Trees, Forests and People (Mar 2024)
An historical review of forests and warfare from the Romans to the twenty-first century
Abstract
Trees, woods, and forests impact on warfare through their roles as terrain, and as important or even essential resources. Furthermore, since ancient times, access to the resources provided by forests has been the direct cause of major conflicts (Rotherham, 2024). For early civilisations as in the Mediterranean region for instance, the loss of forest resources through over-exploitation or conquest from outside, could cause collapse (Perlin, 1989). Indeed, as regional timber resources were exhausted and supply-lines to necessary forests became over-extended, there was inevitable strain on social and economic or political structures. Woods and forests also provided essential resources for the successful waging of war and for the undertaking of military campaigns, and this was the case from antiquity and certainly up until the First World War (Cana, 1920; Rotherham, 2024; Pearson et al., 2010).Along with trees, woods, and forests as resources, forested landscapes have influenced conflicts through their roles as the settings within which military campaigns were implemented (Cana, 1920; Clayton, 2012). Forested countryside has proved critical in tipping the balance of conflict between, for example, native, indigenous peoples and external forces often unfamiliar with the local terrain. The forest influences the type of warfare waged and the nature of resistance to invasion by external forces. Indeed, history is populated by examples whereby superior, external, military forces have been unable to suppress or remove much smaller and technologically inferior communities fighting from a forested homeland (Grunwald, 2006; Perrett, 1990).Finally, all the above-mentioned factors result in warfare impacting of forested countryside when a conflict takes place. This impact occurs for various and varied reasons from simple over-exploitation of the resources for fuel, construction, or other uses, or because in times of conflict the usual processes governing the uses of forest resources break down (Pearson, 2012; Matteson, 2015). A result may be a long-term impact of forest or woodland degradation because of the short-term over-utilization during conflicts.These issues are explored with examples to illustrate the processes and consequences of forested countryside influencing warfare, and the impacts of war on trees, woods, and forests.
