Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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Figure 9.2
The Normalbaum (literally normal tree or forest) idealized as a set of dis-
crete, even-aged forest stands in various stages of regrowth after harvesting. This is
the abstracted ideal of 20th century, scientifi c, sustained yield forestry and has been
critical to making forests legible, which in turn enables their rational conversion to
wood based commodities. Such scientifi c representations, whatever else they may
accomplish, facilitate the abstraction of timber and indeed whole forests from specifi c
social and ecological contexts, making them commensurate across space and time and
thereby enabling exchange and commodifi cation to proceed. Reprinted with permis-
sion from Demeritt (2001).
wheat or any other large-scale market could simply not occur. Similar processes and
arguments could be inferred from the commodifi cation of many biophysical inputs,
from grades of logs and lumber to oil (typically indexed by price and quality to
regional variants, e.g., Saudi crude). Moreover, the abstractions that underpin far-
fl ung exchanges tie the commodifi cation of nature to systems of representation more
broadly - including weights and measures but also natural science - as regimes of
calculation and expertise that more generally make nature and territory 'legible' and
governable (Scott, 1998; Mitchell, 2002).
David Demeritt (2001), for instance, examines the development of key techniques
for representing forest resources in the context of 20th century American scientifi c
forest management, including via the uptake of the concept of the
Normalbaum
or
'normal forest' from the European tradition of scientifi c forestry (see fi gure 9.2). As
Demeritt argues (drawing on the conceptual work of Timothy Mitchell and Michel
Foucault), these representations allowed the liquidation but also conservation of
forest resources in America to become (or at least appear to be) calculable and
coherent socio-ecological projects; they thus underpinned the emergence of state-
centred forest management as a form of governmentality (literally the conduct of
