Documents contractuels des forêts de montagne et histoire sociale des régions montagneuses du Fujian. Le district de Yongtai 永泰 (Fuzhou)

Abstract

Fujian Province is a largely mountainous region with forest cover of 66 percent, the highest in China. Mountain forestry has been intensively exploited since the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and up to the present time, mainly due to the economic growth of coastal trade, which has also led to significant population displacement and socioeconomic changes. Historical sources on mountain forestry are limited, and most of them concern phenomena marginal to it, such as, for example, mountain refugees or social unrest. These materials hardly allow a satisfactory account of the different historical processes inherent to the exploitation of mountain areas. In recent years, however, a huge number of forestry contracts have been discovered in various places in Fujian, opening up a new field of study: the social history of mountainous regions. This paper, by drawing on existing contractual documents of mountain forests in Fujian, thus intends to provoke some thought and discussion in this area of research.