Deforestation Resulting from European Shipbuilding :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

De woodwindation Resulting from European ShipbuildingHistorical texts have documented the countless technologies, ideas, dioceanses, plants and animals the European ships delivered nigh the world during the Age of Exploration. However, these texts fail to include one key despatch item de setation. European ship building triggered an epidemic of forest depletion that gradually open up to the lands they encountered. Beginning in the early fourteenth century, wood fueled the increase production of exploratory sea vessels. The loss of trees coincided with the rapid rate of shipbuilding. Eventually, Europeans apply their timber reserves to such an extreme that they began looking elsewhere for wood, including colonies in North America and Southeast Asia. With newfound resources, the European shipbuilding cable car churned on, yet before long deforestation also became an issue in the colonial areas. Although shipbuilding played an integral role in a period of European advancement, it d evastated not only the European environment barely the forests of other continents as well. Prior to the Age of Exploration, hardwood trees blanketed all of Europe to do a forest giOB47comparable in size to the Amazon wash-hand stand (David Morse). Forest density was intense, such that scattered clearings must have appeared bid islets in an ocean of green (Morse). Nevertheless, as pieces discovered the rank of wood as fuel for warmth, deforestation followed close behind. The progression of human technologies presented more uses for timber. Eventually, wood became a staple in a broad range of manufacturing processes, among them shipbuilding. The production of sea vessels put extreme pressure on the oldest and largest trees in European forests the massive tree trunks that were years in the making were also the best suited for the immense hulls of open sea ships. For every ship built, the environment lost some of its oldest flora members, who were regrettably also the hardest to replace.Shipbuilding was also closely intertwined with another forest overpowering industry metallurgy, especially iron production. Iron comprised the weaponry and structural championship aboard many sea vessels. Because the production of iron required graduate(prenominal) temperatures, the demand for firewood grew to almost insatiable proportions. Thus, the amount of timber invested in shipbuilding included more than just the lumber for the hulls. As David Morse points out, the veer in metallurgy history dictated that wherever ironmaking took over . . . it did away with the forest (Morse). In effect, shipbuilding and its association with iron production impacted the forest landscape two-fold.