Page 153 - Encyclopedia Of World History

deforestation 503

silent about clearing for agriculture (always the greatest Lynn White, historian of medieval technology, called
cause of deforestation) that must have gone on every- “the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages” (1962, 6),
where.This was to be a common story in later ages too. which asserted the dominance of humans over nature. It
The chopping down of trees as a prelude to farming and also shifted the focus of Europe from south to north, from
providing food was so commonplace that it simply did the restricted lowlands around the Mediterranean to the
not warrant a mention, but settlement patterns and crop great forested plains drained by the Loire, Seine, Rhine,
figures show how extensive it must have been. Elbe, Danube, and Thames. Here the distinctive features
The Middle Ages in western and central Europe were of the medieval world developed—a buildup of techno-
entirely different. Here an energetic, inventive, and rapidly logical competence, self-confidence, and accelerated
expanding population left ample records of forest clear- change—which after 1500 enabled Europe to invade and
ing through charters, rent rolls, court cases, field patterns, colonize the rest of the world. In that long process of
and place names. Clearing was motivated by a strong reli- global expansion the forest and the wealth released from
gious belief that humans were helping to complete the it played a central part.
creation of a divine, designed earth and a desire by lay Massive deforestation must also have happened in
and ecclesiastical lords to expand rental revenues by China but the detail is murky.The population rose from
encouraging settlement on the forest frontier. Also, indi- about 65–80 million in 1400 CE to 270 million in
viduals wanted to achieve social freedom, property, and 1770, and land in agriculture quadrupled. Large swaths
emancipation by breaking free of the rigid feudal ties. of the forested lands in the central and southern
Undoubtedly three technical innovations helped raise provinces were certainly engulfed by an enormous migra-
agricultural production. First, the dominant system of two tion of peoples from the north.
fields with one fallow was replaced by a three-field sys-
tem, thus shortening the fallow period.This was possible The Modern World
because new crops like oats and legumes helped to fer- (1500–c. 1900 CE)
tilize the soil and supplemented animal and human nutri- During the roughly 400 years from 1492 to about 1900
tion. Second, the development of the wheeled plow with Europe burst out of its continental confines with far-
coulter and moldboard allowed cultivation to move from reaching consequences for the global forests. Its capital-
the light soils onto the heavy moist soils that were usu- istic economy commoditized nearly all it found, creating
ally forested.Third, plowing efficiency was improved by wealth out of nature, whether it be land, trees, animals,
the invention of the rigid horse collar and nailed horse- plants, or people. Enormous strains were put on the
shoes, increasing speed and pulling power, thus favoring global forest resource by a steadily increasing population
the horse over the ox. A major underlying driving force (c. 400 million in 1500 to 1.65 billion in 1900), also by
was a sixfold increase of population between 650 and rising demands for raw materials and food with urban-
1350 and the need of more food to avert famine. ization and industrialization, first in Europe and, after the
Cultivation rose from about 5 percent of land use in mid-nineteenth century, in the United States. In the
the sixth century CE to 30–40 percent by the late Middle mainly temperate neo-European areas, settler societies
Ages.The forests of France were reduced from 30 million were planted and created. Permanent settlement began in
hectares to 13 million hectares between around 800 and earnest by the 1650s after the near elimination of the indi-
1300 CE. In Germany and central Europe, perhaps 70 genes by virulent Old World pathogens, like smallpox,
percent of the land was forest-covered in 900 CE but only measles, and influenza. The imported Old World crops
about 25 percent remained by 1900. and stock flourished wonderfully.The dominant ethos of
The various elements interlocked to produce what freehold tenure, dispersed settlement, “improvement,”