ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Spanish Crown's efforts to manage forests to meet naval shipbuilding needs during a period in which the monarchy saw itself as the leading defender of the Catholic world, as reliant on Atlantic trade, and as a defender of its coastlines in an increasingly hostile era. In early modern times, the Spanish Monarchy sought greater access to forests where it could prioritise control over vital resources such as shipbuilding timber, but it relied on the tools and labour of non-State actors for forest stewardship, timber extraction and transportation. The monarchy aimed to sustain the durability of forest resources through legislation and a bureaucratised administrative system of forest superintendents, collectively described here as intensive State forestry. Additionally, the Crown sought suitable forests outside the legislated jurisdiction of the forest superintendents, typically through a series of reconnaissance missions, which is characterised here as extensive State forestry. The Crown utilised both intensive and extensive approaches to prevent overexploitation and its destabilising consequences.
