Deforestation Resulting from European Shipbuilding :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

Deforestation Resulting from European Shipbuilding Historical texts have documented the countless technologies, ideas, diseases, plants and animals the European ships delivered around the world during the Age of Exploration. However, these texts fail to include one key cargo item: deforestation. European shipbuilding triggered an epidemic of forest depletion that gradually spread to the lands they encountered. Beginning in the early fourteenth century, wood fueled the increased production of exploratory sea vessels. The loss of trees coincided with the rapid rate of shipbuilding. Eventually, Europeans exploited their timber reserves to such an extreme that they began looking elsewhere for wood, including colonies in North America and Southeast Asia. With newfound resources, the European shipbuilding machine churned on, yet before long deforestation also became an issue in the colonial areas. Although shipbuilding played an integral role in a period of European advancement, it devastated not only the European environment but the fores ts of other continents as well. Prior to the Age of Exploration, hardwood trees blanketed all of Europe to form a forest
giOB47;comparable in size to the Amazon Basin† (David Morse). Forest density was intense, such that â€Å"scattered clearings must have appeared like islets in an ocean of green† (Morse). Nevertheless, as humans discovered the value of wood as fuel for warmth, deforestation followed close behind. The progression of human technologies presented more uses for timber. Eventually, wood became a staple in a wide range of manufacturing processes, among them shipbuilding. The production of sea vessels put extreme pressure on the oldest and largest trees in European forests; the massive tree trunks that were years in the making were also the best suited for the immense hulls of open sea ships. For every ship built, the environment lost some of its oldest flora members, who were unfortunately also the hardest to replace. Shipbuilding was also closely intertwined with another forest consuming industry: metallurgy, especially iron production. Iron comprised the weaponry and structural support aboard many sea vessels. Because the production of iron required high temperatures, the demand for firewood grew to almost insatiable proportions. Thus, the amount of timber invested in shipbuilding included more than just the lumber for the hulls. As David Morse points out, the trend in metallurgy history dictated that â€Å"wherever ironmaking took over . . . it did away with the forest† (Morse). In effect, shipbuilding and its association with iron production impacted the forest landscape two-fold.