Origins of forestry professions

As a forestry engineer, in this post I want to pay a small tribute to the story that contributed to the birth of our profession.

A few days ago, I was especially struck by a kind of map hanging in the living room of some relatives. It drew by hand, in great detail, the farmhouses, roads, ravines and “real steps” of the municipality of Bélmez de la Moraleda, province of Jaén. Its author, Pedro Gómez Záncara, did it in 1980, as a result of 30 years of profession as Rural Guard of this municipality.

This is a sign of the great work and experience of many of those who were at the service of our mountains, contributing to their enhancement and conservation.

Thus, digging a little into history, the promotion and conservation of our mountains has its origin in Carlos II, the last Spanish king of the House of Austrias, who ordered their surveillance through a Royal Ordinance at the end of the 17th century (Muñoz, G.).

In the middle of the 18th century, the second monarch of the House of Bourbons, Ferdinand VI, published a Royal Order for the “increase and conservation of mountains and plantations”, in which there is already talk of “field and mountain guards” or “warders”, after which he published a Decree that prophesies the Technical Forestry Corps and the motto of Superior Engineers. This monarch dies in the castle of Villaviciosa de Odón, where a century later the Special School of Forestry Engineers was inaugurated.

For his part, Carlos III, in the second third of the 18th century, created the Royal Ranger Fusiliers Company.

Subsequently, the Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón, during the minority of her daughter Isabel II, approves some Forestry Ordinances, known as Javier de Burgos, where a General Directorate of Forestry is responsible for their compliance. Two years later, he created the Corps of Civil Engineers, with four specialties, including Forestry.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, when Isabel II was already queen, the Civil Guard was created, whose action was evident for many years in the surveillance of Spanish forest wealth, which currently persists through the Seprona; specifically, at the beginning of 1866, the surveillance of the mountains was carried out by the Rural Nursery, the Senior Guards, the State Forest Guards and the Civil Guard, the first three being ceased by Alfonso XII ten years later.

In 1877, the Forest Reforestation Act was enacted, creating Crop Foremen, who in 1907 were replaced by the State Forest Nursery Corps.

In 1971, the National Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICONA) was created and with it its own Forest Nursery, which will live together with the previous one until 1983, the time of the transfer process to the Autonomous Communities.

In 1978, the name of Forest Ranger was replaced by that of Forest Agent.

Finally, already in 1983, when the process of transferring powers to the Autonomous Communities ended, each Autonomy characterizes Forest Agents according to their criteria, who keep this name or modify it with others such as Environmental Agent, Rural Agent, Rural Guard, Agent for the Protection of Nature, Environmental Guard, Environmental Guard, Forest Warden or Environmental Agent.