Forests

Abstract

The rise of human civilizations, impossible without an accumulation of farming surpluses, is no less conceivable without exploitation of forests. Forests everywhere have always meant food and fuel and refuge and a prime building material, more recently the source of paper to spread the message of the industrial revolution and to provide wood for countless uses essential for the everyday functioning of modern society, from furniture to railway ties, from chemicals to mine-pit props.

Riddle: “I took down my father’s clay pot and was unable to put it back.”

Answer: “A tree.”

—Tlokwa (Bantu) riddle

An old charcoal-seller

Cutting wood and burning charcoal in the forest of the Southern Mountain

His face, stained with dust and ashes, has turned to the colour of smoke.…

The money he gets by selling charcoal, how far does it go?

—Bo Zhuyi The Charcoal-Seller (trans. A. Waley)