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The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

daveon.design

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Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#21

Post by vintagedave »

sccxy wrote: post #15
vintagedave wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I'm actually sitting in a cafe in a town close to the village this is about right now. I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species takin…

> (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)

Yes :) What should I be looking for?

As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#22

Post by dubcanada »

sccxy wrote: post #9
dubcanada wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of this article suggested the forest cut down was being replanted?

I have worked in forestry and and have planted 500 trees daily... And there are laws that replanting must be started within 2/5 years of cutting. If you look aerial photos of the area in article then you can see that this process is started. Cannot find exact spot but looking around in the village.

According to https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide there are exceptions to that rule and it's 2 years. I only have information available to me, but I do not think this is a hard set rule. What if they were cut down for housing?

https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ appears to suggest that within the past decade tree loss has doubled. While the population has been flat. So it does suggest that what you are saying is not happening.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#23

Post by kristjank »

The paragraph about wood pellet exports really makes me mad. I have always harbored some disdain for "green" policies in well-developed countries, because they always seem to simply move the "filth" into another, poorer country and make it their problem.

If the wood were burned locally (and without the additional expenditure of pellet-making), I could see a sustainability argument in there and support it. The place I live in is heated by firewood. If it makes it any better, it's delivered from less than 10km away, by a farmer that manages his forest with respect. It's not the best, but considering it's worked for generations that way, it seems renewable enough. And it's a mountainous region, not really usable for anything else agriculturally.

But considering the majority of Estonian exports is just for heating two extremely wealthy european countries with a industrially processed wood product, I just see affirmation of my prejudice that the Eurozone and EU mostly exist as a tool for the richer global west to exploit poorer eastern countries that get added to the union when the existing ones are squeezed dry of their resources.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#24

Post by teractiveodular »

ddon wrote: post #16

Love CSS and simple layout... check out comments in the CSS file, very interesting.

Unfortunately it's quite broken on vertical mobile, none of the "Drag" animations work and the footnotes are oddly mashed into the left side, forcing text to flow around it on the right.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#25

Post by vintagedave »

teractiveodular wrote: post #24
ddon wrote: post #16

Love CSS and simple layout... check out comments in the CSS file, very interesting.

Unfortunately it's quite broken on vertical mobile, none of the "Drag" animations work and the footnotes are oddly mashed into the left side, forcing text to flow around it on the right.

Oh no! I will look into this. Can you share a phone model / screensize please? It is "okay" in the ones I test with.

On my todo is to make footnotes collapsed by default on mobile, so you tap to display them. Right now they are always present and so interrupt the paragraphs. I don't like this, and it may be what you're seeing.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#26

Post by sccxy »

vintagedave wrote: post #21
sccxy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)

Yes :) What should I be looking for? As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.

It would be good to have forestry experience before writing articles.

I guess one day of planting a forest is already a lot of help. Planting apple tree in garden is not forestry.

I wouldn't write an article about how doctors treat cancer wrong if my only experience is my dead grandmother.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#27

Post by MrVandemar »

vintagedave wrote: post #11
sccxy wrote: post #5

We want to be environmentally friendly and avoid plastic straws and plastic bags and replace them with paper straws and paper bags. Yet we are disgusted when forests are cut down and then replanted.

I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again. That's very different from what's seen in Estonia, where there's logging in national parks, and random plots of land in the forest are clear-felled. Ten years ago you'd drive through the countryside and enjoy the trees, uninterrupt…

> I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again.

I'm not. Here in Australia they're planted on farm land, and taking that land out of food production. The growing of trees depletes the soil. They grow Bluegums, which are thirsty trees and deplete the water-table. Then the land is abandoned. The food still needs to come from somewhere! Which probably means more forest cleared elsewhere.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#28

Post by marttt »

sccxy wrote: post #15
vintagedave wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I'm actually sitting in a cafe in a town close to the village this is about right now. I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species takin…

> (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)

Yep, no grids or fences in Estonia, at least not in typical state-managed forests. These just get replanted in furrows or on "turfs" (not sure about the correct English term). Newly planted seedlings can appear really tiny at first, though -- so tiny that even seasoned forestry workers who are later mowing grass around them occasionally fail to spot all the plants in the grass.

Source: have manually planted maybe ~300 000 trees in Estonia over the years, and also done the brush cutting work afterwards. I don't think clear cutting could be avoided entirely (among other things, we're maybe too spoiled as timber consumers for that), but it does feel way too extensive over here (emphasis on the word "feel" here -- as, despite some hands-on experience, my analytical understanding of the forestry ecosystem is very superficial). In place of confier monocultures, a small society like Estonia could maybe place its focus on heavily developing mixed forests instead, for a start. Abrupt forestry policy changes would likely backfire socio-economically (e.g. unemployment rise in rural areas). But those spruce-only or pine-only forests everywhere do look kind of... sad.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#29

Post by fxtentacle »

sccxy wrote: post #26
vintagedave wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes :) What should I be looking for? As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.

It would be good to have forestry experience before writing articles. I guess one day of planting a forest is already a lot of help. Planting apple tree in garden is not forestry. I wouldn't write an article about how doctors treat cancer wrong if my only experience is my dead grandmother.

You had a chance to educate a genuinely curious fellow human. And you blew it by being overly negative.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#30

Post by teractiveodular »

vintagedave wrote: post #25
teractiveodular wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's quite broken on vertical mobile, none of the "Drag" animations work and the footnotes are oddly mashed into the left side, forcing text to flow around it on the right.

Oh no! I will look into this. Can you share a phone model / screensize please? It is "okay" in the ones I test with. On my todo is to make footnotes collapsed by default on mobile, so you tap to display them. Right now they are always present and so interrupt the paragraphs. I don't like this, and it may be what you're seeing.

1080x2340, Chrome on Android. Screenshot here:

https://imgur.com/a/E3Q3nrc

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