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Today's Topics:

I. FEAR OF FORESTS

Psychological term, therefore treatable by medical doctors!

Fairy tales, movies today

Who in the US population is afraid of forests

II. UTILITARIAN Attitudes towards FORESTS:

SOCIETAL COLLAPSE AFTER OVER-EXPLOITING FORESTS

(1) Sumaria – Epic of Gilgamesh & building a civilization using

Cedar forests; Too much salt in your agricultural fields

(2) Easter Island – Cut forests competing to build large statues; No

FOOD - Ate all animals on island, No ag, No fishing boats

BENEDICTINE ORDER (CATHOLIC CHURCH) & the START of

DEFORESTATION IN EUROPE

Start deforesting Europe [not over-exploitative]

Wood scarcity first emerges as a societal issue

Benedictine order develops 1st good forest practices driven by

wood scarcity (coppice, pollard systems)

3http://strugglingpixels.blogspot.com/2014/02/back-from-dead_24.html#.VRMskHlFDcs [art of cristi balanescu]

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Do you have anxiety or panic attacks

that debilitate you when you go into a

FOREST at NIGHT TIME??

If you do, you are a

Nyctohylophobiac!!

Fortunately you are not alone!! You have

lots of company in your phobia.

Fear of Forests

LOOK Psychological/Medical Terms

describing fear of forests!!

Hylophobia =

An abnormal fear of forests

Nyctohylophobia =

Morbid fear of dark wooded

areas, or of forests at night

Fear of Forests

Kristiina Side Note: Once you attach a name to something it becomes

SCIENTIFIC and PEOPLE IN WHITE ROBES will want to cure you!!

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/nyctohylophobia

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Symptoms of Nyctohylophobia:

• Unable to get enough air into your lungs

• Excessive sweating

• Fast heart beat

• Fainting or losing consciousness

• Unable to control the trembling of your limbs

• Unable to think

• ETC

Fear of Forests

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http://twelfthbough.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html; http://vicarioustherapy.blogspot.com/2008/09/okay-i-am-angry.html

Is this just a frightening place??

Fear of Forests

8Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs http://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2012/06/into-dark-forest.html

What about

fairy tales

that you are

read as a

kid??

Disney

images

Little Red Riding Hood

What happened to Little Red Riding Hood???

Fear of Forests

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walter_Crane26.jp;

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‘Hansel and Gretel tale of Separation Anxiety - an essential

fear in children

Hansel and Gretel are abandoned alone in the woods. The witch is

essence of separation anxiety, but children manage to overcome

her & vanquish their fear of abandonment

SLIGHT DETOUR on Separation Anxiety: Simpson

Timber selling wooden doors using images of closed doors - low

sales. French psychologist said you need to open the door - babies

fear being left alone in a room with a closed door. Kept doors open -

sales went up. So what happens to you as a kid matter!!

Fear of Forests

http://www.umich.edu/~engl415/childad/child.htm)

Another example separation anxiety is the Native American

folktale -Wendigo. In Meet the Monsters, Wendigo is a horrible

monster that eats children who are alone in the forest. Children's

fears of getting lost & being separated from their parents. http://www.umich.edu/~engl415/childad/child.htm

Algonquian couple,

18th-century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquian_people

“Wendigo” comes

from the Native

American

Algonquian

language, meaning

“evil spirit that

devours mankind.” http://demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/2010/06

/wendigo.html

Fear of Forests

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Ichabod Crane and the Headless

Horseman – popular during Halloween!!

Scary Forest Stories are

intergenerational – Still read today!!

Fear of Forests

OTHER

Causes of

forest fear:

wild animals

hunting you

for food,

being killed,

or catching

a disease

[e.g.,

malaria]!!

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Nyctohylophobia is a learned phobia that many develop

as children so you can blame your PARENTS!

Bed time stories:

In many societies, recount tales of what happens in

the woods at night!!

Used by parents to keep children from going into

forests because of wild animals that live in forests &

might kill them

Reflect children’s fear being separated from their

parents.

Fear of Forests

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Movies maintain feelings of horror or impending death when

traveling through a dark forest (e.g., Hunger Games, Lord of the

Rings, Harry Potter, etc).

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss

Everdeen in "The Hunger Games."

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: March 22, 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hunger_games.jpg

TODAY Fear of Forests continues in new books/movies

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Walking Deadhttps://ewpopwatch.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/walking-dead-

walking.gif

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16http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ForbiddenForest.jpg

Do you recognize which movie this is from and where does it take place??

The Forbidden Forest – Hagrid’s Hut and

several other scenes in Harry Potter movies

Harris poll (1999) in US [% Americans afraid of

being alone in a forest]:

• 13% of the US population extremely afraid

41% are very or somewhat afraid

• 22% of women afraid compared to 4% of men

• 18% of the population with either a high school

or lower education afraid

• 7% of the college graduates afraid

• 4% of those with postgraduate education afraid (Taylor 1999)

QUESTION: Do you think the poll results are

relevant for indigenous communities??

Fear of Forests

Repercussions of Fearing Forests

EITHER• No impact on forests since people

avoid going into them

OR• Total destruction of forests, i.e.,

get rid of them!!

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Next Topic for Today UTILITARIAN Attitudes towards

FORESTS:

Two Examples of Societal Collapse after Over-exploiting

Forests for their Utilitarian Values

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DEFINITION OF Utilitarian =

a doctrine that everything has a use &

should be used

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Historical FACT:

Forest Over-

exploitation

= or contributes to

Societal Collapse

Our First Story

Sumaria

Over exploitation of cedar forests in mountains when building first large civilization

Human food security lost: erosion, too much salt in agricultural fields, crops not grow in lowlands

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

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Let’s go back thousand’s of years to Mesopotamia

and talk about it’s forests [NOTE: this is present day Iraq,

Iran, Syria and Turkey]

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

– 1st recorded epic

recounting a

mythological story

• recorded over 4000

years ago on 11 clay

tablets

• entitled – Epic of

Gilgamesh

Fragment of

Gilgamesh Tablet

11 (British

Museum)

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

CAST of CHARACTERS: Gilgamesh,

King of Sumer, with the help of Enkidu, wild

man, killed a demon named Humbaba

Gilgamesh was

searching for

immortality, i.e.,

he didn’t want to

die

24(Terracotta relief, c. 2000 BCE) , [From Time/Life's series, MYTH AND MANKIND:

Epics of Early Civilization: Middle Eastern Myth, 1998:80]

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

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• This epic describes the over-

exploitation of the cedar forests in

present day Mesopotamia

• After killing the demon, they cut down

the trees and floated them back to the

great city of Uruk

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

The great civilizations of

Mesopotamia built at the expense of

seemingly endless cedar forests

(ca. 2500 – 2000 BCE)

Within the greater

Mesopotamia, Sumer

was the first great

culture!

Cedars

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

WOOD built the Sumerian Civilization

- Houses built of wood [logs, roof beams]

- Levers

- Pegs and rungs of ladders

- Posts and rods for basketry

- Boats planks and boards, boat ribs

- Farming - hoes, plows, handles etc.

- Branches and twigs made charcoal

- Branch bundles used to reinforce banks

of canals, rivers

(a la Professor Bob Gara)

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Archeological

restoration of a

house in Ur --

heavy

use of wooden

timbers

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The Sumerians founded the great city of

Ur at the peak of the “Bronze Age”

- bronze tools such as axes, hammers, hoes, and sickles

facilitated common labor

ANSWER: wood used to make charcoal which burned

at high enough temperature to heat foundry furnaces

to melt rock ore to get copper used to make bronze

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QUESTION: Why do you need wood during a

bronze age?

ANSWER: Copper and tin (makes bronze) melting point is

950°C or 1,742° F

[HOW HOT IS THIS? Or what is the temperature of hot tubs?]

• The growing civilization of the Euphrates-Tigris River

basin created a large demand on timber resources;

great battles were fought for these resources!

• Sumerians ultimately gained control of the forests

• They developed a log transportation system using

the Euphrates & Tigris Rivers to float logs to markets

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

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• Trees were felled and placed in the river systems

causing salt, silt, logs, wooden debris to fill the upper

reaches of the waterways

• Hillsides and mountainous areas were bared and the

salt-rich sedimentary rocks of the north eroded

rapidly

“…salt-rich

sedimentary

rocks…”

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

QUESTION? What finally caused them to reach a tipping point?

Sumerian

civilization

Larger

Mesopotamian

civilization

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Increased salinization

of the alluvial soils of

Sumeria COINCIDED

with the onset of

Mesopotamian

exploitation of its

northern timberlands

• Barley first domesticated grain in the world(in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond argues barley

allowed Eurasian civilizations to survive & conquer others)

• In 2,400 BCE, harvests of barley comparable

to modern-day U.S. harvest

BUT Increased salinization was nonreversible &

caused progressive decline in crop yields:

•Three hundred years later,

yields dropped by 42%

As Bob

Gara

would

say

Damn!

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

Barley

Some final words about this ancient area:

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- Barley production collapsed and so did Sumeria

- Declining food production due to soil-salinization

was the main factors in collapse of the Sumerians

What

did we

do

wrong?

RESULT:

Center of

human

development

moved north

(a la Professor Bob Gara)34

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

Then

Now

The cedar

forests of

Mesopotamia

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Or if you have not

had enough hints,

which country has

a cedar tree on its

flag today??

QUESTION: Where

else can you find an

image of a cedar

tree today that is not

in nature?

Many Islamic artists

have tried to

resurrect

these ancient

forests

in paintings

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Ecological/economic disasters caused by destruction of forests &

watersheds is old story people have repeated throughout history

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We still find ruins of old civilizations which is amazing considering we

think we know all parts of the world. See the Honduran Rainforest

City of the Monkey God reported in National Geographic March 2015

(in readings). Hard to find in dense jungles.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2015/03/lost-culture-uncovered-deep-in-untouched-jungle?utm_campaign=email-news-weekly&utm_src=email

Reason hard to find

Another example: Look at the Khmer

Empire

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http://news.sciencemag.org/signal

-noise/2014/04/watch-explore-

ruins-angkor-wat-google

“Fall of .. Khmer Empire ..late 14th to early 15th

centuries .. included war ..land overexploitation.

..recent evidence ..prolonged droughts ..linked to

..decline of Angkor ..., tree rings .. Vietnam

suggest .. region experienced long spans of

drought interspersed with unusually heavy

rainfall.”

http://www.livescience.com/17702-drought-collapse-ancient-city-angkor.html

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Easter Island

Competition to build big statues

Cut forests down to move statues around the island

Ate everything edible on island

No wood to build boats for fishing

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Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

RESULT: Human food security lost, starvation and death

One of many theories!!

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ONE

THEORY

Why Easter

Island

civilization

collapsed:

deforestation

caused by

building of

large statues

for religious

purposes

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_Island_map-en.svg

History of Easter Island:

• No wars between 11 or 12 clans

• Rivalry between clans based on

which clan could sculpt,

transport largest statue to

their territory (immense 8 meter

high stone statues called moai)

Past – pollen records suggest

looked like this (forests)

TODAY – no large

trees remaining42

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moai_Rano_raraku.jpg

Today - Grasslands

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http://www.plantapalm.com/vpe/photos/Species/jubaea_chilensis.htm

Palm trees existed on

Easter Island whose

trunk exceeded

2 meters (7 feet) in

diameter

The Chilean palm

above (considered

biggest palm in the

world today) is a

dwarf in comparison

to palms that grew on

Easter Island43

Sophora toromiro – endemic mimosa

once native & abundant shrub on Easter

Island. Wood collection, grazing decimated

this shrub.http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/plants_and_algae/Sophora_toromiro/GES002185.html?size

=large

Easter Island had

21 tree species

before 1400 CE

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NOTE: Easter Island has not supported native plant

species since 1962

Between 1400 – 1600,

16 tree species vanished

Crop yields decreased

in 1400’s due to

deforestation, soil

erosion

So where do trees fit

into this?? One

THEORY

• Wood used to build:

-massive sleds to hold the statues

-wooden skids

(looked like giant ladder)

laid from quarry to the site

• Fibrous tree bark used to make

ropes pulled by 50-500 people

• Today 300 stone platforms and

113 with statues (25 large ones)

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Easter Islanders have re-enacted this theory successfully

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Moai carvers where skilled stonecutters

and honored craftsmen - part of

privileged class dedicated to carving

statues.

The moai were carved in the walls of

the crater, shape of the body with its

back attached to the ground by a thin

keel which was only chipped away

when the carving was complete.

When the front of the statue was

finished it had to be removed from its

keel and slid carefully down the

slope. To accomplish this difficult task

they used ropes to tie the statue to

tree trunks.

http://www.chileculture.org/wp-

content/uploads/2011/08/Easter-Island-unfinished-

moai.png

An unfinished moai found on the

walls of the crater at Ranu Karaku

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?featu

re=player_embedded&v=_RQQOUiB

UMo

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In addition to the wood used to transport the

statues, people still needed wood for other

purposes as well as to get food to survive:

To cremate the dead

Everyday life activities (cooking

fires, construction of houses, etc.)

Build boats to go fishing and make

the fishing hooks

Societal Collapse – Overexploiting Forests

NOTE: Most of the wood went to transporting the statues

so these other needs could not be satisfied

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http://www.inkokomo.com/dolphin/images/dolph99.html,

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/icg/EASTER.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.osdpd.noaa.g

ov/PSB/EPS/icg/east0map.htm&h=1285&w=1039&sz=579&tbnid=Um-

IYSnO1AcJ:&tbnh=150&tbnw=121&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bof%2Beaster%2Bisland%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D&start=1&sa=

X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=0

II. Deforestation so no wood to replace

harpoons or repair canoes, unable to fish to

maintain dolphin in their diet.

I. Easter Island geography

prevents fishing on its

shores; Islanders ate

common dolphin – who

lived far from shore,

required harpooning them

with big seaworthy canoes

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Captain Cook in

1774 described

inhabitants as

“small, lean, timid,

and miserable”(Diamond 2005)

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Easter Island statistics

At peak, 7,000 – 30,000 people lived on Easter Island

Population decimated by 3 smallpox epidemics in 19th century

Peruvian slave ships further decimated population by kidnapping & removing 1,500 inhabitants (Diamond 2005)

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Forest FACTS in Europe before 1200 CE [Europe was

a Medieval society]:

• Forests mainly controlled and used by rulers for

hunting or as private reserves

• The Church was more powerful than Kings and

unified societies during this time

• Forests had little economic value

• Forests were given away by noblemen to the church

to gain the church’s favor or to not pay a tithe[NOTE: 10% tax paid each year to the church as money or goods]

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The Start of European Deforestation

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http://www.slideshare.net/agosta/catholic-church-in-medieval-europe-1322877

NOTE: Need to understand why Europe started deforestation & eventually why Europeans needed to conquer other lands in their search for timber outside their borders

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TODAY’s LECTURE Benedictine Order (Catholic Church) started

deforestation in Europe

However, scarcity of wood in Europe led to the emergence of good forest practices developed by the Benedictine Order

Next lecture:Over-Exploitation of Non-European Forests & European Control of Global Resources

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The Roman Catholic

Church and, in particular,

the Benedictine order have

an important role to play in

deforestation

St. Benedict (480–530 CE)

gave the order its motto:

“Pray and Work”

a la Professor Gara 55

The Start of European Deforestation

St. Benedict established the

first order at Monte Casino in

529 (now central Italy)

By the end of the 7th century

there were 400 Benedictine

monasteries spread all over

Europe

It is the way that new

monasteries “budded-

off” that is interesting

to why European

forests began to be

cut down

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The Start of European Deforestation

(1) As monasteries grew

and monks felt crowded,

they would leave in

groups of 12 and enter

the unknown forests

around them

(2) The new groups

would fell trees,

build huts, till the

newly-created

openings in the

forest would attract

converts and

gradually change

the countryside

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The Start of European Deforestation

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(3) Since forest lands were not too valuable to the

noble-birth who owned the lands, they would

deed tracts of forests to the new cloisters

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The Start of European Deforestation

The monks tamed the forest landscape

• In 1147 King Conrad III, a Germanic nobleman, gave large

tracts of forested lands to the Cistercian monks if they

would tame the land

• Archbishop of Magdeburg exempted land owners from

tithing if they gave their “untamed forests ..

marshes” to the Cistercian monks

• So, for the next 300 yrs. Monks

drained swamps, cut forests, farmed

the land and attracted settlers –

the ultimate desire of the

feudal economy of the time!!

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The Start of European Deforestation

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BUT already scarcity of

wood supplies was starting

to be recognized in the

European continent

NOT enough wood for cooking

and heating for local needs

The Start of European Deforestation

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Scarcity of forest materials meant

monks started to develop some initial

forest management principles

In 1040 monks of the Vallombrosan

Order (off-shoot Benedictines):• preserved forests that were on terrain too

difficult to farm (“places where God would

touch their souls”)

• encouraged reforestation of cut forested

land - - preparing cut-over sites for seeding

• planted seedlings dug from the forests

• shaped trees for basketry (pollarding) and

stumps for sprouts – fuel wood

a la Professor Gara 61

The Start of European Reforestation Practices

By 1595 forest laws emerged

A guide for the Trappists Monks near

the French town of Trappe:

“ … are hereby forbidden to cut any of the

woods (trees) belonging to the abbey before

the age of 15 years, seeing the poverty of

the soil. They shall regulate their coupes

(cutting areas) into 15 equal fellings and they

shall leave standing at each felling at least

five standards (big-old trees) per coupe.

They shall allow one-third of their forest area

to grow as high forests on the best soils …

etc.”

Forestry 101 for

monks

a la Professor Gara

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The Start of European Reforestation Practices

Besides setting forest reserves, and providing

rudimentary rules on how to manage forest resources,

the monasteries were the first to establish coppice and

pollarding silvicultural systems

Coppice

Pollard

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NOTE: Turkey has practiced coppicing for hundreds of years very

successfully –i.e., using and cutting one tree for hundreds of years!!

The Start of European Reforestation Practices

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Coppice Pollard

i.e. managing the sprouting ability of some tree

species into systematized methods of providing forest

products

a la Professor Gara

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The Start of European Reforestation Practices

A sprouting

stump

(coppicing)

Pollarding with the

new sprouts harvested

Arrow stocks

derived

from pollarding

a la Professor Gara

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Legacy of pollarding

in beech forest

a la Professor Gara

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Legacy of coppice method

in chestnut forests

England

Still

Today:

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Next day (November 2004): a visitor! …a monk walked

into Professor Gara’s office

a la Professor Gara

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Continuing our Story:

Europe Industrializes

RESULT:

1) Wood powered European industrialization

and drove their dominance of global trade

routes & resource supplies

2) European countries became

political powers & conquered other

countries using timber resources

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EVOLVING AND CONTINUING STORIES

on OVER-EXPLOITATION of FORESTS

NEXT CLASS WILL CONTINUE

THIS STORY:

Start of the

European

Exploitation of

Global Forests

they did not own,

i.e., belonged to

someone else!!