Deforestation Resulting from European Shipbuilding :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

De forestation Resulting from European ShipbuildingHistorical texts have documented the myriad technologies, ideas, diseases, plants and animals the European ships delivered around the world during the Age of Exploration. However, these texts fail to include sensation key cargo item deforestation. European shipbuilding triggered an epidemic of forest depletion that gradu altogethery spread to the lands they encountered. Beginning in the early fourteenth century, woodwind fueled the increased take of exploratory sea vessels. The loss of trees coincided with the fast rate of shipbuilding. Eventually, Europeans exploited their timber reserves to such an total that they began looking for elsewhere for wood, including colonies in North America and Southeast Asia. With newfound resources, the European shipbuilding machine churned on, yet before long deforestation as well became an issue in the colonial areas. Although shipbuilding played an integral routine in a period of European advancement, it devastated not only the European env crusadement but the forests of other continents as well. Prior to the Age of Exploration, hardwood trees blanketed all of Europe to form a forest giOB47comparable in sizing to the Amazon Basin (David Morse). Forest density was intense, such that scattered clearings moldiness have appeared like islets in an ocean of green (Morse). Nevertheless, as gentlemans gentleman disc overed the value of wood as fuel for warmth, deforestation followed tight fitting behind. The progression of human technologies presented more uses for timber. Eventually, wood became a staple in a wide range of manufacturing processes, among them shipbuilding. The production of sea vessels put extreme pressure on the oldest and largest trees in European forests the massive tree underdrawers that were years in the making were also the best suited for the enormous hulls of open sea ships. For every ship built, the environment lost approximately of its oldest flora members, who were unfortunately also the hardest to replace.Shipbuilding was also closely intertwined with another(prenominal) forest consuming industry metallurgy, especially iron production. Iron comprised the munition and structural support aboard many sea vessels. Because the production of iron required high temperatures, the demand for firewood grew to almost insatiable proportions. Thus, the amount of timber invested in shipbuilding included more than just the lumber for the hulls. As David Morse points out, the trend in metallurgy history dictated that wherever ironmaking took over . . . it did away with the forest (Morse). In effect, shipbuilding and its association with iron production impacted the forest landscape two-fold.