Early French Environmentalists

Abstract

France is usually considered to have responded to environmental concerns later than other European countries. However, forest and water management was a primary concerns for the pre-Revolutionary monarchy. After the Revolution, a School of Forestry was founded in 1824 and a post-Napoleonic forest code promulgated in 1827. A number of figures active during the Paris Commune of 1871 and in France’s colonial territorial management published environment-related writings. After World War II, two naturalists were active participants in the work of an international community of scientists striving to bring environmental matters to the foreground. This work eventually led to the creation of a Ministry of the Environment in 1971, and the development of a Green political faction. Although France’s environmental thinking developed differently from that of Anglo-Saxon countries, a steady track record of environmental thinking reveals a country conscious of man’s impact on an ecologically compromised planet.