The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

by Peter Frankopan

One result was that there were widespread environmental changes in North, Central and South America in the centuries that followed 1492 that were not caused by human activity – but quite the opposite. This was a time of major reforestation and wildlife gains in many regions. The major reductions in human populations as a result of disease, hunger, warfare and dislocation meant that land that had been cultivated became overgrown, to the benefit of wild plants and the detriment of foodstuffs like fruits and nuts. Likewise, animals that had been heavily exploited for food or status recovered – such as birds whose feathers had been valued as symbols of prestige and currency, or apex predators like jaguars who gained from expanded habitats with the thinning out of the men who had hunted them and of settlements that had displaced them. Animals whose fortunes and numbers had risen with human success, like turkeys, dogs and llamas, suffered decline as their owners, breeders and keepers died out. But one of the most curious outcomes of the European settlement of the Americas – outside the locations given over to the cultivation of a small number of valuable crops – was the significant wildlife gains across vast territories. Taken as a whole, the Americas were more heavily forested in 1800 than they had been 300 years earlier.