ENV 696b () / 2024-2025

Yale Forest Forum: A History of People, Forests, and Forestry

Credits: 1.5 Spring 2025: Th, 12:00-1:50, Marsh Classroom & online

Humans have interacted with forests since time immemorial. The evolution of humanity’s connections to forests illuminates how we interact with nature in a changing climate today. By understanding our past, we can contextualize our present situation and inform our future decision-making. Yale Forest Forum is proud to host a trilogy of seminars covering the inextricably linked histories of people and forests. In this first installment, the seminar will offer a global view of forest practices from pre-historic to the pre-modern period. Speakers will survey various forest regions that represent different forest cultures and management systems, ranging from swidden farming of forest peoples in the Amazon and Southeast Asia, to ancient forest-based civilizations such as the Maya, to medieval forests of Europe and Mughal India.  Students will (1) gain an understanding of the origins of pre-industrial forest practices worldwide, (2) connect people to place and practice through pre-industrial forestry, and (3) consider how we know what we know about these different peoples and their ways of interacting with forests.