Framing, valuing, and assessing the environment: August Wilhelm Hupel’s perceptions of Baltic nature and settings for human activities

This article addresses early modern Baltic environmental history and historical geography by interpreting the public writings of August Wilhelm Hupel within the theoretical framework of framing, valuing, and assessing nature and the environment. Hupel’s broad series of publications, issued during the heyday of Baltic Enlightenment, not only contributed to the emergence of Baltic geographical studies but also played a pioneering role in placing the knowledge on Estonian and Livonian topography and nature to order. Although Hupel concerned physical geographical aspects in his writings to some extent, his primary interest definitely focused on human relations with and across space and place. The cameralist thoroughness and calculativeness within that geographical field of enquiry brought about an endeavor to catalogue the parts of nature by using their utility or harmfulness as the measure. However, in Hupel’s opinion the then-prevailing civilisation also contained certain responsibilities for and to nature, particularly regarding forests and their sustainable use (‘nachhaltende Nutzung’), which Hupel wished to promote in the Baltic provinces of Russia.