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The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

daveon.design

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Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#51

Post by actionfromafar »

jFriedensreich wrote: post #45

The foresting practices were among the first things i noticed flying to Tallinn. Instead of carefully picking trees to harvest selectively from a wider forest area as i am used to in most of Germany, there seems to be whole football fields of forest just cut down completely and then regrown as a whole in a plantation like fashion similar to how crops are grown. I am not an expert by any means but i thought this pract…

80% (or more!?) of Swedish "forests" are really just monoculture tree plantations, too.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#52

Post by wolvesechoes »

tpm wrote: post #50
wolvesechoes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wood burning is never sustainable, 'green', nor healthy. It boggles the mind that it is not normal to outlaw it. That's right! Then everyone will have to buy this expensive heat pump sold by few corporations around the world! It is only green when it fills correct pockets.

It's not that few really, the technology is not very complicated.

Well, I work for one of such corporations, doing modelling and simulation of HVAC/R systems, heat pumps included. You can believe or not, but there is not much competition there, unless you consider, for example, Carrier and Viessmann as separate manufacturers (and they are not since May 2023).

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#53

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

realusername wrote: post #32
kristjank wrote: post #23

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…

I live in western EU and I confirm that. There's so much forest in my place that nobody cares about that you could heat the whole area without cutting a single tree, just by picking up what fell down. I'm totally serious about that, there's so much trees on the floor that cutting new ones for firewood is mostly useless. And despite all of this, we import processed pellets and the only wood we cut is sent to China for…

I have first hand experience with this scenario: a large forest property that yields enough firewood for a season in the form of naturally felled trees.

The problem is that it's incredibly labour intensive vs clear cutting. It's hard enough to make paths to haul logs or equipment let alone all the work to prep and store the wood. It's doable, I've done it, but at the end of the day it's more efficient to import from someone else's lot. And pellets, even locally made, are even cheaper.

We've settled on partially supplying from felled trees (which is somewhat of a convenient byproduct of clearing trails) but the bulk of supply being purchased and delivered in the fall, to get us through the season. Pellets would be the obvious winner if we were willing to convert over, but I have too much attachment to the old stove.

The other thing is that felled trees provide a lot of resources back to the forest, and so at least for property I maintain, I prefer to let nature take course for the most part.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#54

Post by andriamanitra »

tokai wrote: post #36
kristjank wrote: post #23

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…

Wood burning is never sustainable, 'green', nor healthy. It boggles the mind that it is not normal to outlaw it.

In many rural/remote locations – especially off the grid – heating with wood (or oil-based products) is the only way to survive the winter. It isn't necessary to cut down entire forests to produce wood either – if you own some forest it is largely a byproduct of cutting down dangerous/dead trees and clearing ones that fall down naturally.

Burning wood only becomes unsustainable when it is done on a commercially viable scale.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#55

Post by markbnine »

tokai wrote: post #36
kristjank wrote: post #23

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…

Wood burning is never sustainable, 'green', nor healthy. It boggles the mind that it is not normal to outlaw it.

Wood burning can be made sustainable. Where I live, the forest service encourages people to take dead trees out of the forest. It reduces the fire load. And building codes and EPA certs have done a lot to clean up wood stoves. https://www.epa.gov/burnwise

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#56

Post by skeletal88 »

vintagedave wrote: post #13
sccxy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Where are these grids and fences used, and why?

What you will see in Estonia - forest is cut down and then some kind of plow makes lines in the forest to prepare the ground for planting trees. The trees are planted and in the next few years there will be lots of new growth, bushes and small trees that have grown from seeds or didn't get any sun below the old trees. The newly planted trees are sometimes hidden betwen the bushes and grass etc, but they are there.

Source: I go orienteering and have had to search for checkpoints on these former clearings or have made the mistake of trying to run through them.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#57

Post by ruszki »

kristjank wrote: post #41
watwut wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern countries added to the union benefit from Union. They are the ones who are given quite a lot of money. They are not squeezed, they are directly financially benefiting.

They do receive a lot money through the funds, cheaper loans and investments, but it has to be compared to the money their counterparts earn by exploiting the much cheaper workforce, resources and energy prices in the global east. The minimum wages discussed in the article are at a 1:3 ratio. It's trivial to funnel some money back if you've managed to gain 3 foreign workers for the price of 1 domestic. There is a wor…

Why does it matter that somebody benefits more if everybody benefits?

Btw 1 foreign worker rarely equals to 1 local. Even just the quality of their work isn’t equal usually and averagely, and language, culture, distance, etc differences are on top of that. Interestingly, who moved to Western countries usually works better than those who stayed, even with the same background. Source: my Eastern European ass, who still waits a project which has outsourced workforce and they really worth it not just on paper.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#58

Post by indoordin0saur »

> When coronavirus hit, so many Estonians went hiking to get away from people that the forestry commission recorded overcrowded trails, RMK calls on people to avoid crowded hiking trails.so crowded that that one article warned hikers to keep a safe distance to reduce risk of virus transmission – outdoors!

This was pretty common everywhere in 2020. I remember hiking in the cascade mountains of Washington State on a sunny, breezy summer day and the few other hikers I came across on the trail avoided me by 20+ft.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#59

Post by cmrdporcupine »

andriamanitra wrote: post #54
tokai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood burning is never sustainable, 'green', nor healthy. It boggles the mind that it is not normal to outlaw it.

In many rural/remote locations – especially off the grid – heating with wood (or oil-based products) is the only way to survive the winter. It isn't necessary to cut down entire forests to produce wood either – if you own some forest it is largely a byproduct of cutting down dangerous/dead trees and clearing ones that fall down naturally. Burning wood only becomes unsustainable when it is done on a commercially viabl…

The problem with wood burning is particulates in the air. Even the cleanest burning stoves produce too much, both internally and externally.

(I live rural and have a wood burning insert and a fireplace. I don't use them much anymore.)

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#60

Post by cmrdporcupine »

jFriedensreich wrote: post #45

The foresting practices were among the first things i noticed flying to Tallinn. Instead of carefully picking trees to harvest selectively from a wider forest area as i am used to in most of Germany, there seems to be whole football fields of forest just cut down completely and then regrown as a whole in a plantation like fashion similar to how crops are grown. I am not an expert by any means but i thought this pract…

Sounds like softwood lumber forestry in general in western Canada, too. Mass monocrop plantations, then basically clearcut and replanted.

And at least when I was a kid and out in the foothills camping with parents, huge users of herbicides, too.

They'd attempt be PR-clever about it, too. Along the major roads, it looked all nice. Get about 200ft in on a gravel logging road and you'd see mass clearcuts. Fly over in a small plane, you get a really "nice" vista.

I wonder if the difference you're seeing is softwood vs hardwood?

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