the thwarting or breaking of the general rules of academic work or the specific rules of the individual courses. It includes falsifying data; submitting, without the instructor's approval, work in one course which was done for another; helping others to plagiarize or cheat from one's own or another's work; or actually doing the work of another person.

Students must assume that all graded assignments, quizzes, and tests are to be completed individually unless otherwise noted in writing in this syllabus.  I reserve the right to refer any cases of suspected plagiarism or cheating to the University Disciplinary Committee; I also reserve the right to assign a grade of "F" for the given paper, quiz or test.

 

In short, document everything, including and especially web-based information.

 

 

My Statement on Plagiarism

 

Plagiarism is the use of other people's words or ideas without acknowledging that you have used them.  It is unacceptable and will lead to failure in this course.

 

Copying from a book or article is one type of plagiarism.  If you need to use a quotation from a book or article (it is OK to do so where it adds to your paper, but try not to do so excessively), then you must indicate that the text is being quoted.  This is what you must do: 

(1)  place the quoted text in quotation marks or indent it as a block of text

(2)  acknowledge the author with a reference or footnote.  This reference  must be immediately adjacent to the quoted material, not simply placed some

 

Another type of plagiarism involves the direct use of other peopleÕs ideas (even though you may have changed some of the words) without acknowledging that they are someone elseÕs ideas.  You must use a reference system or footnotes to acknowledge other peopleÕs ideas.  You should NOT have a reference or footnote at the end of each and every sentence (some people really overdo it in their papers), but you do need to include them at the important and necessary places in your paper.

 

Remember, your writing must be your own--not someone elseÕs.  Help is available, from me and from the University Writing Center, located at 201 Tuttleman (www.temple.edu/writingctr)

 

 

Disability Statement

This course is open to all students who meet the academic requirements for participation.  Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor privately to discuss the specific situation as soon as possible.  Contact Disability Resources and Services at 215-204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.

 

Statement on Academic Freedom

Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has adopted a policy on Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy # 03.70.02) which can be accessed through the following link: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy_no=03.70.02. 

 

 

APPROXIMATE SCHEDULE WITH ACCOMPANYING READINGS

(readings correspond to numbered list below)

 

Week               Topic                                                                                             Readings

 

 

22 Jan              General Introduction                                                                                      

                        Major environmental issues and elements                                           1,2

                        of environmental policy

 

 

29 Jan              Japan's environmental history: the Ashio copper mine case                3

                        (late 1800s/early 1900s)                     

 

 

5 Feb               Japan's environmental history: Ashio to the present                            4, 6     

Land on Fire, Ch. 8                5--optional

 

 

12 Feb             Environmental NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Japan     6, 7

 

 

             

19 Feb             Japan's Asian Shadow                                                                                    8

 

26 Feb             MIDTERM

 

 

5 March           SPRING BREAK

 

12 March         Tropical Forest Issues                                                 Land on Fire, Ch. 4, 5

                                                                                                                       

19 March         River Basin Development and Dammed Asia Cost of Living, all

                                                                                                            Land on Fire, Ch. 3

                                                                                                            River Runs Black, pp. 205-209


26 March         Civil Society in Asia                                                   River Runs Black, Ch. 7         

                                                                                                                        9, 10

 

2 April             China' s Environmental Challenges                             River Runs Black, Ch. 2, 4,5

 

9 April             China's outlook                                                           River Runs Black, Ch. 6, 8

 

16 April           The Singapore Model                                                  Land on Fire, Ch. 1                                        Urban Environmental Design                                                  11

                                                                                                            12--OPTIONAL

 

23 April           Facing Disaster                                                                       13

                                                                                                                       

 

30 April           Ecotourism: Prospects and Pitfalls                              Land on Fire, Ch. 2

                                                                                                                        14

 

 

 

7 May              FINAL EXAM, 2:00-4:00 PM

 

 

                                               

 

LIST OF READINGS

 

1.  Howard, Michael. 1993. "Introduction." In Michael C. Howard, Asia's Environmental Crisis (Boulder, CO:Westview), pp.1-35.

 

2.  Murphey, Rhoads. 2000. "Asian Perceptions of and Behavior Toward the Natural Environment." In Karen K. Gaul and Jackie Hiltz, eds., Landscapes and Communities on the Pacific Rim (Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe), pp. 35-57.

 

3.  Cybriwsky, Roman and Aoi Shimizu. 1993. "Ashio: Rocks, Rust and Tourism on Japan's Copper Mountain." Focus 43(1): 22-28.

 

4.  Ui, Jun. 1992. "Minamata Disease." In Ui, Jun, ed. Industrial Pollution in Japan (Tokyo: United Nations University Press), pp. 103-132.

 

5.  Oyadomari, Motoko. 1989. "The Rise and Fall of the Nature Conservation Movement in Japan in Relation to Some Cultural Values." Environmental Management 13: 23-33.

 

6.  Broadbent, Jeffrey. 2003. "Japan's Environmental Regime: The Political Dynamics of Change." In Desai, Uday, ed., Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 295-355.

 

7.  Mason, Robert J. 1999. "Whither Japan's Environmental Movement? An Assessment of Problems and Prospects at the National Level." Pacific Affairs 72(2): 187-207

 

8.  Dauvergne, Peter,1997.Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast

Asia (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 1997, Chap1: "Japan's Shadow Ecology" and Chap. 6: "Conclusion: Japan's Ecological Shadow of Tropical Timber in Southeast Asia."

 

9.  Rush, James, 1991, The Last Tree: Reclaiming the Environment in Tropical Asia (New York: The Asia Society), pp. 55-96 (Chap. 4: "Citizen Action").

 

10.  Hillstrom, Kevin and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. 2003. "Environmental Activism." In The World's Environments: Asia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio), pp. 215-231.

 

11.  Hinrichsen, Don. ÒProfile: Singapore: The Planned City.Ó

 

12. Savage, Victor R. And Lily Kong. 1993. "Urban Constraints, Political imperatives: Environmental "Design" in Singapore." In Symposium on Environment and Culture with Emphasis on Urban Issues (Bangkok: The Siam Society), Chap. 1.

 

13.  Shrivastava, Paul, 1996. "Long-Term Recovery from the Bhopal Crisis." In James K. Mitchell, ed., The Long Road to Recovery (Tokyo: United Nations University Press), pp. 121-147.

 

14.  Hitchcock, Michael and Jay, Sian, 1998. "Eco-tourism and Environmental Change in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand." In King, Victor, ed., Environmental Challenges in South-East Asia (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press), pp. 305-315.