Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 285 posts

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#121

Post by durgiston »

ckinnan wrote: post #40
avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard wood trees, they don't survive the deer.

The NE also went from 30% forest to 70% open/farming land to 70% forest 30% open in about 100 years as agriculturalism gave way to industrialization. So that could also contribute to giving deer more cover/habitat. Also we killed all the wolves east of the Mississippi 50 years, and coyotes have yet to fill their niche.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#122

Post by MiguelVieira »

riot504 wrote: post #98
ckinnan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard wood trees, they don't survive the deer.

It appears a simple solution of allowing hunting to occur would solve the problem. Why is hunting restricted?

Not at all. In Pennsylvania, hunters harvest over 300,000 deer per year. That's still not enough to control the population:

http://www.pgc.pa.gov/hunttrap/hunting/harvestdataandmaps/pa...

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#123

Post by bagacrap »

amorphid wrote: post #11

> 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 th…

So I suppose almost every planet in the galaxy is a desert planet.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#124

Post by njarboe »

avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

I was in Iceland a few weeks ago and the people, museums, info plaques, etc. talked about deforestation and how the early settlers chopped down all the forests. Also mentioned was forestation and how they were slowly replanting. The grazing by horses and sheep were never mentioned as a problem. I did hear about how flocks of sheep are just let loose in the highlands in the summer to graze and the sheep herders separate out the flocks in big festivals in the fall. Similar to the old time Spanish rodeos in California.

This article obliquely mentions the sheep problem but only by saying:

Mr. Jonsson and his volunteers then plant the appropriate species for the plot — birch, Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine, Russian larch or other species. “We’d love to plant aspen,” he said. “But sheep really love aspen.”

Sheep may love aspen but they will eat all the other trees also. I did not realize this was the main reason there was only grass everywhere until, when up on top of the Skógafoss waterfall, there was this[1] little island in the river covered in a little mini-forest. This rocky island would not be a very good place for trees to grow compared to the nice soil under the grassy fields around it, but since nothing could graze on the island, the trees could grow up.

[1] https://njarboe.com/iceland/IcelandTreeIslandSkogafoss.jpg (The trees on this island are only about 4 feet tall)

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#125

Post by sdenton4 »

thebooktocome wrote: post #116
jimcsharp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they legalized sheep hunting, farmers would build fences.

Sheep aren't very fun to hunt though.

OTOH, it's really hard to hide from them in iceland, what with the total lack of trees. Just a different kind of challenge...

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#126

Post by ghaff »

zaroth wrote: post #104
pizzetta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the deer overpopulation also contributes to the Lyme disease tick problem.

Which we have a perfectly good vaccine for but it was shelved purely out of FUD! http://legacy.wbur.org/2012/06/27/lyme-vaccine

"Perfectly good" is an overstatement. Efficacy wasn't that great (80% or so) and there was some evidence of side effects. Overall, the vaccine should almost certainly have not been taken off the market but it's not a near-perfect vaccine vs. FUD story either.

See, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#127

Post by openasocket »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #72
plussed_reader wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: Cliven Bundy

Came to post exactly this. Once upon a time there were vast western lands open for grazing. There were even "wars" fought between cattle and sheep ranchers over grazing rights. Today the feds have closed off many areas -- for example, if I understand correctly, in the Hells Canyon area there were once 300,000+ sheep left to graze, where today there are effectively none. Certainly there were areas that were significan…

My understanding was that Bundy was grazing his cattle on federal land and was refusing to pay grazing fees. He argued in United States v Bundy (1998) that he didn't have to pay grazing fees. https://www.scribd.com/document/218116757/1998-U-S-Dist-LEXI...

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#128

Post by phkahler »

avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

They probably have to let the sheep roam because there isn't enough food if they fence them in. Here is a nice video on farming practices that might reverse desertificaiton:

https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl...

Not sure if that would apply to Iceland, but it seems reasonable for someone to try it.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#129

Post by otakucode »

avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

I just finished listening to 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond and it goes over Iceland a bit. They've got serious ecological problems because of soil. Most of their soil comes from light volcanic ash, which replenishes at a much lower rate than other places with tons of vegetation and rivers and other things contributing.
Post reply on HN