Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
a rapid growing of fuel weights, and of the distances needed to be covered, thus
fostering the shift from
rewood to charcoal provision.
We have already seen the close connection that existed between the growth of
London and other British industrial cities, and coal extraction in England and
Wales.
104
But how did other European cities cope, since they could not expect to be
supplied with coal in the same way at the time? We know, for example, that in order
to provide Madrid with charcoal during the 18th century the annual output of
almost all woods in an area of 70,000 km
2
was required, which represents nearly
15 % of the total area of Spain.
105
More than 17,000 tons were transported every
year within a range of 100 km to supply a population of 164,000 inhabitants
in Madrid in 1787, with an average of 154 kg of charcoal per inhabitant a year
(0.4 kg/inhabitant/day). Assuming the usual ef
ciency in a charcoal burner, this
meant 2 kg of primary
rewood per inhabitant a day mainly for domestic purposes.
Adding another half a kilo burnt for different industrial activities, we would reach
2.5 kg/inhabitant/day in the pre-industrial city of Madrid. This
gure would have
been 66 % higher than the average consumption of fuel wood estimated by Paolo
Malanima in the pre-industrial Mediterranean Europe, and more than double the
minimum supply recorded in Sicily.
106
We must bear in mind, however, that up to a point charcoal, as well as
rewood,
could have been kept exploited as a sustainable renewable source, as long as they
were made out of small logs shredded, pollarded or cut from coppice-woods in the
North-Atlantic regions, and lopped from dehesa-types of open forests turned into
wood pastures in the Mediterranean South.
107
Even the pruning of vines and olive
or almond tress could have been used that way.
108
According to Rolf Peter Sieferle,
“
rst sight there was no shortage of fuel. It was always possible, and with little
effort, to produce
at
] by establishing coppices. In general, it can be said
that the fuel aspect was only part of the wood crisis, and that part most easily open
to a traditional solution
rewood [
…
”
. He concludes that
“
the wood crisis of the eighteenth
century was in the
re-
wood in combination with agricultural uses of woodlands made it increasingly
dif
rst place a timber crisis. The enormous consumption of
.
109
The cautious scepticism of A.T. Grove and Oliver Rackham goes even further
when they oppose the
cult to
nd old tree stands that were suitable for construction
”
myth with the hypothesis that, instead of
a true deforestation, human impacts over Southern Europe mainly altered different
types of the ever dynamic forest and shrub covers that characterize the Mediter-
ranean environment (open-tall dehesa-type of savannah instead of a thick-short
'
Ruined Landscape
'
104
Allen (
2009
).
105
Bravo (
1993
).
106
Malanima (
2001
).
107
Cl
ment (
2008
).
108
Grove and Rackham (
2001
).
109
é
Sieferle (
2001
).
