Revisiting the Narrative of Deforestation in Central and Southern Mainland Early Modern Portugal as a ‘Ruined Landscape’: The Case of Shipbuilding in Lisbon

Abstract

Scholars have largely blamed shipbuilding for maritime expansion for being the main driver of deforestation in early modern Portugal. This article sets out to revisit the origins and reproduction of this narrative by analysing three interconnected elements in a case study of Lisbon's shipyards. Firstly, it studies the claims of forestry policies from the 1400s to the mid-1600s. Secondly, it addresses Portuguese writers and foresters of the nineteenth century. Thirdly, it surveys the calculations of deforestation rates provided by Portuguese and foreign authors and foresters. Three main conclusions can be drawn: (1) scholars’ arguments that shipbuilding was chiefly responsible for deforestation are based on the claims set out in Portuguese forestry policies, (2) nineteenth-century authors and writers stated multiple causes to explain the significant deforestation in early modern Portugal, and (3) it is very likely that the high deforestation rates that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century authors reported are partially due to shifts in the meaning of ‘woodland’.