Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ever-increasing role in reforestation efforts, which in turn leads us to giving addi-
tional explanations for our focus on smallholder tree growing. We will then discuss
smallholders' motivations and controlling factors for growing trees on their farms
and land elsewhere. We proceed with a review of the rise and development of vari-
ous concepts related to smallholder tree growing for those Asian countries that will
be discussed in the separate chapters of this topic. The chapter will be closed off
with an overview of the remaining chapters in this topic.
1.2
A Historical Sketch
Records on the oldest practices of tree growing mostly refer to the growing of trees
near dwellings in order to provide products for subsistence and home consumption,
i.e., the so-called homegardens. Soemarwoto (1987) suggests, based on Brownrigg's
literature review of 1985, the earliest evidence of homegarden cultivation in the Near
Eastern region dates back to 3000 B.C. and possibly 7000 B.C. Yet, in a recent publi-
cation Wiersum (2006) relates the origin of homegardening to 13,000 to 9,000 B.C.,
a period during which fishing communities were living in moist tropical regions.
Early evidences of use and management of forest resources in China also date
back to a distant past. For example, oracle-bone inscriptions with graphs of agricul-
tural words from the Sh¯ ng dynasty (ca. 1600-ca. 1046 B.C.) suggest trees in
Sh¯ ng agriculture played a role comparable to that of trees in agroforestry systems
today (Menzies 1996). Early scripts written during the Zh¯ u dynasty (1122-256
B.C.) refer to systems of forest manipulation and tree cultivation directed at the
maintenance of forest productivity through, amongst others, carefully scheduled
timber harvesting activities (Menzies 1996). At this time, and also later during the
Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220; Needham 1986), forest-related activities were
predominantly controlled by the nobles, i.e., the farmland-owning classes. Much
later in the early 20th century, when the first western scientists started to work in
the severely degraded forest areas of northern China, Lowdermilk (1926 in Menzies
1996) discovered indigenous systems of silviculture in protected temple forests, in
forests owned collectively by villages and temple associations and in densely popu-
lated suburban areas.
In the western world it was only in the Middle Ages that forestry practices were
formally developed under the rule of the nobility, i.e., the highest social class, and
implemented by farmers and laborers of lower social classes in the, at the time,
prevailing feudal system (Shepherd et al. 1998). The more systematic forestry prac-
tices for timber purposes are believed to have begun in the 16th century in the
German states (James 1996). In the eastern world, plantation forestry started in
Japan during the Tokugawa period in the 17th century as a response to the increas-
ing demand for wood and the deterioration of forest resources. It was initially
mainly aimed at water conservation and erosion control, for example in the north-
ern part of the main island Honshu (Totman 1985), and in the 18th century increas-
ingly directed at timber production, practiced on both land of feudal lords and
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