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epiphiny43 -> RE: 34 years of pollution/deforestation seen from space (7/16/2012 2:16:11 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MercTech
De-Forestation... vs the fact that more arable land has been returned to forest than has been cleared in the last three decades.... hmm, urban myths.
An interesting 'fact'. Truth be told, most of the 're-forestation' is in industrialized agricultural monoculture of single species, single age commercial trees that are largely ecological deserts except for the neat rows of 'for harvest' trees, their parasites and the chemicals to control the parasites. Cotton and tobacco became losers, pulp pine is making money.
Much of the remaining forest outside the few protected areas is now honeycombed and partitioned by roads and 'gentleman estates' as the urban well to do build second homes in what used to be wildness, then want the local ecology to be changed to accommodate their vision of a rural paradise. No predators to eat Fluffy and Fido (That control the deer who other wise overpopulate and damage forest and shrub land), no natural fuel removing fires in the understory that prevent disastrous crowning fires, and so on.
There are more Trees. But actual forest continues to decline. The major gains have been in marginal size farms that have been abandoned, too inefficient in today's markets to support a family, too small of workable plots or inconvenient location to interest the massive food corporations that have largely monopolized agriculture wherever profitable. These usually isolated scrub lands will take hundreds of years to mature into climax forest, if they ever can, unassisted by deliberate planting and prevention of selective harvesting.
The recent decline of huge sections, if not most, of SouthWestern forest from new destrictive insects brought by globalization trade patterns and general interest in exotic plants is hardly a gain in forest. Predictions now are that massive erosion and lack of flourishing forest water absorption will reduce available water resources in the SouthWest to possibly disastrous levels. At best there will be painful adjustments and a reduction in US food security.
Eastern forests, are suffering the same insults and decline but particularly at mid to higher altitudes, are more affected by acid rain, which like much of Europe, is seeing to no new recruitment of young trees of many species and decline or death of many adults. It Looks like a forest, unless you walk through it and know what it should look like.
The functionality of small partitions of forest have proven most disappointing to those who hoped saving plots among a general land conversion to agriculture and animal husbandry would make a difference. Only large contiguous forest of all age trees, living and fallen into decay, function fully as ecologically intact forests. Less than that always has diminished species count, general abundance and small ecology variation. Which usually means eventual extinction of more and more life as the process continues from growing population pressure and its growing energy and consumption expectations of people world wide. Humanity IS eating the planet.
Yeah, you can prove (Or choose to believe) anything with well chosen statistics? Knowledge is good. Understanding is better.
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