La obra de Octavio Elorrieta (1881-1962). El monte al servicio de la economía

This paper analyzes the professional life and the work of Octavio Elorrieta y Artaza, who became, with his works about forest economy and his positions in the Spanish Forest Administration, the most influential forest engineer in Spain in the early 20th Century. The article tackles the proposals of Elorrieta on forest exploitation, forest policy, and the possibilities that the forestland offered towards solving the agrarian social problem in the South of the country in the thirties. It also suggests why it is worthwhile reading this author nowadays. The main conclusion is that Elorrieta played a central role in the definition of a new way of perceiving forest lands; a new perception that, on the one hand, tried to set those areas in an outstanding place of national policy in order to increase their production and to guarantee their conservation, and, on the other hand, it involved the potential danger to reduce the conception of forests just to its bare economic aspects.