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Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

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Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#101

Post by lysium »

robocat wrote: post #89
HarryHirsch wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the additional complication that when the beetle or the windstorm come there's suddenly an overabundance of wood on the market, which depresses prices. You'd need to do forest maintenance but cannot afford it, market forces are against it. It's like the Schweinezyklus but worse.

> Schweinezyklus Translation is probably Boom-bust cycle (literal: swine cycle?) https://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Schweinezyklus for some rather poor usage examples

It’s pork cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#102

Post by mtnGoat »

rootw0rm wrote: post #98
atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

afaik it helps guard against particularly devastating wildfires, too.

The best way to deal with fires is not to. The problems the west is facing are due to so much fire suppression for tire last century and a half left too much fuel near the ground, we are now learning to let them burn.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#103

Post by cookiengineer »

I can recommend reading about the reforestation laws in Germany.

Why? Germany was running out of forests to harvest around 1400, and the oldest law that is still in effect is from 1442 (Forstordnung of the Bistum Speyer) . All forests in Germany are artificially created, and there are a lot of things involved to make this happen.

We have rain plans that limit the amount of how much water farmers are allowed to use which are on higher altitudes on the mountains/plains. We have the Wasserwirt which is responsible to flood the farming plains regularly (completely under water), and redistribute their water "lakes" to other fields down to lower altitudes. We also have the Foerster whose job is to decide which trees to harvest, which ones need to be replaced, and what to do with the dead trees.

All of those variables are planned carefully and involve a lot of data, especially the water flooding and rain plan parts.

There are a lot of nice documentaries about this on arte and NDR in case anyone is interested about these kind of topics.

Also about corruption and the forest mafia in Romania, which is a huge discussion topic in Brussels for years, because Ikea and other furniture producers down the line keep buying illegally harvested wood.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#104

Post by thaumasiotes »

ccooffee wrote: post #4

Someone logged a 500 hectare plot in Borneo. They split this into 125 sections and planted 0, 1, 4, or 16 "tree species that are frequently targeted for logging". After 20 years, satellite imagery shows that the more tree species you planted, the more recovered the land appears to be. I'm left wondering: 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment…

> the regrown tree farms do not behave like forests. The dense growth crowds out the ground-level plants

Crowding out ground-level plants is the entire point of being a tree; it's pretty normal for forests to have clear ground.

Here's what a redwood forest looks like: https://www.westwindvistas.com/Redwood%20Forest%20Floor.htm

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#105

Post by thaumasiotes »

taway_6PplYu5 wrote: post #88
adasdasdas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we want old growth forests over harvestable forests? Is there an ecological advantage

Actually I've heard that the best ecological and economic outcome is to manage an old growth forest and log it selectively using patterns that mimic tree loss from non-human activity. Maximizing ecological advantage also maximizes economic advantage, even in the short-medium term.

> I've heard that the best ecological and economic outcome is to manage an old growth forest and log it selectively using patterns that mimic tree loss from non-human activity

I don't see how this is supposed to be accomplished. For that concept to make any sense, you'd need to prevent the tree loss from non-human activity, which is all but impossible to do.

If you can't do that, then the existing pattern of loss already looks like "loss from non-human activity", and any logging you do will look like "a lot more loss than typical of non-human activity".

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#106

Post by thaumasiotes »

drone wrote: post #55
dudeofea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not plant other species to out-compete the invasive ones? why do we need to perform chemotherapy on our forests?

Only one of the trees I listed was invasive, the others are opportunistic natives to their regions that will outgrow everything else. The nice "diverse" forest you're thinking of in your mind took a long time to become that way, the normal state of nature is to not create a perfect balance out of the gate, but for constant competition and regularly have to cycle through multiple iterations of configuration which are,…

> the normal state of nature is to not create a perfect balance out of the gate

That is true. Additionally, a balance will never be achieved no matter how long you wait, either. That's the state of nature; some things are always replacing other things.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#107

Post by RGamma »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #106
drone wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only one of the trees I listed was invasive, the others are opportunistic natives to their regions that will outgrow everything else. The nice "diverse" forest you're thinking of in your mind took a long time to become that way, the normal state of nature is to not create a perfect balance out of the gate, but for constant competition and regularly have to cycle through multiple iterations of configuration which are,…

> the normal state of nature is to not create a perfect balance out of the gate That is true. Additionally, a balance will never be achieved no matter how long you wait, either. That's the state of nature; some things are always replacing other things.

That's dangerously simplistic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_stability and related topics for a start.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#108

Post by taylorius »

atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

No offense meant at all to your brother, it sounds like an interesting investigation. That said, the answer to these sorts of eco-questions always seems to be that the way nature has worked for millions of years is actually the best way (for loads of reasons we didn't know) - and if we mess with it too much, there will be some problems. This just seems kind of inevitable though. If nature's way didn't work, it wouldn't be happening. I suppose finding the reasons behind it being optimal are where the "meat" of such an investigation is. Interesting stuff.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#109

Post by sdenton4 »

adasdasdas wrote: post #80
llbeansandrice wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? Because the main purpose of replanting trees to is be able to harvest them again in the next few decades. Private land owners generally aren't interested in creating old-growth forests, they're trying to make money. It's not exactly ideal, but ending up with more biodiversity is likely a good thing even if it will be logged again later.…

Why do we want old growth forests over harvestable forests? Is there an ecological advantage

Old growth forward have a range of incredible ecosystem benefits, including a big effect on river health.

The 'Timber Wars' podcast was a six part story on the Pacific Northwest, including a lot of the history of the science on logging and forest health, as it evolved from the eighties through to today.

https://www.opb.org/show/timberwars/

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#110

Post by dagmx »

taylorius wrote: post #108
atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

No offense meant at all to your brother, it sounds like an interesting investigation. That said, the answer to these sorts of eco-questions always seems to be that the way nature has worked for millions of years is actually the best way (for loads of reasons we didn't know) - and if we mess with it too much, there will be some problems. This just seems kind of inevitable though. If nature's way didn't work, it wouldn…

Your comment bothers me because it is based on very shaky premises.

Nature doesn’t work in the most optimal way, so it’s not always best to replicate it. Tons of things happen in nature that may wipe out important ecosystems. I suppose one could argue that at a long enough time scale it will even out but that time scale can be millennia. In the meantime, nature can wreak tons of havoc.

Nature (and by that I mean ecosystems because nature is a vague) also doesn’t behave in necessarily intuitive or easily observable ways either. What might seem “obvious” at first can be very wrong.

Nature (and again I mean ecosystems) also doesn’t exist in vacuums. What may have worked for centuries can be upset by even the most subtle of temperature shifts, and those might be caused by effects hundreds of miles away.

Unchecked nature is also not always going to be conducive to human needs either.

The entire field requires constant observation and inference. Even the ways of indigenous people that are fetishized as natures way by many, are scientific in nature. They’re the result of many years of observation, experimentation, learning and modifying how nature works to fit our needs.

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