Article ID: CBB943648978

Coal Mining, Forest Management, and Deforestation in French Colonial Vietnam (April 2021)

unapi

No industry had a more profound impact on the environment and communities of northern Vietnam than coal mining. Following the French discovery of the vast Quảng Yên coal basin in the early 1880s, Tonkin, a small French protectorate in northern Vietnam, rose to become one of the world's largest coal exporters. Large-scale coal mining denuded forests, fashioned massive open-pit wastelands, and created some of Vietnam's most enduring environmental problems. This article explores one of those issues: the transformation wrought by the coal boom of the 1920s on Tonkin’s forests. As the demand for mine timber soared during that decade, an illicit timber-trading network built upon the collusion of coal-mining enterprises and indigenous loggers managed to operate under the radar of the French forest surveillance. The rise of mining-driven, illicit logging activities in French colonial Vietnam provides a useful lens for examining not only the intense ecological consequences of unchecked capitalist development but also the ingenuity and adaptability of indigenous networks and the limits of French colonial authority.

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Authors & Contributors
Biggs, David
Silvia Marvelli
Saggioro, Fabio
Vergara, Germán
Andrea Vianello
Marco Marchesini
Concepts
Colonialism
Environmental history
Forests and forestry
France, colonies
Deforestation
Wood
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
18th century
Medieval
20th century, early
Places
Vietnam
France
India
Europe
Egypt
Canada
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