This article explains why the Chosŏn government and the military in particular expanded state control over forests in the seventeenth century and analyzes the implications of forest administration in a preindustrial polity. From 1592 to 1598, the Chosŏn dynasty suffered invasions from Japan that displaced much of the Korean population and devastated the economy and environment. The crucial role of the navy during the war, along with a dire postwar situation, heightened government anxieties about deforestation and timber scarcity. Thus, in the seventeenth century, the Chosŏn government expanded administration over forests, particularly pine forests, across the coasts and islands of southwestern Korea. The key vehicle for the expansion was the military. Due to wartime and postwar exigencies, the military became the late Chosŏn state's primary organ for management of wood resources for state purposes. Furthermore, the growth of pine-centric state forests and shifts in military priorities would significantly reshape Korean ecologies.

Vegetation changes are reconstructed based on more than 51,000 charcoal fragments of more than 380 samples from nine Bronze Age sites in northern Syria and southern Turkey. In addition to fragment proportions, special attention was paid to the frequency of Pistacia relative to Quercus and Populus/Salix relative to Tamarix, fruit-tree ubiquity, and riverine diversity in order to gain an improved understanding of the human versus climatic impact on the vegetation. The results indicate that human impacts first took place within the riverine forest. This phase was followed by land clearing within the woodland steppe, especially in the northern portion of the study area. In the south near Emar, the woodland steppe probably disappeared by the Late Bronze Age. It is uncertain whether this was caused by aridification and/or human clearing. The northward shift of the Pistacia-woodland steppe is very likely a result of climatic drying that occurred throughout the entire period under investigation. Although increased deforestation is evident through time, the small proportions of imported wood indicate that local resources were still available.