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Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

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Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#211

Post by mistrial9 »

vikramkr wrote: post #143
nottorp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more bears than the land can sustain. Go to any tourist (or non tourist) spot in the mountains and they'll come down and steal from your garbage in town . Look up Brasov. It's a reasonably large touristic town and it regularly gets bears at the periphery.

The land can sustain them fine, that's just what it's like to live near bears. Tons of places are like that - you get used to it lol don't worry. There was a Tom Scott video on work folks are doing to develop bear resistant trash cans and the like: https://youtu.be/Xn_O2li_jpk?si=BUPxDOxXaOJdxC_v It's funny (and sad) that wildlife has been so thoroughly decimated in parts of the world that people are so shocked by su…

> the idea that the wild is worth preserving is frankly a relatively recent one

not entirely inaccurate, but an important distinction. People who had pre-industrial cultures (and probably some relationship to wild places) were systematically conquered and their lands taken, by militarized industrial civilizations.. this happened at various times in various places in the last 500 years. There are no places of note left that have not been treated this way.

So a preservation relationship to wild places among the civilizations established by military conquer, is relatively new.. agree

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#212

Post by lancesells »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #209
Fricken wrote: post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

Romanian postage stamp from 2001: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Romania_... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/23/first-impressi... Also check out Herzog's 2010 documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" The nonstop gibberish about "AI" bores me to tears. These paintings suggest a different view of what it means to become "conscious". http://www.tcnj.edu/~library/e-reserve/shestakow/SHESHAAH…

Cave of Forgotten Dreams really moved me. I know part of it is Herzog's narration but it was something about the age of the drawings and thinking of the people creating them as either decoration or maybe storytelling.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#213

Post by sidewndr46 »

Isn't this mostly negated by the fact that Romania is a sovereign state? If a group was to buy up enough land that it started to affect the economy of the region, the government could just void out their rights to the land. Or reduce them to only a minimal level.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#214

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

m463 wrote: post #155
Fricken wrote: post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

It would be interesting to compare population density of europe vs the rest of the world over history. I have imagined that europe was always heavily populated, while north america was sparsely populated (allowing endless bison). Might not be that true, maybe europe wasn't that dense, and also disease killed so many when the first europeans arrived.

> I have imagined ... north america was sparsely populated (allowing endless bison)

The "endless bison" in America was actually only during a relatively short period of time. IIRC there was a gap of almost a century between when the Native American population was decimated due to disease, and when settlers of European ancestry headed out west.

During that gap the bison population exploded.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#215

Post by fuzztester »

Fricken wrote: post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

>I had no idea there were bison in Europe.

I've been on nodding terms with these guys for some years:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#216

Post by alistairSH »

kelnos wrote: post #191
alistairSH wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal experience from travel in Iceland, Peru, UK (mostly Scotland), and Italy. Obviously generalizations and anecdotes, so take with a grain of salt. Americans often stand out. Look more "touristy" - wearing shorts, goofy bags, unstylish footwear, etc. Most likely to ask "what do you do?" (for a living). Not rude, but can be more boisterous/social than some others. Chinese - tend to travel in large tour groups. F…

> Americans often stand out. Look more "touristy" - wearing shorts, goofy bags, unstylish footwear, etc. Interesting. When I travel, I usually dress the same out in public as I do at home (well, modified for the local weather, anyway). Usually that means jeans, t-shirt, and possibly a hoodie and/or jacket if the weather is cooler, with fairly plain sneakers or perhaps a nicer shoe, depending on how much walking I exp…

I’m American, from DC metro. Shorts are a big one - far more popular in the US than abroad. Particularly cargo shorts, which are goofy no matter who you are. ;)

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#217

Post by vikramkr »

mistrial9 wrote: post #211
vikramkr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The land can sustain them fine, that's just what it's like to live near bears. Tons of places are like that - you get used to it lol don't worry. There was a Tom Scott video on work folks are doing to develop bear resistant trash cans and the like: https://youtu.be/Xn_O2li_jpk?si=BUPxDOxXaOJdxC_v It's funny (and sad) that wildlife has been so thoroughly decimated in parts of the world that people are so shocked by su…

> the idea that the wild is worth preserving is frankly a relatively recent one not entirely inaccurate, but an important distinction. People who had pre-industrial cultures (and probably some relationship to wild places) were systematically conquered and their lands taken, by militarized industrial civilizations.. this happened at various times in various places in the last 500 years. There are no places of note lef…

Good point. The core of what i'm trying to get at with that statement is - in many of the regions where ecological restoration is a topic of conversation, stakeholders with power over restoration would only recently have begun to interact with the idea of ecological restoration being valuable in a way they have to take seriously (people have been fighting for the environment forever, but people with power to influence that caring about it is going to be novel), and are often coming from a perspective where the opposite, the exploitation of the environment as a desirable goal for mankind, has been mainstream for a long time.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#218

Post by _heimdall »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #156
renegade-otter wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is bison in Chernobyl: https://www.rferl.org/a/bison-chernobyl/28357813.html

There is almost every EurAsian animal in Chernobyl. Once humans fucked off, animals took over.

The real lesson is that humans don't need to fuck off for this to happen, we just need to stop intervening so much in nature. People honestly can't seem to handle sitting idle, we run around doing as much stuff as we can because we don't know what "enough" means.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#219

Post by pchristensen »

m463 wrote: post #155
Fricken wrote: post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

It would be interesting to compare population density of europe vs the rest of the world over history. I have imagined that europe was always heavily populated, while north america was sparsely populated (allowing endless bison). Might not be that true, maybe europe wasn't that dense, and also disease killed so many when the first europeans arrived.

The book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created goes into a lot of detail about this.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#220

Post by rrr_oh_man »

seattle_spring wrote: post #210
kelnos wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and this is why I believe American tourists (in general) have a much worse reputation in Latin America than in Europe.

I think the Americans with bad reputations tend to stick to tropical climates and beaches. The type of place where tourists are probably just sunning themselves or getting drunk. Interestingly enough, I recently went on a short trip to Cozumel, MX. It wasn't my choice, I was just going to see some family who had planned their vacation there. I've been to more than 20 countries and boy oh boy was Cozumel my least favo…

That is exactly the sentiment that I was trying to convey with my, admittedly a bit controversial, statement above.
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