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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

#171

Post by avn2109 »

mywittyname wrote: post #135
Kluny wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the case is in NE US, but in my town in British Columbia, the deer population is out of control in the metropolitan area, and every time a cull is mentioned, animal rights activists put a stop to it through loud and effective lobbying. It's quite irritating.

Even if they were allowed to hunt deer, it probably wouldn't help. So much of the land deer graze over in the Midwest is suburban and have laws in place regarding setting off a firearm. This limits hunting to public lands, of which, there might be 2-3 within an hour drive of the city. So no matter how much the hunters kill, they aren't likely to effect the populations in the surrounding suburbs. There are more huntin…

This problem is widespread in the urban areas of my rural, pro-firearms home state. They solved it by hiring sharpshooters to kill the deer with rifles at night within city limits. It worked really well and they gave a ton of meat to the food bank.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#172

Post by jonnycomputer »

njarboe wrote: post #124
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 separa…

Grazing by sheep and goats in California devastated native flora in California's Central Valley and foothills, and also introduced the Mediterranean grasses that put the Golden in California's current landscape.

Src:Allan A. Schoenherr's A Natural History of California

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#173

Post by megaman22 »

kibwen wrote: post #133
durgiston wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Source? It would surprise me to see that many people voluntarily give up their farmland rather than, say, selling it to industrial farmers or real estate developers.

Just find some photos of places in the countryside of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Massachusetts from 1900 and compare to the same places today.

Or go walking through the forest, and count how many stone walls you have to clamber over. Every one used to mark the edges of a field or a pasture that was hacked out of the forest, and then was allowed to grow back up when farming the cold, rocky soil of New England was no longer cost-effective.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#174

Post by KGIII »

jaredandrews wrote: post #151
kibwen wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Source? It would surprise me to see that many people voluntarily give up their farmland rather than, say, selling it to industrial farmers or real estate developers.

If you are driving thru New England and pull over to any forest you can start walking and eventually you will find a short stone wall. These stone walls used to mark the borders of farm land but now they are in the middle of the forest. They are everywhere! Really gives you an idea of how much farming used to go on there. Of course, that is anecdotal, you can read more here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/…

Mostly true.

In my area, once you get passed a point south of me, those walls are fewer and fewer. There are areas where it was never farmed and old growth trees still exist.

What is great is you can walk out to places and stand there and be reasonably certain that you're the first human to have ever stood in that spot.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#175

Post by interfixus »

avar wrote: post #167
interfixus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps worth noting that the natives got wiped out too. Modern Greenlanders are descended from people arriving on the scene well after the Scandinavians did.

What I meant was that at the time the Norse disappeared there were other people in Greenland living in far harsher conditions, as the map accompanying this article shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_... I think you're thinking about Dorset culture which arrived in the south of Greenland after the Norse disappeared, but as the map shows when the Norse disappeared the Thule culture coexi…

Hanging on for 400 years hardly constitutes not having knowledge or desire how to survive there.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#176

Post by dmix »

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'm confused, there's no private property laws to prevent farm animals from grazing on non-farm property? Nor is there crown land to build national parks with giant forests? An effective farm lobby wouldn't be able to affect either of those things in almost any other western countries...

The problem doesn't seem to be the lobbyist but some strange lack of fundamental laws, if the government can be coerced into allowing this to happen by industry.

Unless you're saying the farm industrying (with grazing animals) controls a massive amount of land? They say only 1% is tree covered, I can't imagine they own such a large amount that they can't find any significant amounts of land to plant trees...

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#177

Post by njarboe »

avar wrote: post #159
njarboe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 separa…

The tl;dr of Iceland's colonization is: Norse settlers arrive, placement in society is based on how big of a farmer you are. Thus they overgraze and unlike their native Scandinavia they're doing this on a volcanic island with really thin topsoil, so the overgrazing leads to runaway topsoil erosion and dustbowlification. This leads to desperate logging of the last of the trees around for firewood and housing. It's nev…

Another part about Iceland vegetation is that developing soil on top of fresh lava takes a long time. Tens of thousands of years in some cases. Large sections of Iceland gets covered up with lava flows pretty often. But you can get some great biodiversity on the lava pretty quickly in a wet place like Iceland with lots of moss and lichen growing. On an 8,000 year old lava flow in the middle of Iceland near Leirubakki, the moss is half a foot thick[1] in places. You find a few old gnarled birch growing here and there in the hollows where wind blow dirt accumulates, but mostly just huge mats of moss and lichen with a bit of grass.

[1]https://njarboe.com/iceland/IcelandMoss.jpg

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#178

Post by IndrekR »

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.

Reminds me the story of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone [1]. Imapact was relatively large to the whole ecosystem with many unexpected surprises, mostly positive.

[1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc...

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#179

Post by tryingagainbro »

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…

Interesting. The main problem seems to be the short growing season, no? From my experience after a few years, sheep cannot do much to trees, in fact many leave them unattended it their orchards. Granted some eat the skin and such sheep are kept away but most do not.

I guess Iceland needs to compensate sheep farming for a few years, so the trees grow. But even then, sheep will eat any new saplings, meaning humans will have to be involved "forever."

I left about an acre without being tilled for 3 years and now they are more than 1000 saplings--wind did it's magic from trees 50+ yards away. I am going to fertilize about 100 of them and keep it as it is. In 10 years, I'll no longer need to buy firewood, which is a way better return financially for that particular plot. Not to mention the environmental side benefits.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#180

Post by avar »

interfixus wrote: post #175
avar wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I meant was that at the time the Norse disappeared there were other people in Greenland living in far harsher conditions, as the map accompanying this article shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_... I think you're thinking about Dorset culture which arrived in the south of Greenland after the Norse disappeared, but as the map shows when the Norse disappeared the Thule culture coexi…

Hanging on for 400 years hardly constitutes not having knowledge or desire how to survive there .

They arrived in a period where the weather was particularly good, and proceeded to just practice the same sort of farming that they were used to in Scandinavia and Iceland.

But there's no indication that they were actively contacting the native population to learn their hunting techniques, such as how to build kayaks and hunt marine mammals, or venture under the ice to gather mussels[1] etc.

Which, to bring this thread around to the original point being made, doesn't suggest that "Greenland [was] uninhabitable", just that a population of people had arrived that didn't know how to make use of it.

You might be able to transport a tribe from the middle of the Amazon to northern Greenland today and them not being able to survive, or the other way around. That doesn't mean that either place is uninhabitable.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA

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