Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
England doesn't have empty areas. Is there even one substantial forest?
Germany thankfully has tougher land use laws, and large forestlands everywhere, even in the populated corridors. But the cities are overburdened now.
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England has the smallest % of forests in Europe (along with Ireland and The Netherlands). It was already the case in the 19th century. They massively deforested the country in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. Since the 1920s, they have laws that protect the countryside and the nature areas much more than any European country, even Germany, but there's very little left of it after Medieval deforestation + 150 years of Industrial Revolution.
In France, on the other hand, the % of forests has actually increased since the 19th century! France experienced deforestation like England during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, but not as systematically as England, because the French monarchy heavily protected the forests (which were a key source of revenue for the royal demesne). The French monarchy even created an entire administration (complete with its own courts) to protect the domanial forests of France: the so-called 'eaux et forêts' administration (which had its own judges to try people who infringed on the domanial forests). Colbert under Louis XIV greatly modernized the 'eaux et forêts' administration, and issued an entire legal code overseeing all aspects of forestry in the kingdom (in 1669).
The local aristocrats also had their large private forests which they protected from trespassing with their private feudal police forces. These private feudal police forces were hated by the population (you could be fined if you were found to have collected branches in the forest of the local feudal lord, or if you had poached in his/her forests). They were abolished at the beginning of the French Revolution, but the domanial forests remained in the hands of the French state, and most aristocrats who did not emigrate during the French Revolution also kept their forests, but this time they were considered private property, not feudal demesne anymore.
Nonetheless the 10 chaotic years that France experienced during the Revolution led to the destruction of many forests, but with Napoleon order was restored, and the forests became protected either because they were domanial forets of the French state, or private properties of their former feudal lords (or their new owners who took advantage of the Revolution to buy cheaply at auctions the forests seized from aristocrats who were guillotined or who emigrated).
From a nadir of 12%-15% of Metropolitan France covered by forets in the 1820s, the forest cover has expanded due to stricter protection of the forests following Napoleon's restoration of order + development of coal as the primary way to heat houses + modern construction methods not requiring timber anymore + rural flight that left many former fields abandoned and reclaimed by forests. As a result, 32% of Metropolitan France is now covered by forests, and the % is rising every year, as less and less fields are cultivated (due to our crazy Green lobby that makes it more and more impossible for farmers to cultivate the land).
In England (I mean England, not UK), forests cover 10% of the territory, but they have also recovered significantly from a nadir of 5% in the 1920s.
In Germany, the forest cover is about the same as in Metropolitan France, ca. 32%. It has recovered from a nadir of 20%-25% in the early 18th century (Germany reached its nadir earlier than France and England).
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