Environmental history

Environmental history of the World

The Role of Wood in World History

Today it is hard to believe that in antiquity vast forests were growing in the Middle East. However, during the early part of the third millennium BCE, the mountain slopes of this region were covered with massive cedar forests. These forests disappeared in the millennia before Christ’s birth about two thousand years ago. The destruction of the cedar forests of the Middle East is told in the oldest know, surviving written story in the world: The epic of Gilgamesh. The epic was written in Mesopotamia sometime during in the 3rd millennium BCE. The second episode of the epic is known as “The forest Journey” and is the story of deforestation in the Middle East

Environmental history of Britain

History of the British landscape Articles on the environmental history of Britain

A Green and Pleasant Land: a history of Britain’s rural landscape. Excellent article “Nearly every part of Britain’s countryside has been touched by man at some stage in history – from the barren deforested Peak District cleared by slash-and-burn in neolithic times, to the New Forest created as a hunting ground by William the Conqueror in 1079, to the Fens, watermeadows of Hampshire, and the Broads of Norfolk which are the result of peat extraction during the Middle Ages.”

Environmental history of India

History of forests in India

All ancient texts have some mention of the forest and the activities that were performed in these areas. Forests were revered by the people and a large number of religious ceremonies centred on trees and plants. The Agni Purana, written about 4000 years ago, stated that man should protect trees to have material gains and religious blessings. Around 2500 years ago, Gautama Buddha preached that man should plant a tree every five years. Sacred groves were marked around the temples where certain rules and regulations applied.

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