Managing Northern Europe's Forests: Histories from the Age of Improvement to the Age of Ecology

Northern Europe was, by many accounts, the birthplace of much of modern forestry practice, and for hundreds of years the region’s woodlands have played an outsize role in international relations, economic growth, and the development of national identity. Across eleven chapters, the contributors to this volume survey the histories of state forestry policy in Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, and Great Britain from the early modern period to the present. Each explores the complex interrelationships of state-building, resource management, knowledge transfer, and trade over a period characterized by ongoing modernization and evolving environmental awareness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Feb 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781785336010

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Introduction

State Forestry in Northern Europe

Richard Hölzl and K. Jan Oosthoek

Modern forestry is mostly centred upon national territories and this is reflected in existing forest histories. There are national forest histories of the lands of European colonial settlement – the United States, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand – but also of former European dependencies such as India and Zimbabwe. The latter are often framed in the colonial experience of forestry. It is in this context of European colonial empires that transnational forest histories developed over the past few decades. Many of these histories focus upon the dissemination of forestry practice amongst forest specialists and forestry agencies in the different colonial empires.¹ Comparative studies in forest history such as these are almost non-existent in the European context.² National forest histories of different European countries are often difficult to access or even inaccessible to some specialists due to language ‘barriers’.³ This book attempts to overcome these barriers by bringing together the histories of state forestry of several countries of Northern Europe that border the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The choice of this geographical region is based on the strong cultural, economic and political ties that have bound these countries together for centuries. What makes the North Sea and Baltic regions unique are the complexity of relationships and the diversity of nation states within them. At the same time, many economic historians see the North Sea and Baltic regions as a well-integrated and functioning economic area, with a long history of commodity flows.⁴

By the Middle Ages, an intensive maritime trade network existed that linked the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Scandinavia, the German territories, the Low Countries and the British Isles. Timber was one of the most important commodities shipped along these maritime trade routes. The trade of timber expanded from the thirteenth century due to a growing demand in the southern part of the North Sea region. In these lands timber resources had become exhausted due to demographic pressures resulting in clearance of forests for agriculture and a rising need for construction timber. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, demand for large good quality timber increased further with the development of the seaborne empires of the Dutch Republic and England, and the related construction of fleets. These developments forced merchants to look for new sources of timber and these were found in Northern Europe, in particular the Baltic Sea region, but also in the German territories along the River Rhine. This set up a pattern in the flow of timber, as the northern part of the North Sea region became a wood producing and exporting area while the southern lands became wood importers.⁵ This flow of the timber trade was not only the result of demographic, economic and political developments, but was also influenced by the topography, climate and vegetation history of the region.

Topography, Climate and Forest Biomes

Geologically speaking, the North Sea is a relatively young sea. It came into existence near the end of the last glaciation (ice age), about ten thousand years ago, when sea levels began to rise. At that time most of the North Sea was dry land, connecting Britain with the rest of Europe. This once extensive land has recently been dubbed ‘Doggerland’.⁶ The entire process of inundation of this enormous area took thousands of years, until the last remains of Doggerland disappeared under the waves around 6,000 bc.⁷

The end of the last glaciation also signalled the emergence of Europe’s modern forests. Recent surveys suggested that forest vegetation existed in Doggerland as long ago as the Allerød interstadial (10,400 bc), a warmer period during the final stages of the last glaciation.⁸ The forest vegetation was probably open woodland dominated by a mix of birch (Betula) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). North of that limit extended tundra and periglacial forest steppe with dwarf birch (Betula nana) and other shrub vegetation.⁹ The development of European forests during the early Holocene is complex and far from linear, and was heavily influenced by climatic fluctuations. But once temperatures increased and ice age conditions disappeared, there were few restraints on the rapid spread of tree species in Europe through the North Sea and Baltic regions between 9,500 and 7,000 bc, changing the distribution and structure of the European forests dramatically.¹⁰ After two millennia of climate and vegetation change the boreal forests were pushed into northern Scandinavia, mostly consisting of Scots pine, Norway spruce (Picea abies) and a few cold-tolerant broadleaf species. Tundra almost disappeared from the picture, and south of the boreal zone the dominant vegetation was mixed deciduous forest. The flooding of the North Sea basin, which was complete by about 6,000 bc, isolated Britain from mainland Europe, resulting in a few tree species not reaching Britain, most notably the Norway spruce. By 5,000 bc the forests around the North Sea basin had reached their maximum extent and the distribution had become similar to present-day forests.¹¹

The topography and climate of the North Sea and Baltic Sea basins are important to understanding the distribution of the different forest biomes in the region. Much of the region is low-lying land that allows free passage of westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean. There are no major north–south-running mountain ranges in the North Sea basin; and the Scottish Highlands, the Pennines in England and the Scandinavian mountain range are not high enough to block the prevailing airflow. As a result, the climate in the entire North Sea basin is strongly influenced by Atlantic weather patterns. The relatively warm waters of the North Atlantic Drift moderate the climate of Western Europe, and as a result the winters are less cold than would otherwise be expected at this latitude. The proximity of the North Atlantic Drift and the prevailing westerly winds forces the temperature gradient to run approximately east to west. During the winter, temperatures in the coastal west are generally mild but there are progressively lower temperatures on the continent in the east. Summer temperatures follow a reverse pattern, with lower temperatures along the Atlantic coasts and higher temperatures in the east. The annual rainfall follows a similar pattern and is highest along the west coasts of Scandinavia and Britain, and declines towards the east.¹²

These characteristics of the climate in the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions are reflected in the distribution of forest biomes. We can distinguish five forest biomes in northern Europe: the Arctic and Alpine zones, the birch–pine woodland zone, the boreal forest zone, the mixed deciduous–conifer forest zone and the deciduous forests (Map 0.1). In the far north where the growing season is too short to support forests, there is a small band of tundra vegetation with dwarf birch, shrubs and grass. South of this and in the Scandinavian mountain chain, as well as in the Highlands of Scotland, the pine–birch woodlands are located. East of the Scandinavian mountain chain we find the boreal forests, which are part of the taiga belt, the largest uniform biome on earth, stretching across northern Eurasia. The cold winters and short growing seasons favour hardy evergreen conifers such as Scots pine and Norway spruce. Mixed forests of beech (Fagus sylvatica) and oak (Quercus), together with spruce and pine forests, are common in the transition zone of southern Sweden, eastern Denmark, on the coasts of the western Baltic region and throughout eastern and central Europe. The zone of summer-green temperate deciduous forests covers western Europe and parts of central Europe. Mixed oak and beech forests are prevalent at the lower altitudes of the Atlantic and sub-Atlantic British Isles.¹³

Map 0.1 Forest biomes of north-west Europe. Map by K. Jan Oosthoek modified from Global Ecological Zones, FAO, 2000.

The distribution of forest biomes in Europe correlates with the length of the growing season and fertility of the land. The temperate deciduous zone, which correlates with mild winters and long growing seasons, has largely been cleared of forest vegetation for agriculture to support large populations. In contrast, most of Scandinavia and the eastern parts of the Baltic region, with their shorter growing seasons and colder, more continental winters, are less productive and therefore support smaller populations. As a result, large areas of forest survived in Scandinavia and the Baltic region, while the lands in the southern part of the North Sea basin were mostly cleared of trees. Thus, the division of the greater North Sea region between wood producers and exporters in the north and wood consumers and importers in the south reflects the spatial distribution of temperature, precipitation and the different forest biomes.

Forest Histories, Forest Historiographies

As much as biogeographical environments shaped the forest histories of those northern European countries that feature in this volume, they were also formed by political, economic and cultural trends. Some decades ago the Polish scientist Ludvik Fleck argued that the process of finding scientific facts is embedded in social formations. Science is communicating with wider society on the one hand and within the narrower circle of expert scientists who tend to develop quite characteristic thought collectives and thought styles on the other.¹⁴ Fleck’s view on science as a social event is certainly apt for forest history, which integrates approaches from the humanities, and the social and natural sciences.

Forest history, however, is not always a purely and ideal-typical interdisciplinary endeavour – blending the best of all worlds into a ‘third/fourth culture’. For the sake of clarity one may distinguish three types, or styles, in forest history that often depend on the composition of the ‘thought collective’, to use Fleck’s term, it is originating from. The oldest type is ‘classical forest history’. This developed in the nineteenth century as an integral part of scientific forestry, and provided the latter with a sense of tradition as well as a powerful, popular argument at a time when historiography was still leading the field of political expertise (Leitwissenschaft). Classical forest history generally tended to follow the development of (scientific) forestry back through the centuries. It identified major thinkers, or practitioners, and their discoveries, the stepping stones and barriers in the institution building of the field, and concentrated in particular on periods and places of formation and breakthrough, such as nineteenth century Germany. A frequent trope of this type of history is the argument that scientific forestry was the necessary outcome of over-exploitation, and that sustainability can only be secured by strong institutions and guided by the expertise of forest scientists.

Just like other histories of science, the turn towards the social in the 1970s and to epistemology in the 1990s in the manner of Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour,¹⁵ or Fleck for that matter, have brought forest history closer to a second type: social and cultural histories have tended to study forests as an arena of social conflict, of building the institutions of modern statehood, and most recently of an increasing rule of experts, of transnational exchange of biota, goods and knowledge.¹⁶ As a third type, environmental histories of the forest have emerged since the 1990s. Generally speaking, environmental histories tend to integrate forests into the larger frame of the natural environment rather than viewing forests as closed units of study. Some environmental histories of forests emphasize that social conflicts are often environmental ones, since they are concerned with the wise use and just distribution of natural resources.¹⁷ Following the lead of historical geography, others aim at reconstructing the historical changes in the landscape, such as forest cover, species composition and biological diversity.¹⁸ A bulk of these studies were inspired by social and biological ecology. Starting from the vantage point of the interdependencies of socio-natural ecosystems, these histories tend to underline the agency of nature – and its individual components – in their own right.¹⁹

The authors of this volume, who come from a range of disciplines, strived to include as many aspects of the aforementioned in the individual chapters as possible – not setting aside, however, their respective ‘thought styles’ and ‘thought collectives’ as social or environmental historians, historical geographers, ecologists and botanists. The diversity of the backgrounds and nationalities of the authors and their thought styles and perspectives has resulted in some variation of approaches to forest history. While historians stress the political and organizational aspects, ecologists and geographers include the changes to the composition of forests and to forest cover. Each chapter provides a brief explanation of the history of the territory it covers as well as the changing political framework, and gives a brief overview of forest history before the commencement of formal state forestry.

The geographical organization of each chapter centres on the present-day boundaries of the countries discussed. Since the boundaries of many European countries have shifted over the past few centuries, some chapters discuss regions that are now outside the boundaries of the modern states. The most extreme example is the chapter on Poland, which covers the radically changing geographical territory of the Polish state, and includes the period between 1795 and 1918 when Poland was partitioned between Austria, Prussia/Germany and the Russian Empire. Other cases of changing national boundaries are Schleswig-Holstein,²⁰ which was part of Denmark until it 1865, when most of it became part of Prussia, and later Germany. Another instance is Belgium, which was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1815 and 1839, and prior to that was under Austrian Habsburg rule. Other modern nation states were part of larger empires far into the modern period. Germany as nation state did not exist until 1871, and with the exception of the Nazi period between 1933 and 1945 and in Communist East Germany between 1949 and 1990, forests were never subject to central administration. The authors of the respective chapters have accounted for historical changes in territory and their choice of the area of study. As a result of the territorial ‘overlapping’²¹ that is characteristic for European history, some historical developments affecting these regions are sometimes interpreted from different national perspectives in different chapters of this book.

All chapters give precedence to state-organized forestry as opposed to privately organized forestry. State forestry in this sense includes not only actual woodland managed and exploited by state agencies, but also legislative efforts (including those regulating non-state actors), public education initiatives (forest academies), the emergence of state-funded forest science, and the integration of forestry into the symbolic metabolism of many European nations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, private or non-governmental initiatives are discussed in individual chapters if they influenced state policies or were heavily influenced by them. This book corroborates the argument that the development of modern forestry was not only deeply entangled with state building in Europe, but was also incremental to this process. The chapters do not employ a detailed common time frame, which can partly be explained by the wide range of starting dates of the so-called forestry transition.

The forestry transition describes a reversal of forest cover decline in Europe in a sequence where forest cover first declines due to human impact, and reaches a low point before it increases following the introduction of modern forestry.²² At a certain level of technological development – generally coinciding with industrialization and urbanization – most countries experience this forest transition. The forest transition occurred at different times in different countries, and often coincided with the emergence of state forestry policy and the creation of state forestry agencies. Countries like Denmark and the German states experienced an early forest transition, but in the Netherlands and Britain formal state forestry arrived late, which partly explains the late forestry transition.²³

After briefly laying out the uses of forests in pre- and early modern times, before formal state forestry developed, each chapter follows a chronological approach covering the nineteenth century up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, followed by the interwar period (1918–39). Most chapters include a section on the period of the Second World War (1939–45), but there are a few exceptions (UK is one), followed by the post-war period that is characterized by rebuilding forest resources and a focus on production. This period ends around 1970, and then we enter the final period, extending into the twenty-first century, which is characterized by a beginning transition from production forestry to multipurpose or even post-production forestry.

The book traces a pan-European development in forestry as an enlightenment project, both to gain control over land and people, and to harness resources. It examines the pan-European trail of forestry as an economic activity, a source of government revenue and an environmental management tool. The methodology of this hinged around the analysis of the administrative and institutional history of state forestry, and this played out differently in the different national environments, both natural as well as sociopolitical. Through a brief examination of education and training, each chapter also exposes intellectual and scientific networks that were European and sometimes transcontinental. It also highlights that the forest histories of each individual country cannot be understood without placing them in the wider European context.

Finally, we need to point out what is not in this book. This includes the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, because we were not able to identify suitable authors, but this gap could be filled in due course with a revised edition of the book. France has been left out because it straddles the boundary between northern and southern Europe and it does not fringe the North Sea basin. Of course we are aware of the important influence of France on the development of forestry in Europe, and important connections are pointed out in some of the individual chapters. Russia has been left out because it is so large and diverse that it deserves a forest history all of its own, but individual chapters do discuss the cross-border influence of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union respectively where possible. Furthermore, the impact of modern forestry on landscape, environment and ecosystems is not explicitly present in this book but is treated where needed in the context of the histories of state forestry. The same applies to the social and cultural history of European forests. Where needed the authors refer to the national symbolism of forests and their importance for recreation, and the conclusion takes up these aspects for comparison.²⁴

Our intention has been to bring together narratives and developments from a number of European countries to facilitate historical comparison and provide stepping stones for future transnational histories of forestry and the environment. At best this book creates inroads for cross-border discussions on the future of European forests on the basis of historical study that is sensitive to national, regional and transboundary traditions of human–nature relations.

Richard Hölzl is a researcher for the German Science Foundation at Georg August University Göttingen, Germany. His research interests include the history of forests, of the environment and of environmentalism in Central Europe, as well as the history of colonialism and Christian missions in East Africa. He has authored a book on the social impact of scientific forestry in Germany (Umkämpfte Wälder, Campus Verlag, 2010) and co-edited a collection on the global history of missions (Mission Global, Böhlau, 2013).

K. Jan Oosthoek is an environmental historian based in Brisbane, Australia. For many years he lectured and researched at the universities of Newcastle and Edinburgh, UK. He has published on a wide range of topics including forest history, the history of industrial water pollution and the history of the ozone problem. He is author of a book entitled Conquering the Highlands: A History of the Afforestation of the Scottish Uplands (Australian National University Press, 2013). He has also served as vice-president of the European Society for Environmental History (2005–2007) and is author of the leading environmental history website Environmental History Resources (www.eh-resources.org).

Notes

1. Examples of these studies include: G.A. Barton, Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002); S. Ravi Rajan, Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Eco-Development 1800–1950 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006); P. Vandergeest and N.L. Peluso, ‘Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 2’, Environment and History 12 (2006), 359–93; P. Boomgaard, ‘Forest Management and Exploitation in Colonial Java, 1677–1897’, Forest & Conservation History 36(1) (1992), 4–14.

2. A recently published introduction by Kirby and Watkins provides a valuable starting point. See K.J. Kirby and C. Watkins (eds), Europe’s Changing Woods and Forests: From Wilderness to Managed Landscapes (Wallingford, UK and Boston, MA: CABI, 2015), ch. 21. In-depth and comparative studies on European forestry institutions and policies, and their embeddedness in a diverse social, cultural and political context are still lacking.

3. Examples of national forest histories: J. Buis, Holland Houtland: Een Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsbos (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1993); S. Nail, Forest Policies and Social Change in England (Dordrecht and London: Springer, 2008).

4. H. Brand and L. Müller, ‘Introduction’, in H. Brand and L. Müller (eds), The Dynamics of Economic Culture in the North Sea and Baltic Region in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2007), 7.

5. T. Wazny, ‘Historical Timber Trade and its Implications on Dendrochronological Dating’, Lundqua Report 34 (1992), 331–33; K. Haneca et al., ‘Provenancing Baltic Timber from Art Historical Objects: Success and Limitations’, Journal of Archaeological Science 32(2) (2005), 261–71; T. Wazny, ‘The Origin, Assortments and Transport of Baltic Timber’, in C. Van De Velde, H. Beeckman, J. van Acker and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Constructing Wooden Images (Brussels: VUB, 2005), 115–26.

6. V.L. Gaffney, S. Fitch and D.N. Smith, Europe’s Lost World: The Rediscovery of Doggerland (York: Council for British Archaeology, 2009) (CBA Research Report 160).

7. Throughout this section we use the Before Christ (BC) dating convention used by many historians. This does not refer to radiocarbon years but to calibrated calendar years.

8. B.J. Coles, ‘Doggerland: The Cultural Dynamics of a Shifting Coastline’, Geological Society, London, Special Publications 175 (2000), 395.

9. D. Anderson, A. Goudie and A. Parker, Global Environments through the Quaternary: Exploring Evironmental Change (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013), 163–64.

10. N. Roberts, The Holocene: An Environmental History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 99–100.

11. Roberts, The Holocene, 100; H.E. Wright et al., Global Climates since the Last Glacial Maximum (Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 139–40.

12. Wright et al., Global Climates, 137–39.

13. F.J. Schmithüsen, ‘European Forests: Heritage of the Past and Options for the Future’, in V.A. Sample and S. Anderson (eds), Common Goals for Sustainable Forest Management: Divergence and Reconvergence of American and European Forestry (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 2008), 3–4; Wright et al., Global Climates, 140.

14. L. Fleck, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago, IL: Chicago UP, [1935] 1979).

15. M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (new edn) (London: Routledge, 2002); B. Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Realities of Science Studies (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999).

16. J. Oosthoek, ‘Worlds Apart? The Scottish Forestry Tradition and the Development of Forestry in India’, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies 3(1) (2010), 69–82; A. Corvol, Les arbres voyageurs (Paris: Julliard, 2005); R. Hölzl, ‘Der deutsche Wald als Produkt eines transnationalen Wissenstransfers? Forstreform in Deutschland im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert’, in R. Dauser and L. Schilling (eds), Grenzen und Kontaktzonen: Rekonfigurationen von Wissensräumen zwischen Frankreich und den deutschen Ländern 1700–1850 (URL: http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/discussions/7-2012/hoelzl_wald, last accessed 2 September 2017); Ravi Rajan, Modernizing Nature.

17. See M. González de Molina, A. Herrera, A. Ortega Santos and D. Soto, ‘Peasant Protest as Environmental Protest: Some Cases from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century’, Global Environment 4 (2009), 48–77.

18. See M. Bürgi and U. Gimmi, ‘Three Objectives of Historical Ecology: The Case of Litter Collecting in Central European Forests’, Landscape Ecology 22, suppl. 1 (2007), 77–87; M. Bürgi, U. Gimmi and M. Stuber, ‘Assessing Traditional Knowledge on Forest Uses to Understand Forest Ecosystem Dynamics’, Forest Ecology and Management 289 (2013), 115–22.

19. F. Krausmann, M. Fischer-Kowalski and H. Schandl, ‘Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire: Industrialization as a Socio-ecological Transition Process’, in J.R. McNeill, J.A. Padua and M. Rangarajan (eds), Environmental History: As if Nature Existed (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford UP, 2010), 26–47.

20. In 1920 Schleswig was partitioned after a referendum, with the northern part ending up in Denmark and the southern and central part remaining part of Germany.

21. T. Frank and F. Hadler (eds), Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

22. A.S. Mather, ‘The Forest Transition’, Area 24(4) (1992), 367–79.

23. See Oosthoek on Britain and the Netherlands in this volume (chapters 2 and 4).

24. Others, such as Oliver Rackham and Charles Watkins, have explored these aspects in more depth, although these studies concentrate mostly on Britain and the Mediterranean. See O. Rackham, The History of the Countryside: The Classic History of Britain’s Landscape, Flora and Fauna (London: Phoenix Press, 2000); C. Watkins, Trees, Woods and Forests: A Social and Cultural History (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Bibliography

Anderson, D., A. Goudie and A. Parker. Global Environments through the Quaternary: Exploring Evironmental Change. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013.

Barton, G.A. Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Boomgaard, P. ‘Forest Management and Exploitation in Colonial Java, 1677–1897’. Forest & Conservation History 36(1) (1992), 4–14.

Brand, H., and L. Müller. ‘Introduction’, in Hanno Brand and Leos Müller (eds), The Dynamics of Economic Culture in the North Sea and Baltic Region in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2007), 7–12.

Buis, J. Holland Houtland: Een Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsbos. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1993.

Bürgi, M., and U. Gimmi. ‘Three Objectives of Historical Ecology: The Case of Litter Collecting in Central European Forests’. Landscape Ecology 22, suppl. 1 (2007), 77–87.

Bürgi, M., U. Gimmi and M. Stuber. ‘Assessing Traditional Knowledge on Forest Uses to Understand Forest Ecosystem Dynamics’. Forest Ecology and Management 289 (2013), 115–22.

Coles, B.J. ‘Doggerland: The Cultural Dynamics of a Shifting Coastline’. Geological Society, London, Special Publications 175 (2000), 393–401.

Corvol, A. Les arbres voyageurs. Paris: Julliard, 2005.

Fleck, L. The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago, IL: Chicago UP, (1935) 1979.

Foucault, M. The Archaeology of Knowledge (new edn). London: Routledge, 2002.

Frank, T., and F. Hadler (eds). Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Gaffney, V.L., S. Fitch and D.N. Smith. Europe’s Lost World: The Rediscovery of Doggerland. York: Council for British Archaeology, 2009.

González de Molina, M., A. Herrera, A. Ortega Santos and D. Soto, ‘Peasant Protest as Environmental Protest: Some Cases from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century’. Global Environment 4 (2009), 48–77.

Haneca, K., et al. ‘Provenancing Baltic Timber from Art Historical Objects: Success and Limitations’. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(2) (2005), 261–71.

Hölzl, R. ‘Der deutsche Wald als Produkt eines transnationalen Wissenstransfers? Forstreform in Deutschland im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert’, in R. Dauser and L. Schilling (eds), Grenzen und Kontaktzonen: Rekonfigurationen von Wissensräumen zwischen Frankreich und den deutschen Ländern 1700–1850 (URL: http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/discussions/7-2012/hoelzl_wald, last accessed 10 February 2017).

Kirby K.J., and C. Watkins (eds). Europe’s Changing Woods and Forests: From Wilderness to Managed Landscapes. Wallingford, UK and Boston, MA: CABI, 2015.

Krausmann, F., M. Fischer-Kowalski and H. Schandl, ‘Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire: Industrialization as a Socio-ecological Transition Process’, in J.R. McNeill, J.A. Padua and M. Rangarajan (eds), Environmental History: As if Nature Existed (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford UP, 2010), 26–47.

Latour, B. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Realities of Science Studies. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

Mather, A.S. ‘The Forest Transition’. Area 24(4) (1992), 367–79.

Nail, S. Forest Policies and Social Change in England. Dordrecht and London: Springer, 2008.

Oosthoek, J. ‘Worlds Apart? The Scottish Forestry Tradition and the Development of Forestry in India’. Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies 3(1) (2010), 69–82.

Rackham, O. The History of the Countryside: The Classic History of Britain’s Landscape, Flora and Fauna. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.

Ravi Rajan, S. Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Eco-Development 1800–1950. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.

Roberts, N. The Holocene: An Environmental History. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Schmithüsen, F.J. ‘European Forests: Heritage of the Past and Options for the Future’, in V.A. Sample and S. Anderson (eds), Common Goals for Sustainable Forest Management Divergence and Reconvergence of American and European Forestry (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 2008), 126–246.

Vandergeest P., and N.L. Peluso. ‘Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 2’. Environment and History 12 (2006), 359–93.

Watkins, C. Trees, Woods and Forests: A Social and Cultural History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Wazny, T. ‘Historical Timber Trade and its Implications on Dendrochronological Dating’. Lundqua Report 34 (1992), 331–33.

———. ‘The Origin, Assortments and Transport of Baltic Timber’, in C. Van de Velde, H. Beeckman, J. van Acker and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Constructing Wooden Images (Brussels: VUB, 2005), 115–26.

Wright, H.E., et al. Global Climates since the Last Glacial Maximum. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

CHAPTER 1

Forestry in Germany, c.1550–2000

Bernd-Stefan Grewe and Richard Hölzl

Often enough the literature on international environmental history and forest history treats scientific forestry, which prefers high stands and equal-sized, equal-aged monocultures, as ‘German forestry’.¹ The same is true for forest history in Germany, which never grew tired of emphasizing that scientific forestry originated in Germany in the eighteenth century. This style of forestry was indeed widely practised, but forestry in Germany was never uniform, and it was never German in origin only, but an effect of transregional and transnational scientific exchange.² However, it must be said that stereotypical German forestry was widely implemented in Prussia. But even within Prussia, the biggest and most powerful German state, different systems of forestry were practised in, for example, Prussia east of the Elbe River and in the Prussian Rhineland.

This raises the question of whether there is any real substance in what is considered to be ‘German forestry’. For many of the past centuries, it would be a kind of anachronism to speak of German forestry in general terms. Until German unification in 1871, Germany was not a nation state, and the German-speaking part of Europe consisted of more than a hundred different states, each with its own administration and forestry. Furthermore, from the German Empire (1871–1918) to today’s Federal Republic, forests continued to be managed on a state (i.e. regional) and not on federal (i.e. central) level; no centralized forest administration existed – with the marked exception of the twelve years of the Third Reich (1933–1945) and the (East) German Democratic Republic (1949–1990). The sub-department of forestry within the ministry of agriculture in West Germany after 1949 and in the reunited republic after 1990 wields no political clout on economic or silvicultural questions. Furthermore, the varying natural conditions caused large differences in woodland management techniques employed on the shores of the Baltic Sea when compared with those used in the Alps or in the Saxon Erzgebirge.

Map 1.1 Forest cover of Germany in the year 2000, showing places mentioned in the text. Map by K. Jan Oosthoek based on the CORINE Land Cover 2000 dataset, European Protection Agency.

As a result, scientific forestry developed a diversity of academic schools. There has never been any kind of national school of forestry like Nancy in France. Rather German forest sciences developed simultaneously in different places, offering a range of different solutions to similar problems. For these reasons, we prefer to speak of ‘forestry in Germany’ instead of ‘German forestry’, a term that suggests a consistency that has never existed. This chapter aims to provide a concise history of forestry in Germany during the past five hundred years, and for brevity we will not always be able to give sufficient credit to regional diversity.

Beginnings of Forest Management in Germany

In his famous book on modern capitalism (1916), the economist Werner Sombart described the entire era before industrialization as the ‘Wooden Ages’.³ He emphasized that wood and timber had been the basis of the pre-industrial reproduction. Up to the construction of railways and availability of coal after about 1850, wood was the most important source of energy. Early metal production in particular needed charcoal as fuel in order to achieve the high temperatures for smelting iron. Fuel was also needed for pottery and in brickworks, and to produce porcelain, glass and textiles. The everyday life of people cannot be imagined without firewood, and domestic fuel was undoubtedly the most important use for wood.

Timber was needed for construction and smaller crafts such as cartwrights, glaziers, coopers, joiners, carpenters, brush- and basket-makers, or spoon- and wood-carvers. The quality of their work depended on the quality of the material they used, on its strength, elasticity, and resistance to pressure and water. Each of these professions preferred special types of timber. In addition, forests delivered further materials that could hardly be replaced by other products: potash, for example, reduced the melting point of glass, but it was also needed to soften up textiles for dyeing or washing. Many trees were damaged in order to extract resin for the production of paper, and the bark of oak was used for tanning leather. Pitch and tar were used to make wood resistant to water, for instance in shipbuilding.⁴

Apart from delivering wood and timber, woodlands had many other functions in rural life. Forest historians and foresters of the past have denigrated the agrarian and pastoral uses of woodlands as secondary and harmful. These ligno-centred perspectives neglected the eminent value of fodder, grazing, and areas of shifting and circular cultivation for peasant economies. On the other hand, rural social and economic history often focused only on the acreage of arable land and excluded the forests from their studies. These restricted views are based on the academic separation of agronomy and forestry at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Woodlands in Early Modern Europe, however, were not places where only timber and fuel were produced. Agriculture and forestry were interwoven to an extent that made a forest or a pasture difficult to classify when land was surveyed. Generally, woodlands were not very dense but full of clearings, and these were actively used and managed. Walking on small paths through woodland in the eighteenth century one would have encountered cattle and horses grazing between the trees and pigs searching for acorns. Parts of the forest would have been cultivated for one or two years with wheat and then left to the trees again. Some women and children would have been cutting grass or collecting leaves from the branches to feed their livestock at home. Others would have been raking dead leaves and twigs to be used as litter in the barn, where it would absorb the excreta of the cattle and end up fertilizing the fields. On occasion one would have met wild-looking people with black faces – social outcasts living in the forests to burn charcoal and potash.⁵

Most of the woodlands were part of the agro-forestal system. Forests, which were owned by landlords or by the church, were also subject to agricultural use rights, which had been codified in legal documents since the Late Middle Ages. Wood pasture, for example, was often limited by the number of animals that were allowed to be driven into the forests, and other rights were limited to certain groups of people. These holders defended their rights not only against any attempt by a ruler to restrict them, but also against any outsiders who were not entitled to these rights.⁶

This situation provoked many conflicts when rulers started to tighten their grip on forests. From the sixteenth century, the major trend in the development of forestry in Germany was an increasing control by the emerging state on the woodlands in general, no matter to whom they belonged. This process took place very slowly and was not a linear development. An early and strong protest against the increasing power of rulers over the forest was the Peasants’ War of 1525 in Germany’s south-west. The revolting peasants complained in their ‘Twelve Articles’ – among other grieviences – about the forest policy of the rulers:

[W]e are aggrieved in the matter of woodcutting, for the noble folk have appropriated all the woods to themselves alone. If a poor man requires wood he must pay double for it. It is our opinion in regard to wood that has fallen into the hands of a lord, whether spiritual or temporal, that unless it was duly purchased it should revert again to the community. It should, moreover, be free to every member of the community to help himself to such firewood as he needs in his home.⁷

The peasants’ demands refer to three important developments in the history of German forests. First, the rebels accused rulers and landlords of usurpation of common woodlands. Common property should therefore either be paid for or given back. This idea of shared property that could be used equally by all the (entitled) members of the community was irreconcilable with the lords’ claim of unlimited control of the forests. It also ran counter to the idea of unrestricted private property, as the liberal movement had introduced by the end of eighteenth century. Only a few forests were not subject to use rights by people other than the owner. Whether the lords owned a forest legitimately (dominium directum) or not, they could not handle them arbitrarily as they had to accept that others had rights (dominium utile) in these woodlands.

Secondly, the claim of high wood prices referred to the early process of commercialization of timber and wood. From the fifteenth century onwards, in some regions and close to rivers and towns, timber and wood from the princely forests became a commodity. Because of high transportation costs, the price for wood rose with the distance to be covered for delivery. After a dozen or so kilometres overland the price would double. Peasants were far from accepting of the idea that firewood should be commericialized, but considered fuel as a bare necessity of life (Notdurft). Commercialization of timber was, however, implicitly accepted. The concept of free access to woodlands for legitimate necessities was an integral part of the ‘moral economy’ of the peasants. This explains why over the following three centuries peasants violated the forest ordinances and committed forest offences on a large scale. A large majority of the rural population (including many city dwellers who often made a living from agriculture) were still exempted from the commercialized wood market because they could meet their demand for fuel from their own or communal woodlands, by use right and by collecting dead wood.⁸

Thirdly, the process of regulating forests is set in the broader context of Early Modern state formation. This has been a major focus of German environmental history. Starting with a controversy about whether a wood and timber shortage actually existed in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century, or whether this ‘timber scare’ merely provided legitimacy for the princes to tighten the control over resource use and to integrate the territories politically.⁹

From this point, historians have looked back to the beginning of the modern state around 1500.¹⁰ The Early Modern ruler’s task was no longer limited to the maintenance of peace and justice, but princes claimed competence in regulating the whole of social and economic production. The new printing technology made possible not only the fast diffusion of political demands, such as the ‘Twelve Articles’, and an increasing number of new regulations and laws. From the 1530s onwards, hundreds of forest ordinances that regulated the management of the forests were enacted, and even the smallest territories introduced many consecutive forest laws. The most prominent argument to legitimize these new regulations and to extend the competence of the state was the claim of deforestation and wood shortage. The ‘state ordinance’ from Württemberg of 1495 referred to ‘the great shortage of wood for fuel and building’. Although this ordinance did not yet intend to establish full control of the woodlands, it paved the way for later forest regulations like the forest ordinance of 1540. Here again, the Duke of Württemberg legitimized his intervention to prevent ‘future loss and shortage of wood, that … plainly lies before the eye’, and guarantee that ‘our people will suffer and endure no shortage of wood’.¹¹ Social historians have stressed that the basic issue in the ordinances had not been an actual threat to forests, but the establishment of territorial authority.¹²

They were correct to question the validity of the claim in forest ordinances as evidence of real wood shortages. Such scarcities, nevertheless, must have existed in some way – perhaps not as a general shortage of wood and timber, but some woods for special purposes and in special qualities might have been scarce in several places. It would not have been possible to claim a general shortage of wood if the population had not experienced this to some degree. The claim of wood shortage was not limited to rulers; often iron, brick and glass producers lamented the lack of firewood, either to exclude other competitors from its use or sometimes even to contest the forest policy of the sovereign.¹³ Villagers and other political bodies turned the argument against their rulers and criticized their wood-trading policy or over-felling.¹⁴ Towns and communities also passed regulations on their common forests – in many cases in order to exclude the poor as population increased.¹⁵ Wood shortage thus was the founding concept of a discourse about forest regulation, and provided the founding myth for forestry in Germany.

The critique of social historians has emphasized the resistance of peasants against the newly emerging state. Offences against forest laws and theft of wood were often interpreted as social protest.¹⁶ In most territories, however, the majority of the people accepted rule as long as the traditional forest rights and the agricultural uses of the woodlands were not called into question. Recent research has shown that there was no fundamental opposition of the rural population to forest regulation, but that the activity of the central government paralleled the desire of communities to regulate their own woodlands at a local level. Municipal legislation could influence initiatives by ducal foresters, and vice versa. Hostility towards the central government was not on woodland regulation as such, which peasants saw as necessary, but it was primarily focused on hunting laws, the commercialization of wood and the complementary suppression of common rights. The power of the Early Modern state was still limited, and depended for its operations on the cooperation and consent of the population.¹⁷

Early forest laws were generally not intended to introduce new forms of forest management, but asserted the right to limit use by others. This legal approach did encourage restrictions rather than afforestation or silviculture. The ordinances were intended to give more power to the supervising forest officials, to survey stocks and to counter corruption and theft. Only a few territories had foresters, and most of the forest domains were still administered by the treasury. Hunters and guards looked after woodlands and made sure that the population respected the forest ordinances. They did not receive regular salaries, but had their own economies and took a share of fines and sales. Of course, this was an invitation for corruption, and forest guards did not have a good reputation. The revenues from fines often exceeded those from timber trade. In some forests, especially those close to large consuming industries like iron works, the state or communal administration tried to rebuilt forests that had been overused, and there is some evidence of early nurseries for oak and the planting of other trees such as fast-growing conifers – for example, in the imperial city of Nürnberg in the fourteenth century.¹⁸ Around salines, as in the eastern Alpine town of Berchtesgaden,¹⁹ and in mining areas such as the Harz,²⁰ even abstract conservation ideas such as the ‘eternal forest’ and ‘sustained use’ were ventilated before the eighteenth century. Also, coppices provided a form of sustainable woodland management that was well known in many parts of Europe: deciduous trees, mainly oak and beech,