Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing • Hacker News Board

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#131

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

Lendal wrote: post #30

MichaelCollins wrote: post #25

The problem is with the incentives. We reward organizations for planting trees when we should be rewarding them for growing trees. Anecdotally, paper mills don't seem to have a problem successfully growing monocrop forests on their own properties because they actually have a reason to care about the success of replanting their own land.

I have plenty of incentive to keep the trees in my own yard from dying, yet I lack the expertise. So they die. I need an arborist. Unfortunately the arborists in my town are incentivized to get me to pay their company to cut my trees down and replace them with new ones every 10-15 years or so. We really just need more foresters, with a broader mission that extends beyond simply government-owned park land, who can hel…

Contract a remote freelancer arborist that does not have this incentives.

Or contract a remote landscaper and do the right things since the start

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#132

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #127

s1artibartfast wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on your arborist conflict of interest. Are they all dishonest or can you simply ask what the expected lifetime of the tree would be?

It's just a a poster being dramatic. Arborists don't intentionally push to chop down tree that aren't overgrown relative to the space available to them. The problem is that people like big trees and big houses, and they aren't compatible long term.

Yes, they kill trees. Slowly. Overpruning for money is, sadly, too common among professionals.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#133

Post by docandrew » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #125

This is one of the "earnest environmentslist thinks we can do better" articles that are so popular with the "see, it was a hoax all along" crowd. Within the intended audience, this is a call for stricter standards to ensure this is done well and achieves its aims. Outside, for people who just read the headline, it's taken as further evidence that it's all BS. A fake solution to a fake problem, both pushed by evil peo…

I’m not sure what climate change skepticism has to do with reforestation efforts or environmentalism, more broadly. Generalizing those with different opinions than you as lacking nuance doesn’t seem particularly nuanced to me either.

As a climate change skeptic I’m very much in favor of having more trees around, having less pollution in general, and don’t really care for the idea of covering up vast swaths of native grasslands with solar panels. Reforestation seems like a pretty good way to take advantage of higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#134

Post by kansface » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

Lendal wrote: post #108

dylan604 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have plenty of incentive to keep the trees in my own yard from dying, yet I lack the expertise. So they die. I need an arborist. I don't mean to be rude, but how brown is your green thumb? I get killing house plants, but killing a tree growing outdoors seems like something you'd actively have to do. The most common "mistake" I've seen are lack of care with lawn equipment like weed whackers. Are they just not being…

I suspect the developer selected trees not for their suitability to the environment, but rather for their appearance in order to sell more houses. Perhaps if I knew more I could make them live but that didn't happen. So as they die and I replace them, I ask for trees that are native to the area so they can survive on their own. These new trees are still alive, but this situation has happened to most of the trees in t…

Developers mostly just plant fast growing trees.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#135

Post by elmolino89 » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

The thing is we do not live in ordinary times. Last summer temperatures made many established trees in the cities close to getting killed. Anything with less developed root system and without regular, generous watering probably fared worse. Farmers hardly abandon their crops or are clueless about agriculture, but in many regions this growing season was a disaster.

From large scale, low initial investment and high yield tree planting: pick one. Any even the most amateur gardener can figure out that growing things successfully requires checking many boxes.

Last but not least: in climatic emergency maybe instead of as we can see a pipe dream of low cost, no maintenance, native species only eco-forest we may start to think about planting almost anything that grows successfully and does not burn too easily.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#136

Post by gerdesj » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 12:54 AM UTC

thedailymail wrote: post #105

gerdesj wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My recollection is that monoculture forests promote forest death." Quite, and I'll venture that any form of monoculture is generally in an unhealthy state or will eventually cease to function. At best it will be sub-optimal. Diversity must be encouraged. Whether you look at woods/forests, dogs, people, entire ecosystems, gut bacteria or whatever, you generally see rude health associated with diversity. English is of…

The concept does come from Germany but there is now an English term for it: "forest dieback" (although "waldsterben" can be used as a loanword as well.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_dieback

I note: "The Radiohead song, not the tabloid." from your profile.

I went to Abingdon School in Oxfordshire 1985-89. We had a school band called "On a Friday". I remember sitting cross legged outside the cricket pavillion, near School House at the end of a Summer Term (1988?), being entertained by OaF. Thom was the singer and Ed and co doing their thing. They were quite good.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#137

Post by veqq » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

beezlewax wrote: post #122

theptip wrote: post #46

> Not surprisingly, those locals often reacted badly. For example, in northern Malawi, they broke fences and burned a growing forest to get back the common grazing land on which the trees had been planted. In two Nigerian projects, villagers cut all the planted non-fruit trees for firewood, while protecting those that bore fruit. Recommended reading: "Seeing Like A State" by James Scott. The first section on Scientif…

Maybe they should plant in areas where people aren't struggling to make ends meet. Plenty of deforestation has happened all over Europe for example.

Europe is more forested today than in 1900: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04...

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#138

Post by cafard » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #104

DoreenMichele wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing like a state is a terrific book. It's possible that I learned the idea of forest death from it rather than a college class.[1] The German word for it is waldsterben and there seem to be few English language resources about it.[3] My recollection is that monoculture forests promote forest death. Diversity is critical to a thriving forest. [1] Or both. I was an Environmental Resource Management major. [2] https:…

"My recollection is that monoculture forests promote forest death." Quite, and I'll venture that any form of monoculture is generally in an unhealthy state or will eventually cease to function. At best it will be sub-optimal. Diversity must be encouraged. Whether you look at woods/forests, dogs, people, entire ecosystems, gut bacteria or whatever, you generally see rude health associated with diversity. English is of…

The USMC has or had a saying that the most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a compass. My brother, now retired from the Marines, points out that there never were a lot of field-grade officers out in the bush reading compasses.

Re: Phantom forests: Ambitious tree planting projects are failing

#139

Post by nathancahill » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 10:32 AM UTC

gelatocar wrote: post #102

nathancahill wrote: post #73

One of my favorite anecdotes on this problem is Guatemala. The laws on the books are pretty decent, incentives for farmers to reforest land where there used to be trees, with the government paying for the initial seedlings and then yearly payments (with verification of tree growth) over 7-15 years as the trees mature. However, farmers quickly found a loophole where they could find a plot of virgin forest, clear cut t…

While that is obviously rorting the system, isn't it kind of ideal from a carbon capture perspective? One of the big problems with planting forests for carbon capture is that they often burn down, and even when they don't, the natural cycle of the forest trees dying or falling and breaking down releases the captured carbon too. Harvesting the trees and using them as a building material seems like a better way to ensu…

Carbon capture is a tiny piece of the environmental benefit a virgin tropical forest provides. Additionally, while the trunks of the planted pines are used for lumber, the rest of the tree is used for firewood.