Ashley Carse “Like a Work of Nature”: Revisiting the Panama Canal’s Environmental History at Gatun Lake Abstract The construction of the Panama Canal is generally imagined as an earth-moving effort, but excavation was only one of many processes of environmental transformation associated with the project. The US government also reorganized envi- ronments within and beyond the Panama Canal Zone—the large transportation enclave then under its quasi-colonial jurisdiction—through water management technologies and exclusionary territorial policies. Ironically, many newcomers—even natural scientists—were prone to perceive the Zone’s engineered landscapes as pristine nature. Why did Panama’s transit zone, a region with a long human his- tory, appear more—not less—natural to many visitors and recent settlers during and after canal construction? First, the landscape was transformed between 1911 and 1914 through the flooding of the massive Gatun Lake, which submerged evidence of the past. This coincided with the US govern- ment’s decision to implement a depopulation policy across the Canal Zone, which precipitated demographic change and reforestation. Second, newcomers perceived Panama’s environment through a Euro-American nature aesthetic that recognized some forms of human modification and elided others. Through material transformation and cultural era- sure, the US government naturalized their control and occu- pation of landscapes sedimented with history. Panama Canal Forum 231 by guest on January 7, 2017 http://envhis.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from