Paper Short Abstract:

Scientific forestry is considered one of the tools of the modern state in rationalizing geographies, but we know little about how individuals internalized and made critiques on the contradictions of their training and on-the-ground realities. In this work-in-progress, I focus on my father’s forestry career (1943-1983) by examining reports, notes and images from his work in the service of the Turkish Forestry Ministry (1943-1968) and the FAO.

Paper Abstract:

Scientific forestry is considered one of the tools of the modern state in rationalizing geographies, but we know little about how individuals internalized and made critiques on the contradictions of their training and on-the-ground realities. In this work-in-progress, I focus on my father’s forestry career (1943-1983) by examining reports, notes and images from his work in the service of the Turkish Forestry Ministry (1943-1968) and the FAO. Forestry developed in the late Ottoman Empire (1857) and later in modern Turkey under French, German and Austrian schools and was a national, economic, and moral imperative. Reports filed by afforestation engineers use the language of development: European ideals, and ‘primitive’ failures on the ground based on lack of knowledge. My father’s experience with rural areas across Turkey was significant. Describing the forestry enterprise as a field-based vocation that needs to rely on local knowledge and socio-economic contexts, he critiqued the ‘imitation method’ of applying ‘forestry for forests’ (based on French or German techniques) from the top down rather than creating forestry strategies for particular contexts. Fast-growing trees were an important aspect of European, particularly Mediterranean, post Second World War recovery, and he attended meetings of the International Poplar Commission (1964) where he was tasked with seeking funding and strengthening the international position of the Izmit Poplar Institute. He not only authored a poplar planting handbook, but also wrote a poetic anthropomorphic essay, ‘Cry of the Poplar’ in which a poplar addresses ‘humankind’ to tell them how to help poplars thrive.