Seeing the forest for the trees: The ethics and politics of environmentalism in early modern France.

This article examines the environmental and ethical critiques embedded in the early seventeenth-century French satirical novel *L'Isle des hermaphrodites*, focusing on its portrayal of forest management and deforestation during the reign of Henri III. The novel highlights the exclusionary and hypocritical nature of royal forest policies, which privatized communal forests for the benefit of the powerful, leading to widespread environmental degradation and social injustice. It situates deforestation within broader political and social contexts, linking the exploitation of natural resources to the abuses of sovereignty and the breakdown of communal bonds amid the Wars of Religion. Ultimately, the text advocates for a vision of community based on mutual interdependence among humans and the environment, challenging dominant notions of sovereignty and promoting an ethical ecology that recognizes forests as living communities rather than mere resources.