President of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations

I am a student of environmental history and historical geography, with research interests in the evolving landscapes and societies of Canada and (to a lesser extent) New Zealand, Australia and Southern Africa. Forestry, agriculture and sustainability have been my main thematic interests but I have also written on cities, migration, parks and geographical practice.

President of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations
Past Principal, UBC Emeritus College.
Past President of the American Society for Environmental History.
Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada.
Massey Medal, Royal Canadian Geographical Society 2012.
Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies 2011-13.
Editor, BC Studies (2008-16).
General Editor, Nature|History|Society book series with UBC Press.
Co-Editor, Journal of Historical Geography (2006-2012).
Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts, UBC (1990-1996).
Head of the Department (1996-2002; 2005-2009).

2022

Wynn, G., J. Carruthers, and N. J. Jacobs. 2022. Environment, Power, and Justice: Southern African Histories. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

WYNN, G. 2022. Historicising Environmental Justice in Southern Africa. In Environment, Power, and Justice: Southern African Histories edited by G. Wynn, J. Carruthers, and N. J. Jacobs. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

WYNN, G. 2022. Of Crocodiles, Chameleons, and the Burden of History: Environment, Power, and Justice in Southern Africa. In Environment, Power, and Justice: Southern African Histories edited by G. Wynn, J. Carruthers, and N. J. Jacobs. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

2021

WYNN, G. 2021. On the edge of … the rabbit hole? South African Historical Journal 73 (1): 11-24. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2021.1909122

DYCE, M. AND G. WYNN. 2021. Mapping Canadian Nature and the Nature of Canadian Mapping. In Mapping Nature Across the Americas by K.A. Brosnan and J.R. Akerman, 239-69. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2020

WYNN, G. 2020. Finding Hope: Environmentalism and the Anthropocene. Historical Geography 48: 1-39. doi:10.1353/hgo.2020.0000.

WYNN, G. 2020. Scoping Yeotopia: Tom Brooking and the Making of Rural New Zealand. International Review of Environmental History 6 (2): 5-23.  https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/scoping-yeotopia-tom-brooking-making-rural-new/docview/2474314358/se-2

“Iconic Falls, Contrived Landscapes, and Tantalizing Opportunities,” Foreword to Daniel Macfarlane, Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2020), x-xxvi, 210-12.

“Framing an Ecology of Hope,” Environmental History, 25 (January 2020), 2-34

“On Place and Politics in the Global Environment,” Global Environment: A Journal of Trans-disciplinary History, 13, 1 (March 2020), 245-8

“Appraising the Anthropocene,” The Ormsby Review, 723 (15 January 2020), at:

“Earth Day: What’s in a Name, A Date, or a Message,” The Otter, Network for Canadian History and Environment,, April 22, 2020 at https://niche-canada.org/2020/04/22/earth-day-whats-in-a-name-a-date-or-a-message/

“Old Dogs, New Tricks,” UBC Emeritus College, Newsletter, 2, 5 (April 2020), 6

“To be, or not to be, there” at http://www.iceho.org/flight-shaming

2019

The Nature of Canada, edited with Colin Coates.  18 invited essays on the transformation of Canada’s environments (Vancouver: On Point Imprint of UBC Press, 2019)

“Introduction” pp. 3-23 of Coates and Wynn, The Nature of Canada (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019)

“Nature and Nation” pp. 24-49 of Coates and Wynn, The Nature of Canada (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019)

“Painting the Map Red” pp. 50-83 of Coates and Wynn, The Nature of Canada (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019)

“Eldorado North?” pp. 100-121 of Coates and Wynn, The Nature of Canada (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019) with S. Hornsby

“Nature We Cannot See” pp. 142-165 of Coates and Wynn, The Nature of Canada (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019)

“Advocates and Activists” pp. 298-317 of Coates and Wynn, (Vancouver: On Point Press – UBC Press, 2019) with J. Bonnell

“Reflections from the North Country” Foreword to Jamie Benidickson, Levelling the Lake: Managing the Lake of the Woods Watershed (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2019), xiii-xxiv, 288-90

WYNN, G. 2019 ‘BC Studies and The Curve of Time: A Reckoning’ BC Studies 200, 169-85.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.14288/bcs.v0i200.191473

WYNN, G. 2019 ‘How it all comes together- Sometimes’ Journal of Historical Geography 64, 104-107   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2019.03.001

“The Universe is Made of Stories Not Atoms” The Ormsby Review, 493, (February 2019), at:  https://bcbooklook.com/2019/02/25/493 maps-of canada-the-bucket-list/

2018

“Strains of Liberalism” Foreword to David Calverley, Who Controls the Hunt?  First Nations, Treaty Rights and Wildlife Conservation in Ontario, 1783-1939 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018), ix-xxiv and 130-34

“The Importance of Rivers” Landfall Review Online (New Zealand), 1 December 2018 at:  https://landfallreview.com/?s=Wynn

“A good year and a good man” The Ormsby Review, 230 (January 2018) at:  https://bcbooklook.com/2018/01/10/a-good-year-and-a-good-man/

2017

“How Shall we Live?” Foreword to Jonathan Peyton, Unbuilt Environments Tracing Postwar Development in Northwest British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), ix-xxiii and 176-8

“Beyond the March of Bricks and Mortar” Foreword to Jim Clifford, West Ham and the River Lea: A Social and Environmental History of London’s Industrialized Marshland, 1839-1914 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), ix-xx and 160-2

“Water-ville” Foreword to Michéle Dagenais, Montreal: City of Water, translation of Montréal et l’eau (2011) (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), ix-xviii and 173-6

“Environmental Action and the Question of Scale” Foreword to Mark R Leeming, In Defence of Home Places: Environmental Activism in Nova Scotia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), vii-xxiii and 155-9

Eric Pawson: An Appreciation of a New Zealand Career” International Review of Environmental History, 3, 1 (2017), 5-12

“Balloons and Oxymorons” The Ormsby Review, 69 (December 2016) at:  http://bcbooklook.com/2016/12/28/barking-up-the-wrong-trees/  with precis “From Sustainable Yields to Sustainable Development” in BC Bookworld, Spring 2017, p. 14

2016

“Down by the Bay” Foreword to Nancy B. Bouchier and Ken Cruikshank, The People and the Bay: A Social and Environmental History of Hamilton Harbour (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016), xi-xxi and 230-2

“The Long Dying” Foreword to Jessica van Horssen, A Town Called Asbestos Environmental Contamination, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016), ix-xvii and 186-7

“The Long and Short Pasts of South African Geography” in Ronnie Donaldson, Gustav Visser, Jaco Kemp & Jan de Waal, Editors, Proceedings of the Centenary Conference of the Society of South African Geographers (Stellenbosch: SunMedia, 2016), pp. 2-8

“Has environmentalism failed?” [with David Suzuki], pp. 167-189 of Lev Bratishenko and Mirko Zardini (eds.) It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment, ed (Montreal & Heijningen: Canadian Centre for Architecture & Jap Sam Books, 2016).  Excerpted and republished as: “Has Environmentalism Failed? David Suzuki in conversation with Graeme Wynn” Literary Review of Canada, 26, 2 (March 2018), 2-4

“Keeping up the Flow” pp. 299-307 at Lynne Heasley and Daniel Macfarlane (eds.), Border Flows: A Century of the Canadian-American Water Relationship (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2016)

“Fire and Ice in the Academy: an essay” Literary Review of Canada, 24, 6 (2016), 14-15 (with Sverker Sörlin)

“Museums, Laboratories, Showcases: Prince Edward and other islands in environmental history” pp. 36-56 in Edward MacDonald, J. MacFadyen and I. Novaczek (eds.), Time and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016)

“Forest$ustainability: A Rumination on the Once and Future Forests of British Columbia, Provoked by Five Books and a Screenplay” BC Studies, 190 (Summer 2016), pp. 115-31