The Preservation of Pau Brazil in the Late XVIII Century in an Economical Perspective

Edgar Teles

doi:10.13189/eer.2019.070203

Abstract

This paper's subject is the deforestation of Pau-Brazil in late XVIII century Brazil witch can be integrated in the academic inquiry into the question of the natural and cultural heritage. In this subject the author has written this paper not only in a statistic data, but in connection with the history of environmental ideas. The author has obtained some percentage values that allowed him to provide some realistic dimension to the lack of the woods in this area, and connecting the same data with the ecological and economical thought dimension. About the subject in the end of the XVIII century (1796 – 1798), there is a shortage of Pau-Brazil timber in Pernambuco, that takes an effort both of searching for new forests and a strong effort also of developing preservation measures in that period. The trade of Pau-Brazil in the late XVIII century could reach as profit the percentage values of (778, 71%) in the European markets of the end of the XVIII Century. In this case, the author's argumentation concerns – in this historical context – how an economical interest paradox has triggered an interest about environmental protection to save an important accent. This involves at the beginning to identify the species of Pau-Brazil that were in use at the time in the same region to, in a second stage, integrate the same in the economic importance in Portuguese trade economy. The third step is to understand the correlation between economy and environment in the search of new forests and preservation of the already known ones. In this part, it is important to remember that early modern economies were natural commodity based and thus very dependent on the environment. That (should have) urged them to insure that they had a continuity on the access, and to ensure the existence of the same resources. This enters in Richard Groove's theories about environmental history in connecting them with economy. And also Wades' theories, that cross ecology with other sciences. Being a work in history, the main propose here is not to give a solution of mine, but rather to present the question in which the context were occurred and how and what solutions were found in the same period, and to what degree.

Highlights

In the late XVIII century, there were reports sent to the Portuguese crown about the reduction, and nearly total extinction, of Pau-Brazil woods in Pernambuco
Let us here by consider the part of Pau-Brazil in Portuguese international economy and trade
The concept of nature, was more important, in official language, and in safeguarding the natural goods of witch the economy depended in XVIII century

Summary

Introduction

In the late XVIII century, there were reports sent to the Portuguese crown about the reduction, and nearly total extinction, of Pau-Brazil woods in Pernambuco. In a context were Portuguese trade was experiencing an increasing prosperity, the most of the goods available to reexportation made the same goal possible to be reached. In this context a natural good, with some weight in the economy could, with its disappearing, in a moment of economical wealth, trigger the necessity to proceed to its conservation. To study this devastation, of the treadable resource, and the measures taken to stop and reverse that process, it’s required an approach it’s required between economic and ecological history. The concept will be used only in relation to the significance of the natural world

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