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chains in driving forward forest clearances of
different kinds. This chapter also considers the role
of governments and NGOs in attempting to
conserve forest resources and in developing more
sustainable forest management practices.
This chapter begins with an account of the
impacts of human economic development on
global forest resources. The section that follows
outlines the role of corporations and the global
market place in shaping human relations with
forests. The final two sections of this chapter
introduce case study examples. The first considers
the operations of the United Fruit Company in the
jungles of Central America. The second case study
explores the operation of 'big box' timber retailers
and their role in coordinating the global timber
commodity chain.
Things really began to change in the nature of
forest coverage in Europe in 4000
BCE
. It is at this
point that human societies started to shift their
lifestyles from the hunting and gathering of food
to more sedentary agricultural ways of life (see
Chapter 4 f
or a more detailed discussion of the
agricultural revolution). The growing of crops
and rearing of domestic animals had a series of
profound impacts on human civilization. As we
will see in
Chapter 6,
this agricultural shift enabled
the birth of the first large-scale cities. But this
transformation in the way in which humans
produced food also had significant environmental
consequences. In order to develop effective agri-
cultural systems, early human communities had
to clear away the woodlands that would have
obscured the light needed to grow crops and made
animal husbandry difficult to achieve. Over time
forest clearance practices were also driven by the
need for fuel and the demand for wood in home
and ship construction industries. The processes
that led to the clearance of woodlands some 6000
years ago mean that today more than half of the
primordial forest that covered the Earth has now
been felled (see Dauvergne and Lister, 2011: 2). But
the rate of forest clearance is accelerating. Since
1950 the deforestation of original woodlands has
been equivalent to the rates of loss that had
occurred over the previous 6000 years (Dauvergne
and Lister, 2011: 2).
Things are, however, more complicated and
ecologically problematic than these aggregate
figures suggest. If we consider the geography of
deforestation in recent years, we notice significant
changes in its distribution. In many Western
European nations there is a now a drive towards
the preservation of ancient woodlands and refor-
estation. In other areas of the world, deforestation
is accelerating. In Russia, for example, the boreal
forest (forests found in cold sub-Arctic climates)
is being heavily exploited as part the country's
resource-based strategy for economic develop-
ment. In emerging economies, such as Brazil and
China, deforestation has provided an important
basis for economic expansion as these countries
5.2 TRANSFORMING FORESTS:
REFLECTIONS ON THE
LONG ANTHROPOCENE
As I sit writing this chapter in the hills of west
Wales, the view through my window appears to be
quintessentially natural. The rolling hills, sheep
pastures and small clutches of trees appear to be
timeless and eternal. In fact nothing could be
farther from the truth. If we return to the pre-
agricultural period of 6000 to 10,000 years ago,
much of the area I can see through my window
would have been covered in woodlands (see Kaplan
et al, 2009). There is still much scientific debate
concerning the nature of the woodland that existed
at this point in time, with some suggesting a fairly
continuous, closed-canopy style woodland, while
others claim that the early Holocene landscape was
a mixed landscape of 'pasture woodland' (Coelho,
lands I can see through my windowpane today are
not even remnants of this older forest. They are
either modern industrial pine plantations, or
second growth woodlands that have gradually
repopulated this area. So what has been happening
to this arboreal landscape over the last 10,000
years?
