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Warrior-adventurer Erik, exiled from Iceland for violence, explored Greenland and founded a colony there in AD 984. His children Leif Eriksson and Freydis Eriksdottir explored Northeastern North America in AD 1000.

Leif Eriksson and Freydis Eriksdottir, children of Greenland colony founder Erik the Red, become Christians, converted the Greenland settlers, and in AD 1000 led an oceanic expedition west, where they discovered “Vinland,” modern Atlantic Canada. They established a colony there, traded and fought with local natives, and after 10 years moved back to Greenland. In the ensuing centuries Greenland settlers often sailed west to Markland, present-day Labrador, for lumber and other resources. Leif, Freydis, and their crew were thus the first European visitors to North America, nearly 500 years before Columbus.

The ruthless dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961, Trujillo ran the country as his own fiefdom patrolled by the largest military in the Caribbean or Mexico. His work developed the Dominican economy, however, and his successor, Joaquín Balaguer, continued economic improvements.

Balaguer, a ranking official under the Trujillo government of the Dominican Republic, rose to the presidency in the 1960s, where he perpetuated Trujillo’s brutal leadership style but also fought to protect the Dominican environment, which he considered vital to the country’s survival. Balaguer’s legacy is thus a complex blend of ruthless dictator and far-sighted leader.

Philosopher and cleric Thomas Malthus argued that societies that increase their food production will reap not an improvement in living standards but an increase in population that soaks up the food surplus, making the people once again vulnerable to starvation. This is the “Malthusian trap” or “Malthusian dilemma” that can lead to a “Malthusian catastrophe” of famine, warfare, and societal collapse.

A seafaring people who colonized most of the South Pacific islands between 900 BC and AD 900, the Polynesians reached all the way east to Easter Island and north to Hawaii. Though most of Polynesia still thrives, some of the colonies failed, especially the small islands farthest from trading centers. Like their ancestors, today’s Polynesians must be careful with their islands’ fragile resources, limiting human population and stewarding the forests, birds, waters, and fisheries.

The Anasazi—a Navajo word for “the Ancient Ones” (153)—lived in Chaco Canyon and surrounding areas of Northwest New Mexico between AD 600 and 1200. Prolific builders whose constructions reached six stories, the Anasazi became overpopulated, deforested their region, suffered from a long drought, and finally starved and fell into warfare and cannibalism. A few of them escaped to nearby Zuni settlements, but the Anasazi society collapsed and disappeared.

Located in what is today Southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, the classic Maya civilization thrived from AD 200 to 900 in a region covered in seasonal tropic forest, where the people built monumental religious and political architecture, developed extensive local trade and fine arts, and engaged in constant warfare. Deforestation, over-planting, and problems with changing rainfall patterns ultimately doomed the Maya, who dwindled from 5 million people to a few hundred thousand by the time of Spanish colonization.

The Tokugawa clan ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868, enforcing a long era of peace after centuries of civil war. Their chief environmental contribution was to protect the rapidly diminishing forests of the island nation. These efforts were so successful that today Japan is the most forested nation on Earth, with more than three-fourths of its land covered by trees. However, Japan lately imports tropical wood, which generates a deforestation problem in other countries.