Plantations and protected areas: a global history of forest management

Brett M. Bennett describes here how plantations and protected areas evolved from, and then undermined, an earlier integrated forest management system that sought both to produce timber and to conserve the environment.

He charts the development of the science and profession of forestry in 18th- and 19th-century Europe; discusses the 20th-century creation of timber plantations in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia; and examines the controversies over deforestation that led to the establishment of protected areas, arguing that the problems associated with the bifurcation of forest management - including the loss of forestry knowledge necessary to manage large ecosystems for diverse purposes - suggest that a more integrated model would be preferable.