About Forests & People -- Forests and Beginning Civilization

The Fertile Crescent, land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, is the place where people first gathered together and formed cities.   In today’s world, that’s Iraq, there has been a lot of history played out in that part of the world.  That is where people started using forests in ways different from how the meandering hunters and gathers and herdsmen used forests, so that’s where this story starts. 

Before there could be cities there had to be agriculture that produced surpluses of food so people could have time and energy to think about things other than chasing down an antelope or wooly mammoth for the next meal, or finding places to pick berries and dig roots to make a stew, then moving on to follow more wild animals and berries.  For people to be able to stay in one placer and grow a crop with enough surplus for some security a few things needed to be in place, land, water and temperature suitable for crops, and nearby forests for building materials, tools and fuel.  With these elements and some human knowhow people could grow crops, cities could develop and technology increase.  And that was the situation between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers where Ur, one of the first cities developed.  Unfortunately the next thing that happens in this course of events is war for controlling more land and forests, but that’s another long sad story that is still going on.  Others can tell us about the wars, we’re talking about forests and the land.   

Agriculture started in the Fertile Crescent because there was good soil, forests nearby, favorable temperatures and the people figured out how to take water from the rivers in ditches to irrigate crops.  Of course irrigation was necessary because that area has dry summers, irrigation could happen because the rivers’ waters kept flowing from melting mountain snows far upstream where there were also forests.  Every city and civilization needed nearby forests because wood was the energy source for heating and cooking, it is what people used for building shelters and tools.  As shelters and tools improved over the centuries to the point that bronze and glass were important, it took more energy to keep it all going and growing.  The energy was from burning wood.

Industry and agriculture pushed forests back for hundreds and thousands of years as civilizations grew.  Babylon, the city at the center of the great Persian Empire must have been beautiful, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, were there.  Other nations were also growing.  King David of the Jews wanted wood to build a Temple and government buildings in Jerusalem, but he had no forests.  The king of Lebanon had forests and needed wheat, they made a deal, wheat for wood, cedar wood.  The story is in the Old Testament, (I Kings chapter 5) King David sent 40,000 loggers (hewers of wood) to the Cedars of Lebanon.  They cut trees, lots of trees — they cut most of the forest!  They skidded the logs to the east shore of the Mediterranean Sea, floated the rafts of logs south then hauled them inland to Jerusalem to build the government and religious buildings.  Think of the taxes those people must have paid!

Civilization was off and running, forests were fueling human progress and paying a heavy toll.