Date of Award

1996

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

History

Keywords

History, Canadian.

Supervisor

Pryke, Kenneth,

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

This work focuses on nineteenth century private property deforestation and the clearing of vast portions of the Carolinian tree belt located along the northern shores of Lake Erie and western Lake Ontario. The crux of this work centres on the informal educational and optional reforesting initiatives implemented by the Clerk of Forestry as a means of reversing the extensive damage sustained to the physical environment due to decades of timber over-exploitation. This work ultimately concludes that the department's initiatives, were largely unsuccessful given the overall importance subscribed to individual and private property rights, agriculturalists long standing antagonism towards nature and forests, and private property owners desire for personal and economic progress associated with the clearing of the forest. A multiplicity of other themes are also explored, including: forest exploitation as an important economic survival strategy, the sanctity of private property rights, the perception of humans as owners of property as opposed to custodians of nature, and the close interrelationship between science and political endeavours during the later part of the nineteenth century. Such issues are explored within both a provincial and local context, with a case study of Essex County fulfilling the later of the two objectives.Dept. of History, Philosophy, and Political Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1996 .D52. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 34-06, page: 2212. Adviser: Kenneth Pryke. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1996.

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