Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 285 posts

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#231

Post by delbel »

zaroth wrote: post #104
pizzetta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the deer overpopulation also contributes to the Lyme disease tick problem.

Which we have a perfectly good vaccine for but it was shelved purely out of FUD! http://legacy.wbur.org/2012/06/27/lyme-vaccine

it was recalled because it was causing damages. the article is wrong. they found that body tissues has similar protein structures as the target for the vaccine, and left some people in wheel chairs. there are some developments for an improved vaccine but not out yet.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#232

Post by tricolon »

dredmorbius wrote: post #227
avar wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all you have to understand that private property in Scandinavia and Iceland works differently than it does in say the US. It's more appropriately phrased as a "limited land-use right", and the land use is always for a particular narrow purpose. So for example, if you buy a farm and put a fence around it I'm still free to walk across your property to get to where I'm going, because farms are intended for farm…

Ay refs or background on this?

Check out everyman's right/freedom to roam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#233

Post by barretts »

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…

Wow. If accurate, you've done a better job explaining the situation in 250 words than the entire NYT article did.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#234

Post by WalterBright »

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.

There's a similar problem in the Olympic National Forest, but this time with mountain goats.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#235

Post by adrusi »

vram22 wrote: post #217
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…

Interesting. Speaking of those fosses, Gulfoss is pretty cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullfoss Images: https://www.google.co.in/searchq=gullfoss&tbm=isch Often when I read about Iceland, it reminds me of the Jules Verne novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", which I read as a kid. Good novel.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is set in Iceland, if you weren't aware.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#236

Post by nkurz »

rconti wrote: post #209
openasocket wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that Bundy was grazing his cattle on federal land and was refusing to pay grazing fees. He argued in United States v Bundy (1998) that he didn't have to pay grazing fees. https://www.scribd.com/document/218116757/1998-U-S-Dist-LEXI...

Which is an effing joke, as the federal government charges pennies on the dollar for grazing rights compared to what a private landowner would charge. And yet, the Bundys want the taxpayers to take it in the shorts even more for their privilege and profit.

While there are many that share your view, the legal situation is far more complex. While disputed, there is in fact legal precedent for considering "grazing rights" to be private property, with the annual fees being paid for the administration of the program rather than being a rent designed to be equal to the free market value of the grass.

Did you know, for example, that grazing rights aren't something that is available on the "open market", are specifically attached to piece of private property, and are generally transferred (and inherited) along with it? That the IRS considers grazing rights such an integral part of the valuation of a ranch that they are subject to estate taxes?

Here's a simple introduction: http://www.thetribunepapers.com/2014/05/19/grazing-rights-st...

And some legal theory: https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/view...

And a recent update in central case that's been ongoing for decades, alternating between many (mostly Nevada district court) decisions favoring the ranchers, and many (mostly California circuit court) reversals: https://www.fseee.org/2017/03/08/nevada-rancher-hage-loses-i...

This is unsettled law, and calling it "an effing joke" doesn't do it justice. You are welcome to disagree with the ranchers' arguments, but if you care about truth, fairness, accuracy, and respect, I don't think you should call it a joke, at least until you've looked at the situation more closely.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#237

Post by mitchtbaum »

lucaspiller wrote: post #82
mythz wrote: post #37

The most interesting part of this article is its amazing photography.

Yeah this is one place where the autoplay videos are well done. Still, it would be nice to have a way to turn it off, if you are on a limited data connection.

I can only think how to disable it using uMatrix. Sadly, that's not a setting to apply anywhere in a browser, like Webpage Media Size Limits or something. Perhaps uMatrix developers could help by adding a feature in its Options next to Privacy tab for Media.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#238

Post by njarboe »

adrusi wrote: post #235
vram22 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Speaking of those fosses, Gulfoss is pretty cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullfoss Images: https://www.google.co.in/searchq=gullfoss&tbm=isch Often when I read about Iceland, it reminds me of the Jules Verne novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", which I read as a kid. Good novel.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is set in Iceland, if you weren't aware.

The the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull is the entrance into the Earth, to be more precise.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#239

Post by njarboe »

KGIII wrote: post #174
jaredandrews wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Possibly, but there has been a lot of humans walking around North America the last 12,000 years or so.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#240

Post by dredmorbius »

otakucode wrote: post #129
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 just finished listening to 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond and it goes over Iceland a bit. They've got serious ecological problems because of soil. Most of their soil comes from light volcanic ash, which replenishes at a much lower rate than other places with tons of vegetation and rivers and other things contributing.

Soil, generally, is surprisingly delicate stuff. It accumulates at the rate of about an inch per century under natural conditions on such abundant landscapes as the US plains. That's slow, but over the 10,000 year span since the last ice age, it's enough for 100 inches or so to accumulate (about 250 cm).

Much of that isn't deposited but fixed from the air by plants which then decay in place, though the freshly-arrived material often provides vital micronutrients -- itself a problem in Australia where the lack of geological activity means that there is very little of these materials, limiting ag productivity.

In regions with harsh climates and short growing seasons (e.g., Iceland), there's little time for soil-forming processes to set hold, and the slight progress made can be undone quickly. Even in places that appear full of life, conditions may remove soil or nutrients, e.g., tropical rainforest.

If I think of things that may bring doom to humans, I tend to think a lot about dirt and bugs and plankton and algae.

Post reply on HN