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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

#51

Post by cpr »

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 saw the same thing on the island of Achill, Ireland. All sheep are allowed to roam the island freely, so if you want anything protected, you have to fence it in.

And there are no trees to speak of. That could either be because of the harsh winds on this almost-westernmost point of Ireland, or (never thought of this until now) it could be the sheep.

The government pays people 50 pounds per sheep per annum, so people just let their sheep roam forever, unshorn, spray-painted with each owner's distinct colors.

(Disclaimer: probably ignorant observations from an outsider, taking a couple of our girls to the world-class Irish music camp they hold each year.)

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#52

Post by will_brown »

amorphid wrote: post #11

> As a result, Iceland is a case study in desertification, with little or no vegetation, though the problem is not heat or drought. About 40 percent of the country is desert, Dr. Halldorsson said. “But there’s plenty of rainfall — we call it ‘wet desert.’” At first I thought it was an error to call an area that gets plenty of rain a desert. I thought desert was strictly defined by the amount of rainfall. But maybe th…

There is a very famous race series for runners called the 4 Deserts. One race, called the Last Desert, takes place in Antarctica. It may surprise you, like it did me - in fact blew my mind - to learn Antarctica is the largest desert in the World.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#53

Post by joshuaheard »

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…

The article was pay-walled, but I think I got a better explanation right here.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#55

Post by avar »

cromulent wrote: post #41
interfixus wrote: post #3

Possibly worth remembering: Iceland (and Greenland, where the vikings hung on until the fourteen hundreds) had significantly warmer climate a milennium ago.

Got any more reading for this? Just back from Iceland so I am interested in this stuff right now. This is the only one I found, which doesn't seem to indicate a significant change. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2851789/

The change wasn't significant in terms of degrees Celsius, but even a degree in mean temperatures can have a large effect. It can mean the frozen ground starts thawing weeks or a month earlier, which makes for a longer growing season, which results in more biomass which has compound effects on the rest.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#56

Post by plussed_reader »

refurb wrote: post #39
TallGuyShort wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. It's an exception and not the rule, as you're saying, but I know of at least a few spots in the Rocky Mountains in the US where farmed cattle graze openly and property owners have to let them. The ones I'm thinking of I think became that way because it was a permanent condition of the sale of th…

Yes, out west many states have "free grazing" laws. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_range

See: Cliven Bundy

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#58

Post by avar »

zeristor wrote: post #16
interfixus wrote: post #3

Possibly worth remembering: Iceland (and Greenland, where the vikings hung on until the fourteen hundreds) had significantly warmer climate a milennium ago.

Indeed the little ice age of the middle ages is what made Greenland uninhabitable. Birch is a pioneer species, they produce millions of seeds a year, they chased the retreating ice cap as melted northwards in Europe. It would appear they need to be planted out, perhaps they need soil to take. Otherwhise it should be a fairly simple case of just broadcasting billions of birch seeds over Iceland.

Greenland didn't become uninhabitable during the little ice age, there's people living now in Greenland descended from people who survived that supposedly uninhabitable country.

The Norse colony got wiped out, but it's unknown whether that was because of war, famine or some other reason. We just know life would have been hardier in those years.

What little we do know suggests that they were unwilling to learn the traditional lifestyle from the natives, and the country became uninhabitable for anyone insisting on only using Norse farming methods.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#59

Post by mitchtbaum »

kingkawn wrote: post #50

Loss of symbiotic soil bacterial cultures?

Loss of grass, afaict. They can't grow it back quickly enough to support the trees, because (1) native species grow slowly in arctic climates and state blocks potentially useful imports (2) loose sheep eat up young plants.
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