From the WaPo, an article on the findings of Richard Fuchs.
Fuchs’ fascinating conclusion: Forests and settlements grew at the same time and Europe is a much greener continent today than it was 100 years ago. A closer look at different regions and countries reveals Europe’s recovery from the deforestation of past centuries.
In Specialization and Trade, I cite Jesse Ausubel’s Nature Rebounds on this and other phenomena showing that resource scarcity is a problem addressed by markets.
This excerpt from ‘The Most Powerful Idea in the World’ by William Rosen highlights not only that the forests of Europe were under severe pressure for nearly 800 years prior to the 1900 starting point of the linked article, but also the use of trade and substitution to manage the scarcity.
” By 1230, England had cut down so many trees for construction and for fuel that it was importing most of its timber from Scandinavia, and turned to what would then have been called an alternative energy source: Coal. ”
http://www.mostpowerfulidea.com/events.htm
This commenter explains the history of European/England forest with many of the moors created by Bronze age agriculture. Not to mention, the “forests” of the Middle Ages were actually managed agricultural plots used to produce necessary wood feedstock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVPUFMwm73Y&ab_channel=Lindybeige
In Europe especially, but I suspect everywhere, it’s not as if there wasn’t various sorts of ‘government activity’ (rules & regs not to mention wars and treaties, etc.), to go along with certain market dynamics. I wonder how much has simply simply moved over to China and other emerging economies, and where things move next (Larry’s “under-polluted Africa”?).
And there are massive man-made deserts in the world with no rebound in site.
What is your support for that statement? How and where?
Certainly the Swedish approach was not all due to markets.
http://www.ksla.se/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/The-Swedish-Forestry-Model.pdf