Beginning in 1789, the discourse about the collapse of the environment, until then only sporadically present in scholarly circles, spread to political discussions and to debates in Revolutionary assemblies. There it was chiefly linked to deforestation, and had three purposes: first, to criticize the Old Regime for having mismanaged Nature in France; second, to regulate the popular use of Nature after the abolition of feudalism; and third, to issue a warning against the privatization of national forests.