ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the roots of the concept back to the age of early European Enlightenment. German cameralists, driven by the fear of an imminent timber shortage and inspired by new approaches and best practices in England, France, other European and non-European countries, coined the term and began to manage their territories' woodlands "nachhaltig". Around the middle of the seventeenth century this anxiety had reached the capitals and the intellectual hotspots of western Europe. A veteran of the war, Hans Carl von Carlowitz's father was promoted to the office of the Elector's "Land-Jagermeister"—Master of the Hunt—forest superintendent and overseer of timber rafting in one. In 1678, Elector Johann Georg II appointed the 33-year-old Hans Carl von Carlowitz to the position of deputy chief of the Mining Inspectorate in Freiberg. His superior was Abraham von Schonberg, a superb mining expert who ran the district with an iron fist and an innovative mind until his death in 1711.
