The Forester as a Green Designer

Abstract

Forestry is a performance of service. The profession of “forester” hence was born only in societies which needed this service, because they started lacking either forest products or forests, in this order. The production of wood and other forest products in many places and at many times was the business of farmers. The Roman Empire and its human society were great forest destroyers. Wood served to yield energy for energy-devouring installations, such as the public baths (thermae), central heating in villas, or bakeries. The construction of fleets and the war industry in general (bows and arrows; lances; clubs; fortifications and camps) required much wood of a high quality. The solution for growing wood, however, was not found in the planting or conserving of forests, but mainly in planting hedges and coppice on farms (Piussi pers. commun. 1983). Problems in regreening the much-polluted Roman cities were solved by planting plane trees (Platanus orientalis), which still are known to be very resistant, also to 20th-century chemical pollution, but which now are dying back from an introduced pest.