Potential Forests: Degradation Narratives, Science, and Environmental Policy in Protectorate Morocco, 1912-1956 Author(s): Diana K.

Davis Reviewed work(s): Source: Environmental History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 2005), pp. 211-238 Published by: Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3986113 . Accessed: 09/04/2012 20:56
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Environmental History.

http://www.jstor.org

DIANA DAVIS K.

POTEN FORE STS :

degradation narratives,
IN 1912-1956 AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PROTECTORATE SCIENCE, MOROCCO,

THE COMPLEX WAYSin which degradation narratives inform and affect environmental policies in Africa and other regions have received growing scholarlyattention overthe last decade.Researchersare increasinglyquestioning the received wisdom of conventional environmental narratives, many of which were written during the colonial period. Much of this work points out exaggerations and errors in the data or the interpretations of data upon which these environmentalnarratives,and many environmentalhistories, are based. A substantial portion of this recent research highlights the political and economic purposes to which these questionable environmentalnarratives were, and are, frequentlyput.' To date, an astonishingly small amount of this kind of research has been conducted on environmentalnarrativesthat concern the MiddleEast and North Africa.This is even more surprising given that the arid landscapes of this region often are describedand defined as deforested and overgrazedenvironmentsthat have been subjectedto centuries of abuse by local peoples. This article examines how the dominant environmental history of North Africa informed the developmentof environmentalpolicy in Moroccoduringthe colonial period,19121956, and analyzes some of the majoreffects of these policies. The conventional environmental history of North Africa, still ubiquitous today, was conceived primarilyduring the Frenchcolonial occupation of Algeria,dating from 1830. It

212

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

is an environmental narrative of decline, of the ruin of a previously fertile landscape by centuries of deforestation and overgrazing by Arab nomads and their livestock herds. Recent paleoecological studies, however,have questioned rates of deforestationdescribedin this narrativeas well as the extent of historical forest cover in North Africa,particularlyin Morocco.Contemporary research in arid lands ecology and pastoral studies likewise has questioned the destructiveness of traditionalland uses assumed in this declensionist narrative.2 Most environmental policy in colonial Morocco outside of urban and agriculturalareas was developedin or strongly influenced by a single key sector: forestry. That is, most land not under cultivation or built upon came under the purviewof the forestry department(Service des Eaux et For6ts)or was strongly affected by this department.The forestry departmentwas developedby one man who directed it for decades. The influence of this man, Paul Boudy (1874-1957), and his convictionthat Morocco was severelydeforested,cannot be overestimated. Boudy,deeply imbued with the conventional environmental narrative of North Africa, identified traditional livestock grazing as the most significant cause of deforestation and environmental degradation in the protectorate.He presided over the creation of the Moroccanforest code and several amendments to it, as well as the development of new laws and policies, all of which restricted and regulatedgrazing in forestedareas.Underhis leadership,even non-arboreal areas, such as the immense alfa grass pastures in eastern Morocco, were broughtunder the control of the forestry department. The forestry department worked closely with the livestock and range management department(Service de l'tlevage). Forestlaws and policies greatly affected the workof the livestock departmentwhich likewise was staffed by men trained in the conventionalenvironmentalnarrativeof NorthAfrica.Thus much of their work,too, focused on restoringwhat they saw as a degradedenvironment by intensifying livestock raising for commodity production and by promoting sedentarization. Because unforested land not under cultivation or built up in cities and villages was used largely for grazing, the policies of the livestock department extended the use and impact of this declensionist environmental narrativeto most of the rest of Morocco.In helping to shape so manypolicies, the environmental narrative favored imperial interests over indigenous interests. Further,it facilitated the dispossession of Moroccansfrom their lands and the destruction of their traditional livelihoods. The conventional environmental history of Morocco, based on this declensionist colonial environmental narrative, was well-established by the nation's independence in 1956. What had begun as a largely literary narrative before Moroccowas even colonized had been transformedinto a scientific story of deforestationand environmentaldegradation"proven" vegetation maps and by voluminous ecological statistics and calculations. These statistics, calculations, and maps were providedby those working in the young science of plant ecology duringthe 1920S and 1930s. Thedevelopmentof potentialvegetation maps-maps of what the natural vegetation could and should be-was particularlyinfluential in providing scientific authority for forestry and other environmentalpolicies.

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

213

In Morocco,the most influential plant ecologist was Louis Emberger(1897-1969). Trainedas a phytosociologist (plant ecologist) in France,he wrote much of the definitive scientific literature on Morocco'svegetation. Emberger,though, like most phytosociological researchers,relied on certain types of relict vegetation and other subjectivemeasures-which were assumed to be indicative of the original, natural vegetation-to formulate his calculations and conclusions. As Embergeralso had been brought up with the conventional environmental narrative of North Africa, his belief that Moroccowas severely deforested informed his research. The statistics, articles, and maps that he producedquantified, rationalized, and institutionalized much of the dominant environmentalnarrativein the science of plant ecology for Morocco.Emberger's research was used as scientific proof of severe deforestationby Boudyto justify forestry policies that severely restricted traditional uses of the forest by local Moroccans. Boudy further strengthened and institutionalized the colonial environmentalnarrativein a four-volumetreatise on NorthAfrican forests. His treatise still is cited today as an authoritativesource of informationon forests in Morocco,Algeria, and Tunisia.3 This article elucidates how an inaccuratenineteenth-centurynarrativebased largely on classical literary sources shaped environmentalpolicy formulationin Morocco during the colonial period. It is the first work to detail how such a narrativewas itself refined and quantified during the colonial period. The essay explainshow the narrativeboth informed,andlaterwas justified by,developments in plant ecology and the construction of potential vegetation maps, to become institutionalized as the dominant environmentalhistory of Morocco.In doing so, it arguesthat this environmentalnarrativeformeda fundamentallyimportant part of the context in which manyenvironmentallaws andpolicies were developed and thus challenges much previous scholarship on environmentalhistory and environmentalpolicy in Morocco.

NORTH AFRICA THEFRENCH IN COLONIAL IMAGINARY

LONG BEFORE FRENCH colonial administration,NorthAfricaheld a special place in the imaginations of most Europeans,as a region of legendarynaturalfertility. Withinthe first two decades of the Frenchoccupationof the Maghreb,beginning with the invasion of Algeria in 1830, an environmentalnarrativedevelopedfrom this imaginary which would have a profound impact on colonization efforts in Algeria,Tunisia and Morocco.This narrative,which later wouldbecome the most common environmentalhistory of North Africa, was composed of two primary parts. Informedlargelyby familiarFrenchreadingsof classical texts such as Pliny, Strabo,Herodotus,and Ptolemy,North Africawas interpretedas formerlybeing "themost fertile region in the world." limited to romanticwriters,journalists, Not or historians, this long-standing interpretation was formalized by the official, government-sponsored,Exploration Scientifique de l'Algerie of the 183os and 1840s. One of its authors proclaimedin 1847 that "this land, once the object of intense cultivation, was neither deforested nor depopulatedas today, ... it was

214

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

the abundant granary of Rome." This particularquote reveals the new, colonial half of the narrative,that of decline.4 Based mostly on the writings of medieval Arab historians such as Ibn Khaldoun, the second half of the narrative claimed that the North African environmenthad been deforested, overgrazedand desertified by hordes of Arab nomads and their voracious herds of livestock. A popularquote used in a variety of permutations from the 186os on, for example, expressed the sentiment well: "when the Arabs invaded the North of Africa ... cities were annihilated, fire destroyed the harvests, the plantations, the forests, and a society newly established on this land was devastated." Once created, this narrative had tenacious staying power.Nearlythree quartersof a centurylater,slightly different versions of it remained in official use. One version, for example, described "the profound convulsions which since the Roman era have upset the country: the passage of the Arabarmies and later the Hillaliantribal invasion ... have made of this country a desert strewn with ruins which however attest to its ancient prosperity."5 The story thus claimed that since the Arab invasions of the seventh and eleventh centuries, the descendants of the Arabnomads had perpetuated,with their destructive land-use practices (burningand grazing),the decline and ruin of the NorthAfricanenvironment.The part of the indigenous populationdefined as Berber,by contrast, was portrayedas mostly sedentary and agricultural,and therefore good (or at least better) stewards of the environment.6In combination with the prevailing sentiment that, in North Africa, Francewas "the legitimate this created a powerfulrationale for sedentarization as the successor of Rome," colonial powersclaimed it was their duty to restore the formerfertility and glory of ancient Rome.The impact of this environmentalnarrativeon colonial policy in Algeria, and later Tunisia and Morocco,was wide ranging. It justified the appropriation of forests by the state, the expropriation of large amounts of agriculturaland pasture land,the developmentof elaborateagriculturalpolicies, and the control of pastoral nomadic and transhumant populations in the name of environmentalprotection.7 Morocco was an integral part of this environmental narrative from its inception in the nineteenth century. A typical book on North Africa, although written just a few years after the captureof Algeria,reiteratedthe ancient Greek geographerStrabo'sobservationthat "allof the [land]between Carthageand the Pillars of Hercules [fromTunis to the Atlantic ocean] is of an extreme fertility." The pillars of Hercules are, according to classical mythology,the mountains on either side of the Straits of Gibraltarwhich, when pushed apart by Hercules, createdthe Straits. Thus this exalted area of assumed extreme fertility stretched from contemporaryTunisia well into Morocco.Fromat least the mid-nineteenth centuryon, Moroccowas often singled out as "oneof the most beautiful and fertile countries of the earth."It, like Algeria and Tunisia, was frequentlydescribed as In Zoneof the granaries of Rome." the decade or so leading up to the conquest of Moroccoin 1912, descriptionsof Morocco's ancient fertility and its lush vegetation became more common and more detailed.8

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

215

Figure 1. The Remains of a Roman Aqueduct in the Region of Cherchell.

_ | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Source:Mus6es des Beaux-Arts Rouen, France.This do of image is reproducedwith the kindpermnission the Mus6es de / des Beaux-Arts Rouen, photographieDidier Tragin CatherineLancien.

This 1868 painting by Victor-Pierre Huguet is characteristic of many romanticized nineteenth-century of representations Romanruinsin NorthAfrica.Such paintingsoften were embellishedwiththe figures of 'nomads" such as those represented here. The wuined aqueduct, the scant vegetation, and the here and presence of nomads and theircamels all worktogether to reinforcethe degradationnarrative
in similar French orientalist painting of the period.

Althoughlittle actually was known about Moroccoat the turn of the century, lengthy descriptions of Roman Morocco as far south as the Draa river on the Atlantic coast extolled its marvelous fertility (see map).Oneauthorin particular, MauriceBesnier, did that in authoritative and extensive tracts for the Scientific Mission of Morocco (Mission Scientifique du Maroc), a research group commissioned by the Frenchgovernment.Based on his readings of the ancient texts of Strabo, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others, he proclaimed that in the past, "exceptfor a few deserts of small extent, Mauretania[Morocco][had]only fertile land and [was]well supplied with streams. It [was]very forested and the trees [attained]there a prodigious height."This environmentalnarrativebecame

216

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

Map 1. Morocco.

amorZaor
Forest

~
rp,t\

Foes

F
Tafilelt ,l

tsarzazate *Ou

,___

Argan,.4t5X

A I g e r i al
N

tts

.7 ~~~M'hamid.

Kilometres

D raa

__ '

O D. K. Davis

January 2005

Map crMated author. by

enshrined in the series of volumes begun by the Mission Scientifique du Maroc, Les Archives Marocaines, from approximately1903 into the 1930S.9 The idea that Moroccohad been the granaryof Rome,and also the location of the mythical garden of the Hesperides, was used to formulate and to justify extensive agricultural policies during the colonial period in Morocco.Those agriculturalpolices have receivedconsiderablescholarlyattention.Whathas been less well explored is how the idea that Morocco had been significantly more forested during the classical and pre-Islamicperiods influenced colonial policy, especially environmental policies outside of the agricultural sector. Yet descriptionsof NorthAfricanforests duringantiquityattractedas muchattention myth during the French colonial period, since they as did the granary-of-Rome were interpreted as indicators of the region's innate natural fertility and environmentalsalubrity.As early as 1846 ancient sources like Pliny were being used as evidence that "grand forests" once covered the sides of the Atlas mountains and that neighboring forests were "full of elephants, other wild animals and huge serpents."This same description by Pliny is repeated often

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

217

during the colonial period in Morocco. Besnier's articles in the Archives Marocaines,for example,claimedthat "theAtlas were coveredin dense forests."'0 Contemporarypaleoecological evidence, however,has convinced many that Moroccohas not experienced deforestation of significant portions of its arboreal vegetation. Although there has been a reduction in some species over the last two thousand years, many areas considered severely deforested-such as the Middle Atlas mountain region-appear not to have experienced significant changes in vegetation, especially of most tree species, during this time. It also has been demonstrated that many traditional forms of resource use such as extensive herding and even the use of fire in the Mediterraneanbasin are not necessarily harmful, since much of the vegetation has adapted to grazing and fire over thousands of years. The scientists and administratorsin the Moroccan protectoratedid not, of course, have such evidence concerningthese issues. They chose, however,to make comparisons with descriptions from classical sources to drawthe conclusion that the Moroccanlandscapeas the Frenchfoundit around the turn of the century was egregiously deforested." When the protectoratewas established, though, the amount and severity of deforestation were not yet quantified. As in Algeria and Tunisia, the Moroccan narrativenonetheless primarilyblamedthe Arabnomad invasion of the eleventh century for the general destruction of a formerlylush landscape, and especially for the assumed deforestation.This culpabilitywas extendedto the Arabpastoral nomadpopulationsliving in the region since that time. It was frequentlylamented, from the early days of the protectorate,that in the Moroccancountryside, "as everywhere, the Arab has destroyed the tree."'2Such assumptions about the general degradedstate of Morocco'sforests, made since before the protectorate was established, providedan imperativeto resurrectthe forest in Moroccofrom the earliest days of Frenchcontrol.This historical narrativeof deforestation and environmentaldecline thus underpinnedthe creation, development,and applied work of the Moroccanforest service.

THE FOREST RESURRECTING

IN 1954, TWOyears before independence,the honoraryinspector general of the Moroccanforestry department, Paul Louis Jules Boudy,presented a historical overview of four decades of triumphal work by the department.His expose was titled "LaResurrection de la Foret Marocaine," and it began, "In 1913,the day after the establishment of the protectorateof France,the Moroccanforest was in a miserable state and its trajectorytended towardabsolute zero [sic]." This quote succinctly summarizes the views of Boudy,the man who created the Moroccan forestry department, directed it for three decades, and maintained strong influence in the departmentuntil Moroccanindependence.Boudy's views of North African and Moroccanenvironmental history mirroredthe predominantviews of the periodand are clearlyreflected in how he shaped the Moroccanforest code and enacted forestry policies. He believedpassionately that Moroccohad enjoyed extensive forests in the past and that, if destructive local forest use could be prevented,the protectoratehad great potential for extensive forests in the future.

218

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

Figure 2. Paul Boudy.

a i

Es~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
.. . .... ,,X ., e..._

Archives l'EcoleNationale G6nieRural, Eauxet des Forfts(ENGREF), de du des Nancy,France.Thisimage is reproduced with the kindpermissionof ENGREF. Paul Boudy, pictured with his National Forestry School Graduating Class, 1897, is second from the right, wearing a large, floppy beret.

A forester by training, he rose to unusual positions of power in Morocco within and outside of the forestry department.13 Paul Boudy was born in July 1874 in France. He graduated from the national forestry school at Nancy in 1897. In 1898, he was posted to Algeria and then to Tunisia in 1904. In 1907, he joined the reforestation department back in Algeria, and became director. In March 1912, the official beginning of the Moroccan protectorate, Boudy volunteered to leave Algeria to go to Morocco to help with forestry issues in the new protectorate. By March 1913, he had arrived in Morocco and been appointed director of the newly established forestry department. Boudy ran the forestry department for nearly thirty years, until 1941. He stayed on as an official adviser to the protectorate administration until his death in 1957. The Resident General of Morocco, General Louis-Hubert-Gon alves Lyautey (18541934), ordered the creation of the forestry department in 1913, and it was placed under the general direction of the department of agriculture, commerce, and colonization. The first order of business, by order of Lyautey, was to save the cork forests along the mid-Atlantic coast (Mamora) and to turn them into prof itgenerating export forests. This interest in cork followed a 1912 harvest that was the largest and most lucrative harvest of cork in Algeria since 1830. The Moroccan cork forests were considered degraded from indigenous abuse but capable of being and made similarly profitable. As in Algeria, the saved, reconstituted, environmental narrative of ruin which blamed the indigenous populations served the interests of some stake holders in Morocco much more than others. The protectorate administration, for example, declared ownership over all forested areas in the name of environmental protection but, importantly, generated

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

219

substantial revenuefromthe sale of cork,timber,and other forest productswhich was used to finance Frenchadministration of the territory.Revenuefrom forest production grew quickly during the first few years of the protectorate.Between
1915 and 1918, for example, revenue increased over 8oo percent.14

When Boudy arrivedin Morocco,as a veteran of twelve years in the forestry departmentsof Algeriaand Tunisia,he likely alreadyhad an idea of what he would find in Moroccan forests. The forests in Algeria and Tunisia were widely considered to have been destroyedby centuries of abuse by indigenous land-use practices such as grazing and burning. In 1914, Boudy published an article on the forests of Moroccothat made clear his opinion that the known forests in the protectorate at that time, especially the cork forests, were badly degraded and deforested.Fire,charcoalmaking, debarkingfor tannin production,and abusive grazing-that is most of the indigenous uses of the forests-all were blamed for forest degradation,as they had been by foresters in Algeria and Tunisia.At that time, just two years into protectorate administration, only small areas of northwest and eastern Moroccohad been exploredand their forests inventoried. It was not until well after WorldWar I that the pacification of Morocco was completed. The process took two decades and was not officially over until the occupation of the deep south in 1934. The process of exploring and inventorying Morocco'sforests likewise took decades."5 Boudy'spredecessor Forest Inspector Duponthad been sent from Algeria in 1911 to evaluate the forests of Moroccoand to write an advisory report. Based partly on Dupont'sreport,the protectorategovernmentdecided in 1912that the Algerian forest code of 1903 should be applied, though adapted to Morocco's conditions. Thus the Algeriancode was the acting forest code in Moroccofor five years as well as the basis for the new Moroccanforest code of 1917.The Algerian forest code of 1903 was itself a much-amendedversion of the 1827 Napoleonic forest code of Francethat had been applied at the time of Algerian conquest in
1830. Extensive forest fires in Algeria prompted several changes to the 1827 code

during the nineteenth century. (Fire was a common tool for managing the landscape among local Algerians-during the occupation it became a tool of protest as well.) As a result of these modifications, the Algerian forest code of
1903 was much more restrictive and punitive than the 1827 French code. Its

application, which criminalized nearly all indigenous forest uses, caused great adversity and protest among local Algerians.'6 Lyautey, who had come to Morocco with years of experience in Algeria, Madagascar, and other French colonial territories, strove to avoid what he perceivedas the pitfalls of previous Frenchcolonial administrations. Oneof his goals was to pacify by attractionand not by coercionandviolence as had occurred so often in Algeria and elsewhere. This meant, in theory, that local custom and use rights were to be more respected and that application of the forest code was to be less harsh than in Algeria. In setting up the forestry department, then, Lyauteydetermined that "contraryto what happened in Algeria, the Moroccan forestry personnel [would have], in effect, a role exclusively technical."At this early date, infractions were to be dealt with by the local authorities and not

220

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

forestry personnel. Most of the changes made to the Algerian forest code as it was adaptedto Moroccothus related to how and where to applythe code and did not modify any of the code'sprimarygoals or ecological bases. Whereasin Algeria the Frenchhad carriedout a lengthy and difficult process of defining state forests, communal forests (for local Algerians), and private forests, in Morocco the all administration simply appropriated forested land and defined it as state land to be reservedfor the public good and the restricted use of a few local tribes. This was mandatedwith a governmentcircularin November1912 that became law on
7 July 1914. This was followed by the law of 3 January 1916 on auditing and

delimiting state forests.17 The Moroccanforest code,conceivedby Boudyand formalizedin October1917, was based on the Algerian forest code, although it was shorter and had changes in modes and extent of application.This legislation itself carriedthe conventional Frenchcolonialvision of the NorthAfricanenvironmentto Moroccoin manyways. codecontainedonly 84 articles Althoughthe two codes weresimilar,the Moroccan comparedto 190 articles in Algeria'sforest code.Most of the fines for infractions of Moroccanforest laws, though, were less than those in Algeria.The 1917Forest Law (Dahir)allowed limited use of the forests by Moroccans only, and not by Europeancolonists, which was a significant change from the Algeriancode. The Moroccancode severely restricted the use of fire in or near forests by the few local tribes allowed to use portions of the forest, and completely banned it elsewhere. Charcoalproductionand the collection of traditional forest products such as firewood,foods, and medicinal plants were likewise severely restricted and regulated. As in Algeria, grazing was expressly prohibited for six years in forests that had burned or been harvested for cork or timber. Most traditional uses of the forests, which had previously sustained entire communities, were restricted, regulated, or criminalized.'8 Because of the slow progression of pacification in Moroccoand the effects of WorldWarI, the new forest code was not widely applieduntil the 1920s, and more extensively after 1935, with the final pacification of the south. In fact, the Moroccanforest code contained a provision with no precedent in any form in Algeria or Tunisia. This was article two, which stated that the forest code would be applied to different territories successively, by governmentaldecree, as they were conquered. Areas outside of these decreed territories were covered by separate governmentrules. In the south near Essaouiraand Agadir,for example, the forest service did not establish a presence until 1920. It was not until 1925 that the law was decreed to govern the delimitation and protection of the Argan forests in the region, bringing them under the 1917Moroccanforest code.19 As pacification progressed in Morocco,more and more of the forested areas were explored, inventoried, and eventually brought under the rules and regulations of the 1917 forest code. The initial estimates of about 2 million hectares of forests in the protectorate were revised during this period of expansion. At the end of the protectorate,the forested areas were said to cover approximately5 million hectares. Estimates of deforestation also changed over this period, in extent as well as in modes of calculation. Tracingthese changes

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

221

reveals an interesting history of policy formation at the same time that it illuminates a significant, but overlooked,period in the history of plant ecology. Duringthese formativeyears of the 1920S and 1930S,as the new science of plant ecology was being developed, the narrative of environmental decline and deforestationwas refined, quantified,and institutionalized in Moroccoby Boudy and others working in the protectorate. What had been rather vague generalizationsaboutdeforestation,overgrazing,and environmentaldegradation during the nineteenth century came to be portrayedas exact, scientific facts. This affected policy in powerfulways.20

MAPPING THE POTENTIAL

ONEOFTHEEARLIEST attempts to quantify Moroccandeforestation was made by forestrydirectorBoudyin 1927in a lectureto the new recruitsof the indigenous
affairs department (Service des Affaires Indigenes). This department was tightly

allied to the administration and performeda variety of intelligence services for the protectorate.Conferenceswereheld annuallyfor new recruits andthe lectures served not only as an introduction to the service but also as indoctrination in correct ways of thinking and acting. Boudy began his lecture by asserting the crucial role that forests played in the climatology and the economy of a country, emphasizing that a "certainproportionof wood is in effect indispensable for a country to actually be inhabitable." The lecture contained numerous such generalizations, which were common in France,Frenchpossessions, and much of Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One idea that Boudy particularly highlighted throughout his career was that pastoralists, especially nomadicpastoralists, destroyedforests and caused desertification. As he explainedto the new recruits, "There exists, in effect, a very tight link between Semitic [Arab, Berber]nomadism and vegetal devastation."Elsewherein the not lecturehe stated that "itis scientifically proventhat the formationof sand deserts ... is due to deforestation,the work of ancient nomadic peoples who resort to fire to procurepasture for their beasts."This reflected,not surprisingly,the dominant environmentalnarrativeof NorthAfrica ubiquitous at the time.2' Followingthis impassioned introduction,Boudy explained that to be able to support "social organization,"any given country must have 30 percent forest cover.This ratio is referredto as the ratio of woodedness,or the taux de boisement. He then calculated that Moroccohad a rate of woodedness of only about 9 or io percent. Since he believed it should have, and must have had in the past, a rate of woodedness of 30 percent, he assumed that the country was approximatelytwothirds deforested.Heblamedthat deforestationon burning,grazing,and clearing land for agricultureby the indigenous Moroccansover the previous centuries. If this destruction could be controlled,Boudybelieved, Moroccohad the potential to have at least 6 million hectares of forest, three times the amount believed to exist at that time.22 By 1934, the year of the final pacification of the south, forest cover in the protectoratewas estimated at about 3 million hectares. During the intervening

222

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

1 0 (APRIL

2005)

Figure 3.

Imilchil, a Village in the Atlas Mountains.

gs

Pe S s.: < s

S::Z~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X
O i

This au de Centredes ArchivesDiplomatiques Nantes, France,'ProtectoratFran9ais Maroc: Fonds Iconographique." des withthe kindpermissionof the Ministere Affaires Nantes,France,photoby Jacques 6trang6res, imageis reproduced Belin. The original caption to this undated photo reads "in an arid and denuded landscape..." The use of images such as this with similar captions helped to reinforce the deforestation story throughout the protectorate period in both popular and official publications.

seven years, Boudy had revised his estimate on Moroccan forests that he co-authored

of deforestation with ecologist

in the protectorate for a

up to about 85 percent. He calculated this amount of deforestation in an article

Louis Emberger

special volume, La Science au Maroc, written for the fifty-eighth meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held in Morocco that year. This estimate of deforestation is detailed further in an article by
Emberger on general Moroccan vegetation in the same volume. Emberger

estimated that 17 million hectares of forest had been destroyed. He calculated this based on the 3 million existing forested hectares and the presumed 20 million hectares in Morocco that he thought should be naturally forested. In the introduction to this article Emberger explained that "the traveler who traverses
Morocco following the classical paths [itineraries described by ancient writers]

comprehends with difficulty the profound physiognomy of Moroccan vegetation ..Nothing but ruins! Man aided by flocks has made war on the forest and brutally exploited it for centuries. Immense areas formerly covered are today bare." He attributed this massive amount of deforestation, as did Boudy, to centuries of abuse by Moroccans and their flocks. Boudy worked with Emberger for many years and was deeply influenced by his research.23 Emberger was born in France in 1897. He obtained his doctorate in the sciences with a dissertation on plant cytology in 1921i. In 1923, he was appointed director of botany at the Moroccan Scientific Institute (Institut Scientifique Che6rifien) and professor at the Moroccan Institute of Advanced Studies (Institut des Hautes E~tudes Marocaines) in Rabat. Emberger remained in Morocco until 1936,

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

223

conductedprodigious research, and quicklybecame the pre-eminentecologist in Morocco.In 1936, he returned to Franceand in 1937 was appointedthe chair of Botany at the University of Montpellier,where he later founded the prestigious Institute of Botany and the influential Centre d'htudes Phytosociologiques et maintaineda strong interest in Moroccoand North tcologiques (CEPE). Emberger Africa throughout his career and published on plant ecology in the region until his death in 1969.24 Emberger's research on Moroccanvegetation coincidedwith a periodof great activity and advancement in the young discipline of plant ecology. Many influential and formative works in plant ecology were written from the 189os throughthe 1930s. Conceptsof plant associations and formationsweredeveloped, manyof them based on mappingrainfall and temperatureregion by region, often following the work of Alphonse de Candolle, Wladimir Koppen and Johannes Warming.Phytosociology (Frenchplant ecology) was growing in prominence in France with the work of Josias Braun-Blanquet,Clementsian succession and climax was gaining ground in Americanecological studies (althoughthere were critics of Frederick Clement'stheory such as HenryGleason),andArthurTansley's ecosystem concepts were being refined in the United Kingdom. It is not uncommonlysaid of the 1900S that "thefirst quarterof this centurywas the age of the great general theories of vegetation." Emberger'scontribution to these general theories has been mostly overlookedexcept in studies of Mediterranean ecology. Here he is nearly universally credited with defining and delimiting Mediterranean climate and vegetation zones, called bioclimatic zones. His pluviometric quotient, which takes into account the effects of temperature, rainfall and evaporationon plant associations, has been especially influential.25 Twofactors of Emberger's work are not widely appreciatedbut are important for both environmentalhistory and environmentalpolicy in Moroccoand more widely in the Mediterranean basin. The first is that Emberger defined the Mediterraneanbioclimatic zones (etages) on the example of Morocco,which he believed"alonepossesses the completeseries of these stages [zones]." second The factor is that Embergerdefined all of his five zones in Moroccoby their trees (or potentialtrees),drawingon his belief in the declensionist narrativewhich insisted that Moroccohad been vastly more forested in the past. He believedthat even the most arid zone (W'etage mediterraneen aride) naturally had forest vegetation, though "theforests there are usually very thin and comparableto savannas."He explainedin his definitive publicationon Moroccan vegetation that his work"has been orientedtowardresearching the primitive [naturalor potential] state of the vegetation, the climax." Embergerlooked in places like religious sanctuaries (marabouts)for this relict vegetation, as MarvinMikesell would do a generation later. Although such sanctuaries are often intensively cared for by humans and not infrequentlybuilt near springs, the vegetation in and aroundsuch sites was assumed to be natural.This is how Emberger was able to estimate that 2o million hectares in Morocco naturally should be wooded; he inferred from relict vegetation and bioclimaticmaps. Such deductionsfromrelict vegetation, though, were and are fraught with serious problems.26

224

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

Much has been learned, however,in the field of paleoecology during the last several decades. Researchin this field, especially fossil pollen analysis, points to but some deforestationin a few areas of Morocco not in manyothers.This research firmly contradictsEmberger's calculations, for it documentsno definitive overall pattern of massive deforestation on the order of 66 to 85 percent over the last two millennia. Moreover, plant ecologyhas recognizeddisturbances-fire, disease, and erosion for example-as integral parts of the ecosystem. Fromthis point of view, a single ideal or climax vegetation is not the natural culmination for plant succession, because multiple stable states, with very different vegetation, are possible depending on disturbance regimes. Thus grasses, not trees, may form the "climax" vegetation in many arid regions and regions with frequent fires or heavy grazing. Experimental succession studies and paleoecological research, though, were extremely limited in the early twentieth century. It was common, therefore, to use relict vegetation, assumed to indicate the remains of natural vegetation, to reconstruct both past vegetation and potential, or natural, vegetation-in other words, what the vegetation should be. This approachhad a strong historical precedent in Franceand much of Europe.27 CharlesFlahault, a professor of botany at the Universityof Montpellier,was an earlyproponentof this approach.He was an importantfigure in the history of Frenchphytosociology,influencing not only Emberger also the better-known but phytosociologist Braun-Blanquet.Flahault worked on French vegetation and especially Frenchforests which, given the existing soil and climatic conditions, he believedwere badly degraded.He wrotethat "theactual state of the vegetation in our civilized countries no longer represents the primitive [natural]state ... the primitivevegetation has disappeared;in all our mountains, abusive exploitation of wood has modified profoundly the composition and distribution [of the vegetation]."Thus researchers needed to find "some of the normal elements of the primitive associations; thanks to them we can reconstitute [the natural vegetation]."This general approachto deducing what naturalvegetation should be has informedplant geographyand ecology in generalto the present, especially in the form of Braun-Blanquet's legacy, the releve method, which relies on the scientist's selection of what represents the supposedly natural vegetation or ecological dominant. This method, although criticized over the years for being too subjective, remains the most widely used method outside of North America today.28 Embergerstudied with Flahault in 1921 and 1922 before going to Morocco, and he used Flahault's relict approachto vegetation reconstruction. Emberger explained in his workthat it is possible "todeducethe primitive [natural]state of vegetation of a site today bare, but where the ecological conditions and, particularly, climate are the same as in the locality with intact vegetation." Embergerbelieved, though, that in Morocco "the actual vegetation cover, over immense surfaces, represents degradedstates, the 'miserableremains' of a past much richer and above all more wooded."Moreover,he blamed the ruined state of vegetation in the protectorateon the Moroccansand their herds who had made "waron the forest and exploitedit brutallyfor centuries." This led to authoritative

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

2 225

conclusions such as, "theabsence of red juniperon the south slope of the Middle Atlas cannot be due to anything but the complete destruction of this tree."The environmentalnarrativeof decline so common in Moroccoduring the period of Frenchoccupation clearly informedEmberger's scientific research.Thus the old and inaccurate environmental narrative was especially important in shaping much of his research, especially his phytogeographicmap of Moroccoprepared in 1939. This map still is referenced today as the definitive bioclimatic map of Morocco.Giventhe climatic conditions, soils, and elevation of any given region, this map deduces what the natural or potential vegetation should be, based on subjective interpretations of existing and relict (and sometimes absent) vegetation. Emberger's work did more than just incorporate the ubiquitous degradationnarrative,though;his researchand writings refined,quantified,and firmlyinstitutionalized the declensionist narrativein the science of plant ecology in Morocco.His work, in particular his bioclimatic map, very quickly became widely influential and formedthe basis for numerouscalculations of forest cover and deforestation in the protectorate.CitingEmberger's 1939 map,an influential botanist wrote in 1941,for example,that "Morocco had, during the Romanepoch possibly 65 to 70% of its surface coveredin forests."29 Emberger'sresearch and especially his exaggerated estimates of naturally (potentially) forested regions of Morocco(and thus deforestation rates), had a profoundinfluence on the directorof forestry,Paul Boudy.Those estimates gave him the authorityof science to legitimize his pre-existingviews on the forests in Morocco.This becomes clear in the first volume of his magisterial four-volume series, tLconomie Forestiere Nord-Africaine. Although published in 1948, importantparts of the volume on the human and physical milieu were completed by 1941, only two years after Emberger'smap of bioclimatic regions appeared. Boudy devoted significant space in this tome to introducing and discussing Emberger'sstages. He lauded their precision, writing that "Emberger's method provides... a precise scientific base for classifying diversetypes of forests."Boudy then used the Embergermethod and map to calculate the amount of forest that had disappearedsince classical times "bypure ecology."In this section, Boudy calculatedthat about9.5 million hectares shouldnaturally/ecologically covered be with forests although only about4.8 million hectares actuallywereforested.Thus he concludedthat Moroccowas approximatelyfifty percent deforested.30 A dozen pages later,Boudyprovideda detailed history and description of how this deforestationhad proceededoverthe last two thousand years, since the time of "Roman Africa." This section reads like a textbook description of the conventionalenvironmentalnarrativeof NorthAfricaas conceivedunder French administration-with facts, figures, and maps added.Boudybegan by suggesting that, according to ecological science, all of the areas that should be forested naturallywere forested during Romantimes. Althoughhe conceded some forest destruction in NorthAfrica from about the fifth century,he placed the majority of blame on the eleventh centuryArabinvadersand their destructiveherds, often This "army locusts,""thisplunderingand anarchichorde," citing IbnKhaldoun. of "hadthe effect of intensifying the practice of nomadism ... and of transforming

226

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

the country into desert."He highlighted additional causes of deforestation in Morocco, including the construction of great cities such as Fez and Marrakech, the tanning industry, and the presumed destructiveness of the numerous goats. Thereis little doubtthat Boudybelievedthe conventionalenvironmentalnarrative of decline for NorthAfricaandMorocco. WithEmberger's ecologicalresearch, new he also now was able to justify the old narrativewith "scientific facts." In this way,Boudywas a pivotal actor in refining, institutionalizing, and amplifying the declensionist narrative.31

RESTORINGTHE RANGE
BOTH BOUDYAND Emberger were strongly influenced by this dominant environmental narrative, and in turn their scientific stories of deforestation reinforced and rationalized the French colonial vision of the Moroccan environment as deforested, overgrazed,and degraded.What had been largely a literary story of generalized environmental decline became by about 1940 a scientific story completewith ecological statistics and maps that helpedto justify policy making. The influence of this narrative reached beyond the realm of forestry,however,to the policies andworkof the livestock and range department, which governedmost of the non-forestedareas of the protectorate.Notably,the forestry department itself played a large role in the environmental policies developedin the livestock and range department. Boudy'searly conviction of the terrible damage inflicted by livestock grazing in the forest had a strong impact on forest policy but also influenced livestock and range management. This negative view of grazing was held widely in the protectorateby administrativeofficials and colonists alike. Grazingin the forest, and especially the practice of transhumance/migration,a centuries-oldpastoral livelihood tool, was seen as the greatest cause of deforestation in Moroccoand therefore as the greatest threat. Under Boudy's direction, the forest code was amended in 1921 with a new provision regulating the right and usage of pasture within forested areas. The 1921 amendment limited grazing rights to the "traditionalusers" of the forests, thereby effectively regulating transhumance. The traditional users were defined as members of Moroccantribes who lived in the territories where the forests were located or who had had use rights to the forest for a very long time. The definition of the traditionalusers eliminatedlarge numbers of local people and animals who had actually been using the forests, because the French"fossilized"the Moroccantribes.32 Thenumbersof livestockwere strictlylimitedby definingthe size of the family herd allowedto graze tax-free in the forest. Althoughthe relief from taxes was a benefit, the family herd could, according to the new law, include no more than five cows and fifteen sheep, and no goats or camels. Typicalherds in much of Morocco,especially of sheep and goats, were much largerthan this. The family's other animals also could graze, if the annual limits were not exceeded,but they had to pay a fee per head of livestock to be admitted.These annual limits, in turn, dependedon the forest service's annual assessment of the state of the vegetation

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

227

in each forested area (le possibilite en herbe).Grazingstill was limited to areas judged defensible and the routes through which the livestock could travel to get to the permitted sections of forest were strictly delimited and monitored. Furthermore, users had to reapplyeach year for the right to graze their herd the in their traditional forest. Livestockgrazed in the forests were also subjectto the tertib,the agricultural-production Overall,this resulted in a large reduction tax. in numbers of livestock grazed and diminished rural Moroccans' abilities to support basic family needs.33 Whereas fire and incendiarism had been the biggest problems facing the forestry administration in Algeria,grazing was considered the biggest problem in Morocco. According to Boudy, grazing was "the nerve center of the forest question in NorthAfrica." solution to the problemwas to combinerepression His and technical organization,and "surveillance, consequentlyrepression,must and continue to be exercised in the most active fashion." During the 1930S the government paid heightened attention to the issue of transhumance, among pastoralists in Moroccoand its assumed contribution to overgrazing. In 1934, new regulations officially reducedthe territories and rights of usage of mobile pastoralists and reduced the numbers of stock that could migrate in several regions. This followed not only the final pacification of the protectoratespecifically the conquest of the south with its high proportion of nomads-but also increased concernaboutthe migrations of livestock in Algeriaand in France. This decade saw the publication of many articles on the subject, almost all of which argued for the diminution if not the elimination of transhumance in Algeria, France,and Morocco,largely for environmentalreasons. Where it was thought that migration could not be eliminated quickly,strict surveillance and control over all movements were considered essential. In 1939, the government officially acknowledged"thatthe goal to attain is the progressive extinction of
transhumance."34

Forestry policies thus overlapped with and influenced policies governing livestock raising and range managementin Morocco. departmentof livestock The raising, le Service de l'tlevage, a subsidiary of the agriculture department,was
founded in 1913, the same year as the forestry department. Until 1930, it was

directedby veterinary colonel TheophileMonod,a good friend of Lyautey's. Like Boudy,Monodwas born and educated in France,had manyyears of experience in Algeriaand elsewhere in greater France,and stayed active in an official advisory capacity after his retirement until his death in Casablancain 1942. In the early years the departmentwas concernedprimarilywith infectious livestock diseases and the immense task of trying to transform subsistence production,especially of sheep and cattle, into commodityproduction.Toward that end, the department workedto intensify and "improve" livestock raising to produce more meat and milk as well as wool of a higher quality, which would appeal to the French consumer. This involved improving nutrition, providing shelter from heat and cold, and reducing physical exertion, especially reducing mobility over long distances. This mode of livestock raising was completelyforeign to the majority of Moroccansubsistence producers;it was also much more expensive.35

228

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

This sort of intensive livestock production,which could be accomplishedin a smaller areawith less movement,was thought to be necessary as the protectorate developed its agriculture and forest sectors. Just as large areas of the forests increasingly were being protected from grazing, more and more land was being brought under cultivation, much of which previouslyhad been used as seasonal pasture land. Thus the livestock department worked in cooperation with the forestry and agriculturedepartments.It also had to adaptto the changes wrought by forest policies that progressively decreased pasture land and transhumance in the forested areas of the country.In 1928, for example,grazing was restricted on two million hectares of prime pasture land when these areas- dominatedby alfa grass (Stipa tenacissima)-were placed under the control of the forestry departmentand new legislation regulatingtheir use was promulgated. the early In 1920S the livestock department also became responsible for pasture (range) improvement.As Monod explained, the livestock service was charged with the amelioration of the whole environment in which animals were raised and therefore "also with obtaining the reconstitution of pastures." Thus the departmentorganized,run,and staffed by veterinarianswas responsiblefor what today we call range management.A vast majorityof the land in the protectorate not under cultivation, not in forested areas, and not in urban or village areas, was used for grazing livestock and frequentlywas subject to the policies of the livestock and range department.36 Within a decade of the establishment of the protectorate,the livestock and range department was implementing many policies to reconstitute pastures assumed to be degraded.The conventionalenvironmentalnarrativeis evident in this sector as well with numerous references to the natural fertility of Moroccan pastures that had been degradedby the "improvidence the natives,"especially of and nomads. Although pasture degradationnever was as tightly transhumants quantified as the amount of deforestationwas in the 1930S and 1940s, it was the target of dire claims made by the department.Techniques to reconstitute and restore the range thus were implementedwidely,included delimiting exclosures for forage reserves, seeding pastures with forage species, creating cactus plantations in hyper-aridregions and irrigated alfalfa pastures in areas with access to irrigation networks, and acclimatizing exotic forage species. Later in the protectorate,foreign (presumedbetter)forage shrubs such as Australiansaltbush (Atriplex)were planted to improve pastures. Pastures improvedby those means, though, often requiredpaid permitsbeforeentrywas allowed,and grazing was restricted and regulated. Many attempts at improvement failed when importedplants did not growwell.37 Mostof these measuresdiscouragedmobility.Theyrequiredtime, money,and/ or work spent in a single location; that is, they encouraged, and sometimes enforced,sedentarization.Mostof these so-calledimprovements were in complete opposition to the primarygoals of subsistence herders.These goals include high mobility and hardylivestock, which,though often low producers,allow flexibility of resource use in an unpredictable environment. The overriding protectorate goal of security helped to reinforce the transformation from a nomadic/

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

229

transhumant mode of productionto a sedentary mode. The livestock and range service workedmore closely with the military and intelligence services than did the forestry service. Overthe course of the protectorate period, the policies of the forestry and livestock departments greatly curtailed-sometimes brutallythe traditional modes of livestock production,both nomadic and transhumant. As a result, an untold numberof local Moroccanslost their livelihoods and many migratedto the shanty towns of the growing cities.38 The delimiting, improving, and policing of pasture lands was not as comprehensive or as detailed as similar activities were in forested areas. The policies and work of the livestock and range department, however,did help to extend the environmental narrative-and many of the goals developed in the forestry department-to much of the rest of the protectorate.And as it had in the forestrysector,the narrativeservedcolonial interests in the livestock sector more than indigenous interests. In this sector,the combinationof policies encouraging intensification, veterinary public-healthlaws, and range-managementpractices that enforced sedentarization, privileged commodity production by European colonists overthe subsistence productionof local Moroccans.This had the added benefit, in the eyes of the military and parts of the administration,of controlling the nomads and other mobile herderswho were perceivedas a threat to the state. Those in need of labor also benefited. By incrementallydepriving Moroccan pastoralists and agro-pastoralistsof the ability to supportthemselves with forest productsand livestock, the government'spolicies created a vast pool of laborfor the expanding export-oriented agricultural venture that defined Moroccan colonialism.Such laborwas necessary since, by the end of the protectorateperiod, an estimated 77 percent of the best agricultural land was in the hands of the Europeans, mostly in large farms requiring many workers. The deforestation/ degradationstory was invokedhere too, with an ironic twist. As Boudyexplained in 1927to the young recruits of the government'sindigenous affairs department, the Arganforest (in southwestern Morocco)must be saved, for "ifthe argan [tree] disappears,the region will returnto its true steppe destination or even to desert; with it will be dried up the great human reservoir of Morocco,which feeds with manpowerthe rest of the country."39

CONCLUSION
ALTHOUGH CATEGORIZED environmentalpolicies during the colonial NOT as period, the policies and practices of the forestry and livestock departments developed and applied most of the rules governing Morocco'senvironment for more than forty years.40 This article has arguedthat a questionable nineteenthcenturydeclensionist environmentalnarrativeof NorthAfricaprofoundlyshaped environmentalpolicies in protectorateMorocco.It favoredimperialinterests over indigenous interests and helped to dispossess Moroccansfrom their lands and livelihoods. This environmental narrative and many of its attending environmentalpolicies were retained in the post-colonial period and still affect Moroccoto this day.The 1917Moroccanforest code and most of its amendments

230

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

and related policies, for example, remain in effect. There is a similar legacy in the livestock and range management sector where intensification of production, control of grazing, sedentarization, protection of arboreal areas, and pasture reconstitution are still the primarygoals. The writings of Boudy and Emberger, in particular, still strongly influence environmental research and policy formulationin Morocco. Theirdescriptions of the naturalor potential vegetation, and their calculations of rates of deforestation (and its causes), are invoked frequentlyas scientific proof of the state of the Moroccanenvironment.41 Scholars of North Africa and the MiddleEast have been noticeably silent on these topics, although many of the problems associated with colonial environmental degradation narratives have been exposed for much of subSaharan Africa, parts of Asia, and some other regions.42 False environmental histories, repressiveenvironmentalpolicies, politicaland economicstruggles over resources, and interest-laden narratives are now well-recognized phenomena, particularly in Africa. Although nearly all of this work traces dominant environmental narratives to the beginning of the colonial era, few explore the nineteenth century,since most colonial ventures in sub-SaharanAfrica,did not begin until after the turn of the twentieth century.This article highlights some of the benefits of examining the nineteenth-century precedents of colonial environmental narratives, especially for former FrenchAfrican territories. The Maghrebiterritories, specifically Algeria, were held up as "models of colonial installation" to be emulated in other French territories.43The influence of Maghrebi environmental narratives and environmental policies for French colonial territories outside of NorthAfrica,though, has not been analyzed.Most intellectual histories of environmentalthinking trace ideas from French,British, and Europeanprecedents to Indian influences and subsequentlyto sub-Saharan Africa. My research suggests that the influence of Maghrebi environmental narrativesand policies for FrenchcolonialAfricahas been overlookedand should be explored.44 The Moroccan case also highlights the importance of analyzing potential vegetation maps and related data sets for their underlying environmental narratives.Although a few authors, namely James Fairheadand Melissa Leach, have mentionedthe importanceof potentialvegetation maps in their discussions of colonial forestry,no one to my knowledgehas conducteddetailedexaminations of how these maps were constructed or by whom.45 of these maps have been Few studied for their accuracy,based on comparisons with contemporaryecological or paleoecological data. Potential vegetation maps provided authority for draconian environmental policies during the colonial period as they still do in much of the world.Manypotential vegetation maps used todaywere constructed during the colonial period or are based on slightly revised versions of colonial maps. Potential vegetation maps and related environmental data sets often provide baselines for work in environmental remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS)and thereby influence a large and growing numberof environmental projects, some global in scope.46By examining these maps and the narratives that often permeate them, we will be better able to expose and

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

231

correct outdated assumptions, biases and errors that increasingly lead to environmentallydestructiveand socially detrimentaloutcomes aroundthe world. Diana K Davis, D.V.M.,Ph.D, is an assistant professor of geography at the Universityof Texasat Austin. She is currently writing a book on environmental history and French colonialism in North Africa. Also a veterinarian, she has published several articles on Afghan and Moroccannomads and their livestock.

NOTES
The research for this paper would not have been possible without the generous funding of a National Endowmentfor the Humanities Summer Fellowship, as well as a Dean'sFellowshipand two FacultyResearchGrantsfrom the University of Texas at Austin. I am indebted to many who helped me at LInstitut du Monde Arabe,Paris, France,and Le Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, France.I am especially grateful for the insight and assistance I received from Marie-Jeanne Lionnet,librarydirectorat l'EcoleNationale du Genie Ruralet des Eaux et Forets, Nancy, France. I would particularly like to thank Damien Heurtebise, at Les Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, France, for his help. Catherine Regnault at the Musees des Beaux-Artsde Rouen likewise deserves my gratitude. Finally, I must thank James Housefield, James McCann, and anonymousreviewersof Environmental History, as well as the editorAdamRome, for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
i. See, for example, David M. Anderson,Erodingthe Commons:The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya,189os-1963 (Oxford: in James Currey, collaborationwith the Ohio University Press, 2002); Thomas J. Bassett and Donald Crummey, eds., African Savannas: GlobalNarratives & Local Knowledgeof EnvironmentalChange(Oxford: James Currey,2003); James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, Misreading the African Landscape:Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1996); JamesFairheadand Melissa Leach,ReframingDeforestation: GlobalAnalysesand LocalRealities:Studies in WestAfrica(London: Routledge,1998); TimForsyth,CriticalPolitical Ecology:ThePolitics of Environmental Science (London: Routledge,2003); ChristianKull,"Deforestation, Erosion,and Fire:DegradationMyths in the EnvironmentalHistory of Madagascar," Environmentand History (2000): 42350; Melissa Leach and Robin Mearns, The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdomon the African Environment(London: InternationalAfricanInstitute, 1996); James McCann,GreenLand,Brown Land,Black Land:An EnvironmentalHistory of Africa (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1999); Roderick P. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness:Struggles over Livelihoodand Nature Preservation in Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1998); Nancy L. Peluso, Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1992); Thaddeus Sunseri, "Reinterpretinga Colonial Rebellion: Forestry and Social Control in German East Africa, 1874-1915," Environmental History (2003): 430-51; and Mary Tiffen, Michael Mortimore, and Francis Gichuki, More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya (Chichester:JohnWiley &Sons, 1994). NorthAfricais used in this paperto referto Algeria,Morocco,and Tunisia,collectively also known as the Maghreb.Research for this article, and a related book project, is

2.

232

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

10

(APRIL

2005)

based on extensive research in Morocco and in the French colonial archives. Translations from the Frenchare mine unless otherwise noted. 3. Paul Boudy,tconomie ForestiereNord-Africaine, vols. (Paris:tditions Larose,19484
1955).

de 4. P. Christian, L'Afrique L'Empire Maroc et les De'sertsde Sahara (Paris: FranVaise,

A. Barbier, Editeur, 1846), 315; J.-A.-N. Perier, Exploration Scientifique de l'Algerie: Sciences M6dicales, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1847), 1:29. For a detailed

discussion of the developmentand use of this environmentalnarrative,see Diana K. Davis, "DesertWastes of the Maghreb:Desertification Narrativesin FrenchColonial EnvironmentalHistory of NorthAfrica,"CulturalGeographies(2004): 359-87. 5. HenriVerne,La Franceen Alg6rie(Paris:CharlesDouniol, 1869), 20; and Service des Affaires Indigenes, Historique de lAnnexe des Affaires Indigenes de Ben-Gardane researchhas led many to (Bourg:ImprimerieVictorBerthod,1931),13. Contemporary conclude that Roman overcultivation was followed by "a phase of relative soil conservation and vegetative regeneration with the more nomadic land-use system of the Arabs." BrunoMesserliand MathiasWiniger,"Climate, See Environmental Change, and Resources of the African Mountains from the Mediterraneanto the Equator," Mountain Researchand Development(1992): 315-36,quote on 332. 6. Both Berber and Arabicbelong to the Hamito-Semiticlanguage group, of which the Semitic languages, including Arabic, form a subgroup. Berber is thought to be the oldest language in North Africa,while Arabicwas introducedto the Maghrebduring the seventh century. 7. Foran excellent discussion of the Berberpolicy in Morocco,see EdmundBurke,"The Image of the MoroccanState in French Ethnological Literature:A New Look at the in Originof Lyautey's BerberPolicy," Arabsand Berbers:FromTribeto Nation in North Africa, ed. Ernest Gellner and Charles Micaud (Lexington,Mass.: Lexington Books,
1972),175-99. For an enlightening discussion of France's mid-nineteenth-century ideas

of its Romanheritage, see Patricia M.Lorcin,"Romeand Francein Africa:Recovering ColonialAlgeria's Latin Past," FrenchHistorical Studies (2002): 295-29; and Perier, Exploration Scientifique.Thequoteis fromJeanColin,L'Occupation RomaineduMaroc
(Rabat: Service des Affaires Indigenes, 1925), 3.

8. Christian, L'Afrique 52; FranVaise, Xavier Durrieu, The Present State of Morocco:A Chapterof Muslim Civilisation(London: Longan,Brown,Green,and Longmans,1854), 49; and Maurice Besnier, "LaGeographie tconomique du Maroc dans l'Antiquit6,"
Archives Marocaines 7 (19o6): 271-93, quote on 276. Following their occupation of

Algeriain 1830, the Frencheasily conqueredTunisiain i88i. Theconquest of Morocco in 1912 was considerablymore difficult and more complicatedpolitically. Fordetails, see EdmundBurke, Prelude to Protectoratein Morocco(Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1976).

9. MauriceBesnier, G6ographie Ancienne du Maroc(Paris:Ernest Leroux,1904), 50. See also Besnier, "G6ographie tconomique,"271.Fora good discussion of the government sanctioned Mission Scientifique du Maroc, see Edmund Burke, "La Mission Scientifique au Maroc,"in Actes de Durham: Recherches Recentes sur le Maroc Moderne,ed. Paul Pascon (Rabat:B.E.S.M., 1979), 37-56. A later, separate effort also sanctioned by the Frenchgovernmentand organized by the GeographicalSociety,the Scientific Exploration of Morocco (ExplorationScientifique du Maroc),produced a botanical survey in 1913,likely the first such surveyof the protectorate.Althoughthis survey is nearly entirely a long list cataloging the plants of western Morocco,it does contain traces of the narrative in the preface. See M. C.-J.Pitard, Exploration Scientifique du Maroc:PremierFascicule:Botanique(Paris:Masson et Cie,1913). This exploratory mission also included studies of the agronomy and zoology of the protectorate.

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

233

10.

Christian, L'Afrique Franfaise, 52-53; and Besnier, "G6ographie tconomique," 273. For

a detailed study of the developmentof Morocco'sagriculturalsector at this time, see Will D. Swearingen,MoroccanMirages:AgrarianDreams and Deceptions, 1912-1986 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). Despite numerous studies that demonstratethe exaggerations and false aspects of these myths of extreme fertility, closely related ideas continue to drive much of agriculturaldevelopmentin Morocco to this day.Forexamples, see Jean-Louis Ballais, "Conquestsand LandDegradationin the Eastern Maghreb During Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages," in The Archaeologyof Drylands,ed. GraemeBarkerand DavidGilbertson(London: Routledge, 2000), 125-36; GraemeBarker, "ATale of Two Deserts: Contrasting Desertification Histories on Rome's Desert Frontiers," WorldArchaeology (2002): 488-507; Rene
Dumont, 7ypes of Rural Economy (London: Methuen, 1957): 164-208; 1995).
11. See footnote 26. 12. Auguste Terrier, Le Maroc (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1931), 187. See, also, Jean Celerier,

and Brent Shaw,

Environmentand Society in RomanNorthAfrica(Aldershot,GreatBritain:Variorum,

Histoire du Maroc:Sommaire des Le,ons Profess6es au Coursde Perfectionnement du Service des Renseignements (Rabat: Directiondes Affaires Indigenes et du Service des Renseignements,1921); StephaneGsell,HistoireAnciennede l'Afrique Nord and du
(Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1921). au Bulletin de la Societe Forestiere ForestiereFranc,aise Maroc," 13. PaulBoudy,"L'Oeuvre de Franche-Comte et des Provinces de L'Est (1954): 1-10, quote on 2. In addition to

directing the forestry department for approximatelythree quarters of the colonial period, Boudy headed the delicate reorganization of the propertyand land registry
department from 1936 to 1939. See Philibert Guinier, "N6crologie: Paul Boudy (18741957)," Revue Forestiere Fran,caise (1958): 219-22. 14. AlthoughBoudyapparentlyworkedin close agreementwith Lyauteyon many issues,

he also opposed Lyauteyon at least one occasion by strongly advising against giving a concession for exclusive private exploitation of the Ainleuh forest to a Frenchman, M. de Nucheze: See telegram of 9 March 1922 from Urbain Blanc, Delegue of the Resident General Lyautey,to Lyautey,Maroc/DAI/Inv.8/319a, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (hereafter CADN). information on Boudy in Morocco, For
see letter no. 290 of 23 March 1912, Maroc/dossiers personnels, carton two, CADN,and

letter no. 141 of 3 March 1913, Maroc/dossiers personnels, carton two, CADN.On Algerian cork harvests and revenues, see H. Marc, Notes sur les Forets de l'Algerie (Alger: Typographie AdolpheJourdan, 1916).On Moroccanforest revenues, see Boudy, Economie Forestiere, 1:274. See also Gen6ral Lyautey,ed. Rapport General sur La Situation du Protectorat du Maroc (Rabat: Residence Generale de la Republique
Franqaise au Maroc, 1916). 15. Commentson indigenous land-use practices may be found in GouvernementG6neral

de l'Algerie,Commission dttudes Forestieres (Alger:ImprimerieTypographique et Papeterie J. Torrent,1904); and Marc,Notes. Details of Boudy'sarticle are found in PaulBoudy,"LesForetsdu Maroc," RevueGeneraledes Sciences PuresetAppliquees La
25 (1914): 350-54.

i6. For details of the early inspections and decisions regarding Morocco'sforests, see "Servicedes Forets,"no date, in Maroc/DAI/Inv. 8/#iol, CADN. The 1827 Napoleonic forest code was, in turn, an updatedversion of the 1669 French forest code written underJean-BaptisteColbert,which had the primarypurposeof assuring enough wood for the navy. See GeorgesPlaisance, La ForetFran9aise(Paris:tdition Denoel, 1979);
200-202. Thus the 1669 and 1827 French forest codes were written more for economic

and political purposes than for environmentalor ecological purposes. Amendments to the 1827 forest code were made in Francein the name of environmentalprotection

234

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

1 0 (APRIL

2005)

throughout the nineteenth century,although the inherently political nature of many of these changes has been recentlydetailed.See Tamara Whited,Forestsand Peasant L. Politics in ModernFrance(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress, 2000). Fora discussion of the problemscaused by the forest code in Algeria,see DavidProchaska,"Fireon the Mountain:Resisting Colonialismin Algeria," Banditry,Rebellionand Social Protest in in Africa,ed. DonaldCrummey(London: James Currey, 1986); 229-52. 17. Daniel Rivet, however,makes clear how much violence actually was used during the military campaigns of pacification in Morocco. See Daniel Rivet, Lyautey et l'Instauration du Protectorat Fran,ais au Maroc 1912-1925, 3 vols. (Paris: tditions l'Harmattan,1988). The two quotes are from Lyautey,Rapport G6neral,419. Legal changes are detailed in Boudy,EconomieForestiere,1:306-308. i8. See "Dahirsur l'exploitation &conservation des forets,"1917,Maroc/DAI/Inv. 8/31ga, CADN. Algeria,see TheodoreWoolsey,FrenchForestsand Forestry: On Tunisia,Algeria,
Corsica (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1917). 19. See "Dahirsur l'exploitation," CADN, and Boudy,tconomie Forestiere,1: 276-77. 1;

Forestimates of forest coverat independence,see A. Metro,"Forets," Atlas duMaroc, in Notices Explicatives, Section VI, Biogeographie:Forets et Resources Vegetales, ed. Comitede Geographie(Rabat:Comitede Geographiedu Maroc,1958). 21. Paul Boudy,L'Arbre les For6tsau Maroc,CoursPreparatoire Service des Affaires et au Indigenes (Rabat:Residence Generale de France au Maroc, Direction Generale des Affaires Indigenes, 1927), 8; Ibid., 17. This sentence must be considered within the context of the distinction betweenAraband Berberthat the Frenchcreatedin Morocco as part of their strategy to divide and rule. Boudyexplained in the following sentence that, "theBerbershave respectedtheir woods much better [thanthe Arabsemites] and they havenot destroyedthem except for militarynecessity."Foran excellent discussion of this Berber policy, see Burke, "Imageof the MoroccanState."The final quote is fromBoudy,"L'Arbre les Forets," Forexamples of commongeneralizations about et io. the valueof forests in Franceandelsewhere,see JeanBrunhes,LaG6ographie Humaine: Essai de Classification Positive, Principeset Exemples(Paris:F.Alcan,1910); Clarence Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967); Gustave Huffel, tconomie Forestiere (Paris: Lucien Laveur, 1919); and GeorgePerkins Marsh,Manand Nature,ed. DavidLowenthal(1864;reprint, Mass: Belknap Press, 1965). Cambridge, 22. Boudy,"L'Arbre les Forets,"21-22. It should be noted that many western experts et believed at this time that most of the habitable earth was once and should again be heavilywooded.Theconceptof the taux de boisementand its importancemaybe traced back to at least the nineteenth century in Franceand likely much earlier. A taux de boisement of 30 percent was the widely accepted minimum for civilization in France and much of Europe.It was applied to Algeria to make much the same argument in favor of extensive reforestation during the last half of the nineteenth century. See GouvernementGeneralde l'Algerie,Commission. 23. ForBoudy'sestimates, see Paul Boudy,"LaForetMarocaine," LaScience au Maroc, in ed. Paul Boudy and P. Despujols (Casablanca:Imprimeries Reunies, 1934);191. For Emberger's calculations, see Louis Emberger, "Apercu Generale[de la vegetationl,"in La Science au Maroc,ed. Boudyand Despujols,163. 24. For details on Emberger'slife, see JacquesMiege, "In Memorium:Louis Emberger," Candollea(1970):183-87. Embergerwas likely influenced by a Frenchbotanist with long experience in Algeria, Rene Maire. Maire began botanical investigations in Moroccoearly in the protectorateperiodand Embergeraccompaniedhim on many of his excursions. While Maireand several other botanists researchedand published on Moroccan vegetation, Emberger was the first to quantify and map the potential vegetation and to calculate the extent of presumeddeforestation in the Protectorate.
20.

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

235

25.

Immanuel Noy-Meirand E. van der Maarel,"RelationsBetween CommunityTheory and Community Analysis in Vegetation Science: Some Historical Perspectives," work Vegetatio(1987): 5-15,quote on 7. Foran overviewof the influence of Emberger's on studies of Mediterraneanecology, see I. Nahal, "TheMediterraneanClimatefrom a Biological Viewpoint,"in Mediterranean-7ype Shrublands,ed. Francesco di Castri and David Goodall(NewYork:Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co.,1981),63-86. 26. Louis Emberger, "La Vegetation de la Region Mediterraneene: Essai d'une RevueG6neralede Botanique(1930):641Classification des GroupementsVeg6taux,"
62 and 705-21, quotes on 718, 708; and Louis Emberger, "Apercu Generale sur la

Vegetation du Maroc. Commentaire de la Carte Phytogeographique du Maroc," Institutes Rubelin Zurich(1939): Veroffentlichungen Geobotanischen des 40-157,quote on 43. ForMikesell'swork,see MarvinMikesell,"Deforestationin NorthernMorocco,"
Science 132 (1960): 441-48. For a discussion of the serious problems of deducing natural

vegetation from relict vegetation in other parts of Africa, see Fairheadand Leach, and MisreadingtheAfricanLandscape; Fairheadand Leach,ReframingDeforestation. 27. Forpaleoecological research, see H. F. Lamb,F. Damblon,and R. W. Maxted,"Human Impact on the Vegetation of the MiddleAtlas, Morocco,Duringthe Last 5000 Years," Journalof Biogeography(1991):519-32;H. F. Lamb,et al., "LacustrineSedimentation in a High-Altitude,Semi-AridEnvironment:The PalaeolimnologicalRecordof Lake in Isli, High Atlas, Morocco," EnvironmentalChangein Drylands,ed. A. C.Millington and K. Pye (NewYork:JohnWiley & Sons, 1994), 147-61;H. F. Lamb,U. Eichner,and V.R.Switsur, "Ani8,ooo-Year Recordof Vegetation, Lake-leveland Climate Change from Tigalmamine, Middle Atlas, Morocco," Journal of Biogeography(1989): 65-74; and M. Reille, "Contribution Pollenanalytiquea l'Histoire Holocene de la vegetation des Montagnes du Rif (MarocSeptentrional)," Suppl6mentau Bulletin AFEQ(1977): 53-76.Reille's article probablyhas receivedthe most scholarly attention, and it shows a greaterdecline in more species than other fossil pollen studies in Morocco. study His is limited, however,because it coveredno more than a seventy-fivekilometer region of the Rif Mountains and was not carbondated. In fact, his dates are mostly inferred from the standard environmental history described in this article. For a good discussion of the "naturalness" disturbance,see Douglas G.Sprugel,"Disturbance, of Equilibrium, and Environmental Variability: What is 'Natural' Vegetation in a Changing Environment?"Biological Conservation (1991): i-i8. See, also, Mark A. of Blumler,"Biogeography Land-Use Impactsin the NearEast,"in Nature'sGeography: New Lessons for Conservation in Developing Countries, ed. Karl Zimmerer and
Kenneth Young (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 215-36.

28. Charles Flahault, "AuSujet de la Carte Botanique Forestiereet Agricole de France," Annales de G6ographie (1896): 449-57, quote on 456. For information on phytosociological methods, see Michael G. Barbour,et al., TerrestrialPlant Ecology,
3rd ed. (Menlo Park, Calif: Addison, Wesley, Longman, 1999), 213-17.
29.

marriedFlahault'sdaughter.Firsttwo quotes fromEmberger, "Commentaire Emberger de la Carte," 43-44; Emberger,"Apercu Gen6rale," Emberger,"Commentaire la 163; de Carte,"45. Final quote from Charles Sauvage, "La Foret Marocaine,"Bulletin de
215. Boudy makes this calculation slightly more clear in his 1958 volume in the series dedicated to Morocco.See Paul Boudy,Description Forestieredu Maroc,2nd ed. (Paris:tditions Larose, 1958), 351. Elsewhere in the 1948 volume, however, in a section perhaps written

l'Enseignement Public (1941): 235-57, quote on 250. 30. All quotes in this paragraphfrom Boudy,tconomie Forestiere, 1:290,170,

earlier, he estimated that Moroccowas 66 percent deforested but did not providean ecological calculation.See Boudy,tconomie Forestiere,1:267.This maybe a repetition of what he estimated in 1927. See Boudy,"L'Arbre les Forkts," et 22. 31. All quotes in this paragraphfrom Boudy,tconomie Forestiere,1:226-28.

236

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

1 0 (APRIL

2005)

32. Forrepresentativestatements on the evils of grazing throughout the colonial period,

see Augustin Bernard,UneMission au Maroc(Paris:LeComitedu Maroc,1904);Boudy, "L'Arbre les Forets"; et Louis Emberger, du dans le Paysage "L'Importance Chene-Liege
Marocain avant la Destruction des Forkts," La Revue de Geographie Marocaine (1928):

3-6; "La Foret Marocaine," in ttudes Marocaines: Supplement au Bulletin d'Informationset de Documentation de la R6sidence G6n6rale(Rabat:La R6sidence
Gen6rale de France au Maroc, 1940), 1-28; Boudy, "La Foret Marocaine"; Boudy,

tconomie Foresti&re; CommandantEttori, "LeBerbere et le Code Forestier"(Centre des Hautes Etudes sur l'Afriqueet l'Asie Modernes,hereafter CHEAM, unpublished report,1952); Souloumiac,"LeProblemedu D6frichementou une PolitiqueForestiere 1. au Maroc"(CHEAM, unpublished report,1947);and J.Souloumiac, "LaDeforestation au Maroc" (CHEAM, unpublishedreport,1948). Fordetails of the decree on grazing in the forests, see "ArrWt6 Viziriel du 15 Janvier1921Reglantle Moded'Exercisedu Droit au Parcoursdans les ForetsDomaniales," CADN. Rivethas criticized Maroc/DAI/319a, the way the protectorateauthorities defined Moroccantribes and tribal boundaries. He explains that the tribe became not only an administrativeunit, "buta museum of a network of alliance among men fossilized by the imposition of an external and sovereign system of authority,therefore in the end a fiction." See Rivet, Lyauteyet l'Instauration,202. 33. Limits on the numbers of livestock in a family herd are detailed in Boudy,tconomie Forestiere,587. One economist has explained that the tertib was "no longer a mere tax, but also a political instrument for breaking downthe native and historic method of utilizing the environment."See Melvin Knight, Morocco as a French Economic Venture: Study of OpenDoorImperialism(NewYork: Appleton-Century 1937); A D. Co., 49. This was true of animal as well as plant agriculturein Morocco. late as 1952,the As government still was using this tactic. By raising the tertib (tax) on goats, the government sought to discourage goat production and increase sheep production, based on its fears that goats cause deforestation. See Maroc/DAI/#591, CADN. 34. First two quotes are from Boudy, tconomie Foresti&re, 1:627-68.For regulations on transhumance, see CommandantRuet, "LaTranshumancedans le MoyenAtlas et la Haute Moulouya" (CHEAM, unpublished report,1952);6. Forexamples of arguments to reduce transhumance,see Leon Lehureaux,"Comment s'EffectueActuellement la
Transhumance," L'Union Ovine, 5 May 1930:189-91; Antonin Rolet, "LaTranshumance

en France:Ses Difficult6s,"L'UnionOvine,5 September1930: 386-89; and Maurice Rondet-Saint, "Un Probleme a Resoudre en Afrique du Nord: le Nomadisme," La D6peche Coloniale i8 December 1931: 1. Strict surveillance was advocated by Vet6rinaire-Major Gadiou,"LaSituation tconomique du Sous,"Revuede G6ographie
du Maroc (1927): 137-65; and Lehureaux, "Comment s'Effectue." See Ruet, "La

Transhumance," for the 1939 government decision on transhumance. Although 6, overgrazingand deforestation were given as the primaryreasons that transhumance was a problemand needed to be stopped, the state also was interested in controlling or eliminating transhumance for reasons of security and quelling the rising tide of nationalism in the protectorate. 35. For details on the creation and history of the department,see L. A. Martin, "AvantPropos:L'Ulevage Maroc," au MarocMedical(1949):not numbered.Monod'spersonal informationmaybe found in "Feuilletdu Personnel," Dossier 8.752,ServiceHistorique de l'Armeede la Terre(hereafterSHAT). 36. For details on the 1928 alfa grass reclassification, see Boudy, tconomie Forestiere, 1:288. Quote from VeterinaireColonelTheophile Monod,"L'tlevageau Maroc:Cours
Preparatoire" (Rabat: Service des Affaires Indigenes, 1927), 10.

37. Descriptions of the improvidenceof the natives may be found in Service de l'tlevage du Maroc,"Historiquedu Service de l'tlevage du Maroc:ses Attributionset son Role

POTENTIAL

FORESTS

237

dans l'tconomie du Pays,"MarocM6dical(1949):471-74;TheophileMonod,"L'Elevage au Maroc," LaRenaissance duMaroc: in DixAns de Protectorat, ResidenceG6nerale ed. de la R6publiqueFrancaise au Maroc (Rabat:Residence Generale de la R6publique
Francaise au Maroc, 1924), 294-306; and Monod, "L'tlevage au Maroc." Service de

l'tlevage du Maroc,"Historique Service," du 472, provides details of the techniques of pasture reconstitution. Because of the arid conditions in much of Moroccoand North Africa, pollen analysis is not possible for parts of the country and thus some reconstructionof vegetation and estimates of past vegetation are still hypotheticalto varying degrees. 38. See GudrunDahl and Anders Hjort, Pastoral Herd Growthand Household Economy, vol. 2 (Stockholm:Departmentof Social Anthropology, 1976), for a discussion of the goals of subsistence pastoralists. The traditional mode of extensive, mobile livestock productionis well adaptedto the arid NorthAfrican/Mediterranean environmentand is often the most efficient and environmentallyfriendly mode of resource use. See Michael B. Coughenour,et al., "EnergyExtraction and Use in a Nomadic Pastoral Ecosystem,"Science (1985):619-25;Avi Perevolotsky,and No'am Seligman, "Roleof Grazingin MediterraneanRangelandEcosystems,"BioScience (1998): 1007-17; Mark A. Blumler, "Successional Pattern and Landscape Sensitivity in the Mediterranean and Near East,"in LandscapeSensitivity, ed. DavidS. G.Thomasand RobertJ.Allison (Chichester:JohnWiley &Sons Ltd.,1993),287-305; and Ian Scoones, ed., Living with Uncertainty: NewDirections in PastoralDevelopmentin Africa(London: Intermediate TechnologyPublications,1995).Onrelations with the military,see Servicede l'Elevage du Maroc,"Historique Service"; du V6terinaireColonelTh6ophileMonod,"LeRole du
Veterinaire Colonial," La TerreMarocaine (1931):4-15; and Monod, "L'Elevageau Maroc."

39. Boudy,"L'Arbre les Forets,"40-41. For a discussion of the transfer of agricultural et land to Europeans,see Swearingen,MoroccanMirages,143-44. 40. Even national parks were created under the authority (and therefore the policies) of the forestry departmentsin Algeria,Morocco,and Tunisia duringthe colonial period. See Diana K. Davis, "Environmentalismas Social Control?An Exploration of the Transformationof Pastoral Nomadic Societies in French ColonialNorth Africa,"The
Arab World Geographer (2000): 182-98.

41. Forrepresentativesamples, see M.Barbero, al., "Changes Disturbancesof Forest et and Ecosystems Caused by Human Activities in the Western Part of the Mediterranean
Basin," Vegetatio (1990): 151-73;Abdelmalik Benabid, Flore et tcosystemes du Maroc:

tvaluation et Pr6servationde la Biodiversite (Paris:Editions Ibis Press, 2000); J. R. McNeill, The Mountains of the Mediterranean World:an Environmental History (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992); SOMADE, La Foret Marocaine: ed., Droit,Economie,Ecologie (Casablanca: AfriqueOrient,1989); J.V.Thirgood,Man and the MediterraneanForest:A History of ResourceDepletion (London: AcademicPress, 1981); and Daniel Vaxelaire,ed., La GrandeEncyclop6diedu Maroc(Rabat: GEI,1987).
42. See note i, above.

43. Auguste Chevalier,L'Agronomie Colonialeet le MuseumNational d'HistoireNaturelle: Premieres Conf6rences du Cours sur les Productions Coloniales Veg6tales & l'AgronomieTropicale(Paris:Laboratoired'AgronomieColoniale,1930), 2. 44. See, for example, RichardH. Grove,GreenImperialism:ColonialExpansion, Tropical Island Edensand the Originsof Environmentalism, 16oo-i86o (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995);and Fairheadand Leach,ReframingDeforestation. Grove hints at the importanceof the Algeriancase and notes that it remains underanalyzedin his book Ecology, Climate and Empire:Colonialism and GlobalEnvironmentalHistory, 1400-1940 (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1997),193-213. 45. Fairheadand Leach, ReframingDeforestation, 164-170. See also Kull, Deforestation,
429.

238

ENVIRONMENTAL

HISTORY

1 0 (APRIL

2005)

46. Forexcellent discussions of many of the problemscaused by these new environmental The technologies, see PaulRobbins,"FixedCategoriesin a PortableLandscape: Causes and Consequencesof Land-Cover Categorization," Environment PlanningA(2aoo): and
161-79; and Matthew D. Turner, "Methodological Reflections Ecology (2003): 255-79.

on the Use of Remote

Sensing and GeographicInformationScience in HumanEcologicalResearch," Human