L’histoire des forêts et les Humanités environnementales en France et en Allemagne. Vers un désenchantement

Abstract

The French and German societies have generated some myths on the forest, which are being re-examined by the Environmental Humanities. Archeology and remote sensing have shown that the forest is affected by several temporalities. The forest’s physiognomy results from a sustainable economic view, which was imposed on rural communities at the end of the 18th century. Since then, foresters and behind them the State, have played the role of protectors of the forest against the negligence of men, promoting a discourse of crisis about wood shortage, deforestation of mountains and forest decline. Research in environmental history has shown that these discourses didn’t always reflect the reality and has questioned the notion of crisis. De facto, the impact of human societies on the forest is observed in the long term and which calls into question its naturalness. Thus, to the short-term temporality experienced by actors, and characterizing crises, we must integrate the long time temporality, which characterizes the forest und human dynamics.