Nomad's Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Andrea E. Duffy

Abstract

Reviewed by: Nomad's Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Andrea E. Duffy Peter Z. Fulé Duffy, Andrea E. Nomad's Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean World. UP of Nebraska, 2019. ISBN 978-0-8032-9097-6. Pp. 336. Could nomadic pastoralists and their flocks of sheep and goats damage forests beyond repair? Drawing on theories of the superiority of sedentary agriculturists over nomadic herders as well as observations from the Tunisian Ibn Khaldun to Alexis de Toqueville, French thought in the nineteenth century pulled together threads of imperialist justification, social "progress," and the incipient science of ecology, to develop a forest science that prized trees over grass, at the expense of nomadic lifestyles that stretched back to earliest Mediterranean civilizations. Duffy traces the intellectual roots of forest science in France, showing that it was based on data about deforestation and fire damage, but also linked to the ideology of empire. In contrast to some other colonial powers that accelerated resource exploitation until forests disappeared, the French "dealt with resource depletion through management reforms" (62). Their methods proved successful in restoring and protecting many French forests, but came into direct conflict with nomadic lifeways. Pastoralists and their sheep and goats were well adapted to the Mediterranean's rugged geography and variable rainfall. Moving across large areas in search of pasture, the animals consumed native vegetation and herders burned wildlands to keep tree cover low and spur herbaceous growth. In French colonial Algeria, in Anatolia where the Ottoman state invited French foresters to demonstrate their techniques, and in the "internal colonization" of Provence, foresters allied with other "modern" interests to restrict transhumance, subdivide large land scapes to cut off mobile herds, launch an unending war against forest fires, and characterize pastoralists as primitive and environmentally damaging. Pastoralism [End Page 217] declined dramatically in all three places from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. Ironically, just as the flocks vanished from the countryside, pastoralism was resurrected as a treasured emblem of a romantic past. Even today, some herds move past tourists lining narrow village streets in France in spring and fall in a miniature version of former migrations. Algeria suffered the harshest outcomes, as native pastoralists were dislocated from productive grazing lands to fragile, dry regions, where neither the environment nor the pastoral culture were sustainable. While southern France and Anatolia developed relatively dense forests, they are now at risk from warming climate and severe fires. One present-day solution offered by ecologists is to bring back goats and intentional burning to reduce fuels and make the forests more resilient. Duffy's account shows the power of competing narratives—trees vs. grass—that served different interests and played out on three continents bordering the Mediterranean. These ideas continue to nourish our perspectives today even on the other side of the world, as French fascination with forest regulation and fire control did not extend only to the Mediterranean mountains described by Duffy. Gifford Pinchot, America's first Chief Forester, studied at the French National School of Forestry in Nancy and promulgated Franco-German management that has left a decidedly mixed legacy, linked to the conservation successes as well as the massive modern wildfires of the American West. Peter Z. Fulé Northern Arizona University Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French