This plateform examines professional science forestry as a vibrant example of globalization. It maps the movement of professional foresters– and the networks that facilitated this movement –. Forestry was principally suited to cross-national mobility because it in part developed alongside the global circuits of the forest products industry. Yet the main sites of the forest science world were not connected in any structured or standardized way. Routes of traffic were continually shifting, with no one region or nation emerging as a consistent hub of activity. This project explores forestry’s multiple and loosely structured “networks.  

By mapping the patterns of movement of the dunes experts between the 1790s and 1960s, this project argues that there existed a distinctly forestry academic world, within which foresters moved frequently along different axes. In doing so it both contributes to a still incipient literature on the fluxes of academic mobility, and provides the foundation for further work that might consider the link between this mobility and the production of knowledge.  

Large questions remain concerning the extent and nature of forestry mobility. What were the careers of foresters? How important was international experience for them? And in both cases, what role did European and American experience play? How frequently did foresters move and is it possible to identify patterns that might inform our understanding the generation of knowledge in this period? By mapping where dunes experts made their travels, this analysis exposes the geographies of knowledge production that influenced the national government’s scientific cultures. More explicitly, the investigation suggests that the dissemination of a new culture of international travel within civil servants was not a constant procedure but impacted variously on different practices.  

Another purpose of this website is to contribute to debates about the standing of women in science, by inspecting the women’s contribution in the creation and movement of forestry knowledge. As a case study, the article explores the role of Helena Pereira Dias in the Portuguese dunes of Caparica.