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 Managing Northern Europe's Forests 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.
List of tables, maps and Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: State Forestry in Northern Europe / Richard Hölzl and K. Jan Oosthoek
Chapter 1. Forestry in Germany, c1550-2000 / Bernd-Stefan Grewe and Richard Hölzl
Chapter 2. State Forestry in the Netherlands: from Liberalism to Nature Creation / K. Jan Oosthoek
Chapter 3. State forestry in Belgium since the End of the Eighteenth Century / Pierre-Alain Tallier, Hilde Verboven, Kris Vandekerkhove, Hans Baeté and Kris Verheyen
Chapter 4. Origins and Development of State Forestry in the United Kingdom / K. Jan Oosthoek
Chapter 5. State and Forestry in Denmark from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twenty-First Century / Bo Fritzbøger
Chapter 6. State Forestry in Norway / Lars Helge Frivold and Asbjørn Svendsrud
Chapter 7. Swedish State Forestry, 1790-2000 / Per Eliasson and Erik Törnlund
Chapter 8. Finnish Forestry in a Long-Term Perspective / Heikki Roiko-Jokela
Chapter 9. The History of State Forests and Forestry in Poland / Anna Majchrowska
Conclusion: National Histories, Shared Legacies: State Forestry in Northern Europe in Comparison / Richard Hölzl and K. Jan Oosthoek
Glossary of terms
Index
K. Jan Oosthoek is an environmental historian based in Brisbane, Australia. He is author of Conquering the Highlands: A History of the Afforestation of the Scottish Uplands (2013). He has also served as vice-president of the European Society for Environmental History (2005–2007) and manages the website “Environmental History Resources” (www.eh-resources.org).
Richard Hölzl is a researcher for the German Science Foundation at the University of Göttingen. He is the author of a book on scientific forestry in Germany (Umkämpfte Wälder, 2010) and co-editor of a collection on the global history of missions (Mission Global, 2013). His article Historicizing Sustainability in Science as Culture was awarded the 2011 Best Article Prize by the European Society for Environmental History.
"Although this book is well worth buying for Majchrowska's Polish chapter alone, it offers very much more [...] [This] is a fertile book full of details that will grow into tantalizing questions in the reader's mind."
– Environment and History
"The juxtaposition of these cases from across northern Europe allows for fruitful comparisons and reflection on the evolution of states and their forests in the modern period [...] the editors' concluding essay does a good job of drawing the articles together. Overall, this is a valuable work for those interested in forest history and environmental studies."
– Central European History
"All in all, this volume, thoroughly edited, richly illustrated as well as having a helpful glossary and an equally useful index, offers a substantially new and innovative contribution to the history of forests in Europe. It is well worth reading and exemplary for other areas."
– Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte
"This comprehensive and truly transnational collection provides fascinating comparative studies of the history of forestry. It will be of wide interest to environmental historians and students of silviculture everywhere."
– Tom Brooking, University of Otago