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Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

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Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#81

Post by tpm »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #74
tpm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly no hunting with weapons (no anything with weapons really) did apply in feudal Europe; the nobles were allowed to carry and use a weapon while the peasants were not. As for the trees, that was managed by the feudal owner of the land. Usually some forests were cut down early (between ca. 500-1300 AD) where arable land was under them, the rest was managed and used for construction and heating/cooking. Later ma…

Thats medieval northern europe, aka france, germany, england. The rest, the forrest was basically used up permanently during roman times. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macchie

Also Ireland, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, parts of Hungary, Romania, Ukraine at least that I know of. But you are right, I thought of the Roman times immediately after finishing my comment.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#83

Post by vanderZwan »

duped wrote: post #73
thaumasiotes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees don't move; it's perfectly possible to guard them from poachers.

With what army? The customs agents get bribed to stamp the lumber with official seals and it is sold to exporters with official documents so it can be shipped with plausible deniability. There's no incentive nor will to protect those trees.

And when there is a will it tends to turn into something like the Earth Liberation Front. I can highly recommend the documentary "If A Tree Falls" on that subject - it also discusses the complex role of the national forestry agencies in regards to managing forests.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front

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

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#84

Post by Jorengarenar »

ThePadawan wrote: post #61
Jorengarenar wrote: post #7

>This is an ancient method, developed in the 14th century Isn't it interesting, how most of the history of East Asia just has label "ancient" slapped onto it in pop-culture?

As a European who often reads material targeted at Americans, I would just assume that is what the author is doing here. The standards for "ancient" are simply relative to your own cultural history. A 200 year old building in the US is ancient - a 800 year old building in Germany is also ancient.

The use of word "ancient" you present here is correct only in very colloquial meaning; it's akin to calling your grandpa a dinosaur. Neither 200 years ago in USA nor 800 year ago in Germany are ancient times in proper meaning of this word.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#85

Post by kriro »

ggm wrote: post #20

Coppicing, Hedge laying, Bocage, drystone walling, wattle-and-daub are all domestic comparable ancient crafts of Europe. The point being that probably only drystone walling is valued in a way comparable to the Japanese version of Coppicing, which really has been transformed into an artform. European coppices are cut close to the rootstock and cut down far younger for use as poles, for wood turning, for hedge laying.…

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And if you count wineries and restaurants there's some really old ones. Staffelter Hof is usually mentioned as the oldest one (862).

Pretty sure it's the same in most European countries. My guess would be the oldest ones are located in Italy.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#86

Post by smcl »

vanderZwan wrote: post #56

Everyone here is mentioning coppicing, so I suspect there will be some interest in the Low Tech Magazine articles on the subject: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/coppicing/ And since we're talking about doing cool things with trees, I just wanted to mention that LTM has more interesting articles slightly "adjacent" to this topic, like this one about a half-forgotten technique for growing citrus trees in climates with…

I really need to check that site out more often. Every time I see a link it's great - that second link you posted about the Soviet Union's techniques for growing citrus fruits well north of where they're normally grown is cool.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#88

Post by caporaltito »

ggm wrote: post #20

Coppicing, Hedge laying, Bocage, drystone walling, wattle-and-daub are all domestic comparable ancient crafts of Europe. The point being that probably only drystone walling is valued in a way comparable to the Japanese version of Coppicing, which really has been transformed into an artform. European coppices are cut close to the rootstock and cut down far younger for use as poles, for wood turning, for hedge laying.…

> There are probably more continuous family heritage firms in Japan practising some art (brewing, soy sauce, woodwork, coppicing) than anywhere else. Can you name a European family concern doing the same thing continuously since before 1600? I can't name any Japanese ones but I wouldn't be surprised if there were many. Institutional enterprises like Oxford university press exist since deep time, but in Japan it would be a continuous lineage of printers continuing to use woodblock printing (maybe alongside hot type or photo typesetting)

That's a bit exagerated. There are a lot of fields in Europe which keep traditions since the Middle Ages. Sure, the difference is the amount of people doing it, but it is still there.

Centuries old breweries in Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. Traditional tweed weaving in Scotland. Stone cutting and stained glass apprenticeship through "brotherhoods" in France. That is just on the top of my head. The only difference with Japan is that those markets have already shrunk to modern needs and those markets already went through centuries of heavy modernization. So one really traditional european company serves the market like tens would in Japan.

But the traditional know how is still there.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#89

Post by bstpierre »

esperent wrote: post #10

How much timber can be made this way (including similar methods like coppicing)? Is it enough to contribute a noticeable amount to the modern timber industry? Or is it more of a "huh that's cool" conversation topic?

My somewhat limited understanding is that coppicing or especially pollarding requires significantly more labor input. Modern timber harvesting is very highly industrialized. I have never seen any kind of machinery or industrial processes for managing a forest for coppice. I suspect that another factor may be density of a managed woodlot, but again I am not in the industry, just an owner of a small bit of “forest”, so my perception may be off.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#90

Post by flanked-evergl »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #55

The ancient japanese governments restricted the peasants from destroying the allmende. No hunting with weapons, only traps. No chopping down trees. Its the only way a society on a island with limitations can thrive. This is a hack to circumvent the no lumbering rule. As far as im aware, similar rules never were applied in europe, just all things chopped down, and then some state forrests and macchia.

> allmende

Can't find this word in any English dictionary I checked, what does it mean?

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