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Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

nytimes.com

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Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#11

Post by amorphid »

> As a result, Iceland is a case study in desertification, with little or no vegetation, though the problem is not heat or drought. About 40 percent of the country is desert, Dr. Halldorsson said. “But there’s plenty of rainfall — we call it ‘wet desert.’”

At first I thought it was an error to call an area that gets plenty of rain a desert. I thought desert was strictly defined by the amount of rainfall. But maybe that's not correct. The wikipedia article on desert states...

"Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location." [1]

I wonder if there's a stricter definition used in a specific scientific context.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#13

Post by arethuza »

avar wrote: post #10
23443463453 wrote: post #4

It's funny how so many Liberal minded types are overrunning Iceland gushing about how beautiful and stark the landscape is, when in reality they don't realize they are admiring just another devastated landscape of Europe. It's a general bias Europeans heavily have as they laud the beauty and natural state of Europe, while there is really not a single natural old growth forest anywhere on the whole continent and most…

It's not just another devastated landscape of Europe, it's the single most naturally devastated landscape on the entire continent. The National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík has a permanent exhibition on the subject that I highly recommend. Since colonization a little over a millennium ago most of the topsoil has been washed out to sea, wast swaths of the country that used to be fields or forests are now just bare r…

"Which isn't to say that a devastated landscape can't be pretty."

A bit like the Scottish Highlands - which are treeless largely because of the large numbers of deer maintained to support stalking (deer hunting) and because all their natural predators were killed centuries ago.

There are some folks trying to replant the old forests - e.g. https://treesforlife.org.uk/

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#14

Post by gipp »

23443463453 wrote: post #4

It's funny how so many Liberal minded types are overrunning Iceland gushing about how beautiful and stark the landscape is, when in reality they don't realize they are admiring just another devastated landscape of Europe. It's a general bias Europeans heavily have as they laud the beauty and natural state of Europe, while there is really not a single natural old growth forest anywhere on the whole continent and most…

This is a real weird strawman you've set up for yourself.

> It's funny how so many Liberal minded types are overrunning Iceland

No they aren't.

> how beautiful and stark the landscape is, when in reality they don't realize they are admiring just another devastated landscape of Europe.

It can be both.

> Europeans heavily have as they laud the beauty and natural state of Europe

Beauty yes, "natural state" no.

> In reality Europe is a landscaped stripped of snakes, barren of bears and wolves and deer and other fauna, while the forests and meadows are all artificial and man made.

Literally everyone knows this.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#15

Post by [deleted] »

23443463453 wrote: post #4

It's funny how so many Liberal minded types are overrunning Iceland gushing about how beautiful and stark the landscape is, when in reality they don't realize they are admiring just another devastated landscape of Europe. It's a general bias Europeans heavily have as they laud the beauty and natural state of Europe, while there is really not a single natural old growth forest anywhere on the whole continent and most…

[deleted]

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#16

Post by zeristor »

interfixus wrote: post #3

Possibly worth remembering: Iceland (and Greenland, where the vikings hung on until the fourteen hundreds) had significantly warmer climate a milennium ago.

Indeed the little ice age of the middle ages is what made Greenland uninhabitable.

Birch is a pioneer species, they produce millions of seeds a year, they chased the retreating ice cap as melted northwards in Europe.

It would appear they need to be planted out, perhaps they need soil to take. Otherwhise it should be a fairly simple case of just broadcasting billions of birch seeds over Iceland.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#18

Post by zeristor »

arethuza wrote: post #13
avar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just another devastated landscape of Europe, it's the single most naturally devastated landscape on the entire continent. The National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík has a permanent exhibition on the subject that I highly recommend. Since colonization a little over a millennium ago most of the topsoil has been washed out to sea, wast swaths of the country that used to be fields or forests are now just bare r…

"Which isn't to say that a devastated landscape can't be pretty." A bit like the Scottish Highlands - which are treeless largely because of the large numbers of deer maintained to support stalking (deer hunting) and because all their natural predators were killed centuries ago. There are some folks trying to replant the old forests - e.g. https://treesforlife.org.uk/

Wolves can help in this case too.
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