ABSTRACT
This chapter examines state-led dune afforestation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing on the Portuguese case, this chapter discusses the motivations, means, institutions, and actors involved in such operations. This chapter also reviews these initiatives in Holland, Prussia, Denmark, and Spain, emphasizing the utilitarian philosophy underpinning these campaigns and the efforts made to develop the legal apparatus and resources—knowledge, people, services, and money—necessary to put them into practice. This chapter then analyzes how dune afforestation was used to reinforce state power in marginal coastal areas and promote the image of certain political regimes as national benefactors acting for the common good. The British case is examined as an exception: with afforestation long considered a matter for the private sphere, it was not until much later that the Forestry Services took responsibility for stabilizing the dunes.
