Fen drainage transformed both ecology and inhabitants’ livelihoods through struggle

Evidence

When the fenland began to submit to dikes, sluices, pumps, and windmills, social struggles ensued. Progress, commerce, and technology permanently transformed the ecological balance of nature and the economic livelihoods of the fen inhabitants. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 293

Categorization

• XREF: Fen-dweller resistance to ‘improvement’ parallels the eco-justice course thread that environmental degradation is inseparable from dispossession of poor communities. — connects to: Erosion and drainage threaten plover habitat, foreshadowing human harm from the same — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 136; Drained marshland carries its whole lost community to extinction unnoted — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 573; Fen drainage depleted the wildlife that once fed local inhabitants — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 294 (+2 more)
• SEED: The fens as a case study of ‘progress’ costing a people their lifeworld offers an essay angle on how drainage/dyking projects foreshadow modern dam and flood-control displacement.

Broader Connections

• Fen drainage enriched wealthy landlords while destroying peasants’ common-supported livelihoods #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 296