[Bass]

Andrew-
Sorry for the delay, but here is a Google Earth view showing approximate land boundaries (outlined in red)- we don't own all the property inside the boundaries.  Just heard today that about 700 acres damaged by tornado, guess I'll be heading to Alabama soon to help get salvage logging started.

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[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

How bad was the tornado damage Bass?

[Bass]

we lost close to 700 acres of trees- a strip about 1/4 mile wide by 4 miles long.  We have managed to salvage all of the pine, and are in the final phases of salvaging the remaining hardwood.  Will replant the area next winter- probably 80% longleaf and 20% loblolly pine.  Hardwoods will naturally reseed.
With timber prices down and salvage operation, probably only got 1/4 the revenue compared to last year.
At least the revenue will barely cover the replanting costs.  Can't fight mother nature, but she sure can make a mess of things.
Was down there two weeks ago, will post some pics soon.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Thats pretty bad. Can you get the media to help with the replanting, there are thousands of people that would come to help out if you asked them to.

Man if I lived closer I would be there with my friends to help plant so I know others will be happy to come. Especially if you supply some free beers and refreshments.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeY1n-p2auU
Let's put an end to global warming by irrigating the Desert coastlines of Africa and the Gulf's deserts by using the massive waste water generated by the developed countries to fertilize and reforest the coasts using the return ballast of super crude oil carriers. Al Gore et al use ill advised Bad Science in order to Introduce Even More Taxes in the name of protecting our environment. The rest of the world's politicians grab the opportunity of imposing heavy taxes and the people feel duty bound to pay these taxes. For the first time these greedy parasites have found a method of taxing that people feel duty bound to pay. Brilliant!
However, the real causes of global warming are not due to fuel consumption and air pollution. They are due to poor soil management. Stripping away forests and growing monoculture cash crops that impoverish the fragile soils is as old as the deserts themselves. In fact there are ample evidence of impressive civilisations that constructed the pyramids and long abandoned ancient cities, all built by humans that required feeding from the soils constantly removing the nutrients and organic matter until all that was left is sand grains. This folly is repeated over and over again and today is repeated on an unprecedented global scale. The massive tropical rain forests are fast becoming a memory. The deserts are expanding and the rain falls heavily in other places while some deserts no longer experience rainfall for several years at a time.

The real problems we all face today cannot be addressed by imposing taxes upon the people. You cannot tax the relentless sun and the rain clouds! But you can transform them into forests teaming with life, breathing oxygen, causing rain to fall and most of all cooling the planet by shielding the soil from the relentless desert sun.

At present there is an invisible thermal barrier along the hot dry coastline, which can be felt in aircrafts crossing from ocean to land and visa versa. In fact this thermal barrier is utilised by birds as they migrate along the coast without having to flap their wings gliding on the uplifting air currents.

This same thermal barrier also prevents clouds and moisture from crossing over onto the soil and falling as rain. This is the sole reason for the deserts in the first place, remove the vegetation from the coast and it stops raining! The forests in the central part of the continent or island become starved of life giving water and are set alight by lightning and Human’s lighting fires further adding to global temperatures. Nasa satellite photographs these man made fires which can be seen peppered on the surface in every continent of the globe.

Moisten the coastal soils while simultaneously replacing the organic material from human and animal bodily waste and we not only transform the sand grains into highly productive fertile soils, we remove the thermal barrier so that rain will once again fall on these parched lifeless lands.

Andrew K Fletcher

[Bass]

Tornado damage photos:

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damaged trees

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looking down storm track

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my wife, Martha, inspects the damage

Storm completely destroyed approx. 700 acres of trees on our property- 1/4 mile wide by 4 miles long

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Bass, thanks for the pictures. Might be a great time to check out the roots for heavy metal traces, so all might not be lost.

Nature can be quite ruthless and when it is it makes our own environmental destructive traits seem like childsplay.

Were there any types of trees that faired better against the winds?

Hope you guys will continue your important land management and forestry work. We need more people like you for sure.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/man_who_planted_trees.php

The Man Who Planted Trees, the story that inspired the Pocket Full Of Acorns Project.

A story that still brings a tear to my eyes,hope to my heart and tree seeds to the soils.
A Must Read for those who have not yet fallen under the spell of planting for the future.

Passage: The shepherd went to fetch a small sack and poured out a heap of acorns on the table. He began to inspect them, one by one, with great concentration, separating the good from the bad. I smoked my pipe. I did offer to help him. He told me that it was his job. And in fact, seeing the care he devoted to the task, I did not insist. That was the whole of our conversation. When he had set aside a large enough pile of good acorns he counted them out by tens, meanwhile eliminating the small ones or those which were slightly cracked, for now he examined them more closely. When he had thus selected one hundred perfect acorns he stopped and we went to bed.

There was peace in being with this man. The next day I asked if I might rest here for a day. He found it quite natural - or, to be more exact, he gave me the impression that nothing could startle him. The rest was not absolutely necessary, but I was interested and wished to know more about him. He opened the pen and led his flock to pasture. Before leaving, he plunged his sack of carefully selected and counted acorns into a pail of water.

I noticed that he carried for a stick an iron rod as thick as my thumb and about a yard and a half long. Resting myself by walking, I followed a path parallel to his. His pasture was in a valley. He left the dog in charge of the little flock and climbed toward where I stood. I was afraid that he was about the rebuke me for my indiscretion, but it was not that at all: this was the way he was going, and he invited me to go along if I had nothing better to do. He climbed to the top of the ridge, about a hundred yards away.


http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~nicholson/theman.html

Johnny Appleseed  who many of us have learned of was an astute environmental businessman who planted orchards ahead of the pioneers selling them at a profit. And there is nothing wrong with profiting from making the environment a better place in my opinion. He is now immortalised and has become a legend in his own rights. Planting a few seeds can make more than a few trees grow!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.serwis.wsjo.pl/files/katalog/A.Skotnicka.pdf
“A Pocket Full Of Acorns” To save the Royal Navy.
While being on leave or half-pay, Captain Cuthbert Collingwood loved walking
over the Northumberland hills with his dog, Bounce, and a pocketful of acorns. As Pope claims, Collingwood dropped them wherever he saw an appropriate place (2004: 35). “Some of the oaks he planted are probably still growing ready to be cut to build ships of the line at a time when nuclear submarines are patrolling the seas, because Collingwood’s purpose was to make sure that the Navy would never want for oaks to build fighting ships upon which the country’s safety depended” (Pope 2004: 35). His forethought was not unfounded, let alone, when the war with France was on the verge of breaking out, the shortage of oaks presented a serious danger for Great Britain. The amount of timber suitable for building ships of war, diminished in six major British forests from 234,000 loads in 1608 to 50,000 in 1783 (a load was 50 cubic feet, and 8 loads - 10 tons). The woods could then give birth to only 25 or 30 ships-of-the-line. By 1791 the annual consumption for merchant shipping only had risen to 167,000 loads, while the Royal Navy faced a demand of 218,000 loads for repairs and new constructions (see: Pope 2004: 36).
The country started to be combed in search for suitable timber, for British oak was claimed to be the finest and hardly prone to rot, and due to severe shortages, help from abroad was needed. British shipbuilders valued greatly Italian oak, so called “compass-timber”, from the Adriatic shores, because it grew with curves – perfectly suitable for the rounded frames of ships. Apart from that, beams from Gdańsk and Holstein were bought, whilst American and Canadian oak was never highly regarded by the reason of its vulnerability to rot (see: Pope 2004: 36). After having the wooden hull built, the ship needed her masts to be fitted, yards crossed, guns, shots and powder, sails canvas and rigging hung, and sheeting put to the bottom of the hull in the dry dock. Pinnaces, anchors, cables, galleys, coal and wood used for cooking, provisions and clothing sold by the purser together with a variety of other cargo had to be stored in a ship of war going to her sea voyage.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Time is moving on and we will soon be gathering more seeds and saplings to plant out new woodlands or simply to enhance a garden or create a natural hedgerow. The original leaflet is now online to inspire a few more budding tree people to gather and plant trees for future generations and enhance places we visit.

We have a 20 feet woodland in Cockington now that was once a field that had most of its topsoil washed away by intensive farming. Now a woodland flourishes with wild deer, foxes and badgers.



Printable version here: http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb31/Andrew_K_Fletcher/Trees/APocketFullOfAcorns.jpg

[OldDragon]

Projects like this are always an inspiration, and sharing ideas and information all helps to inspire others.

This link might prove of interest to others, and it is a simple idea that can be replicated in any area where there are a few people who share a common interest in the environment and preserving that for the benefit of future generations and the native flora and fauna.

TRPD - Llys Trerobert Woodland & Wildlife Project

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Just learned of this tree planting project in the Sub Sahara scrub / semi desert areas and think you will find this amazing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/06/2357361.htm
Revegetation project greens Sahara
By Bronwyn Herbert

Posted Sat Sep 6, 2008 7:23pm AEST
Updated Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:03pm AEST

 
Hundreds of millions of new trees have taken root in the Sahara over the last couple of decades (Reuters: Zohra Bensemra)
While climate change scientists warn of the increased desert in Africa in the future, researchers working with communities near the Sahara have managed to turn parts of the massive desert green.

Australians are part of the project which has seen hundreds of millions of new trees take root over the last couple of decades.

Project managers say it is no surprise that the West African region is capable of being revegetated, but even they are surprised by the scale of their success.

On the arid margins of the Sahara there has been a dramatic transformation under way - a greening of the desert.

Australian aid worker Tony Rinaldo has been there from the start, working with farmers in Niger since 1980.

"It's the difference between night and day because it was a barren wind-swept plain, and it was a very unpleasant landscape because it is extremely hot; there's no shade," he said.

"Even though I was involved in that process over 17 years I can't believe what I see, because as you travel through the countryside there's trees everywhere."

The project has been so successful that 5 million hectares of once marginal desert country is now productive land.

"I had to convince farmers that if you protected and pruned a certain number of these trees that are there then your crop yields would increase," said Mr Rinaldo.

"And that was a big battle.

"It probably took 10 years to have a significant mass, a critical mass of people that were practising that and made it safe, if you like; safe for others to practice without being ridiculed or feel out of place because they were doing something different."

Chris Ray from the University of Amsterdam has been studying land use in Africa for 30 years. He says it is no surprise that deserts' periphery could be revegetated, but he is shocked by the scale of success.

"We were surprised about the scale at which this is happening," he said.

"Five million hectares is not something small, it is bigger than the size of the Netherlands that I'm coming from."

He says the trees have significantly improved the land's productivity, and this has had flow-on effects.

"If you introduce more trees in the system you not only get soil fertility, you also get more fodder for your livestock," he said.

"And 20, 30 years ago all the manure was used as a source of energy in the kitchen, because there was little else.

"And now all the manure that is being produced by the livestock goes back to the fuel."

Australia's connection with the project continues. World Vision's Tony Rinaldo says they are now planting edible seeded acacias in the Sahara.

"These are traditional foods of the Australian Aborigines," he said.

"They act as an added wind-break; they fix nitrogen, and then in addition to that the seeds have 40 per cent carbohydrate."

They hope another 2 million hectares of desert land will be protected over the next decade.

[dentstudent]

Hi Andrew - I also have a vested interest in trees (I have just completed my PhD at the Institute of Forest Growth in Freiburg) and I just want to point out that of course, in general, trees are a good thing, but they do have disadvantages too. For example, non-site adapted species can be detrimental to timber production and local ecology, and can also be very susceptible to pathogens and storm damage - for example the use of spruce in many central European countries. The use of the incorrect species can have a massive effect on the local hydrological cycle. For example the use of eucalypts in Spain and Portugal which can notably reduce the local water table. Also, in the generation of HEP (Hydro-Electric Power), for example in Wales where the removal of forests can improve the production of HEP since there is less water being removed from the system by the trees' evapotranspiration.

The decisions about how, where and how many trees to plant has profound consequences on the environment, and is not a decision that should be made lightly. I am in full support of improving the environment, but it needs to be a well considered approach, and one that does not jeopardise the future health and vitality of the associated ecosystems.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject.

While I agree that some species of trees are detrimental to the environment, Rhododendron for example in the UK are very invasive and poison the soil with their foliage along with completely blocking the sun from the soil. Trees are very good at recovering water from the atmosphere causing it to rain. One only has to look at areas where trees have been removed to confirm this. The Chipco Movement in India for example was formed because rivers and streams failed to flow in the mountains once the are had been clear felled. For many years they noticed failing rains and when the rains did fall the ground was unable to soak up the water so huge mud slides were common place. The valuable top soils began to move down to the rivers and coloured them.
Eventually the women strapped themselves to the huge trucks and drove spikes into the trees to make the chainsaws dangerous to use. Eventually they won and the clear felling stopped.

The women then went about planting hundreds of thousands of trees which are now established and the streams and rivers now flow again with clean water.

Remove the forest from the coastline and we see a huge reduction in rainfall. A small island, covered in mangrove forest off the coast of India was clear felled and other species, was stripped of the timber for fuel. Cattle were moved in to graze and in 7 years they turned an island that had ample rainfall and fertile soils into a desert that has no rainfall. The cattle bones are there as a reminder to people of the folly of degrading the land and soil by removing the forests. In fact this can be seen in many countries, including our own little islands. East Anglia is now experiencing poor soil management and rainfall is getting less and less each year.

What science fails to take into account is that trees transpiring moisture seed rain-clouds and cause it to rain by removing the thermal barrier we see evident on parched dry lands. A thermal barrier along the desert coastline prevents moisture laden clouds from crossing onto the land. This causes inland forest to become parched and fires destroy it. Replace the forest along the coastline using waste water and rain will once again fall!

So for now removing trees to accelerate water run off from the surrounding areas will undoubtedly improve the rapid flow of soil water to the reservoir via the rivers for hydroelectric power production. But the silt from the degraded soils will render hydroelectric power redundant in a very short timescale as the sediment stacks up behind the dam’s. Just as it has in many hydroelectric schemes around the globe!

The problem is as always the use of un-sustainable monoculture cash crops. Eucalyptus is very flammable, producing volatile oils that ignite and spread wildfires with ease. The sensible approach is to bring in diversity and include species that do not burn readily and provide fire breaks to stop the devastation now seen around the globe as fires spread rapidly due to lack of thought when planting them. Nature does not like monoculture cash crops and we should all learn from nature. Pathogens abound in the once massive tropical rainforests and did not appear to upset the balance. In fact they provide a mechanism for letting more sunlight into the forest floor to stimulate new growth. Again monoculture cash crops do not survive pathogen invasion well. Why do you think this is?

Jeopardising the full health and echo systems is something mankind is very good at. We in Britain have removed a massive amount of forest in the name of progress. The baron moors we revel in were once great forests teaming with wildlife. Now they are teaming with ticks and used to farm horseflesh. Could this be the type of management you are referring to?

What about the Sahara Desert? Once the bread basket of the world, now a wasteland 2.5 times the size of Australia. What about Australia? Managed by Aborigines who used fire to turn the whole place into deserts? What about the sheep farmers whose habitual destruction prevents and chance of nature recovering?
The deserts are expanding at a frightening rate. So if the rain once fell on these massive lands and breathed life into them but now does not fall any more. Where does all this extra rain fall? Yup you’ve got it. It falls where trees remain and wet weather is commonplace causing floods and mudslides, with devastating effects.

Mankind’s stupidity never ceases to amaze me. We will not rest until we have a blank canvas to bear our own epitaphs. Andrew K Fletcher
 

Hi Andrew - I also have a vested interest in trees (I have just completed my PhD at the Institute of Forest Growth in Freiburg) and I just want to point out that of course, in general, trees are a good thing, but they do have disadvantages too. For example, non-site adapted species can be detrimental to timber production and local ecology, and can also be very susceptible to pathogens and storm damage - for example the use of spruce in many central European countries. The use of the incorrect species can have a massive effect on the local hydrological cycle. For example the use of eucalypts in Spain and Portugal which can notably reduce the local water table. Also, in the generation of HEP (Hydro-Electric Power), for example in Wales where the removal of forests can improve the production of HEP since there is less water being removed from the system by the trees' evapotranspiration.

The decisions about how, where and how many trees to plant has profound consequences on the environment, and is not a decision that should be made lightly. I am in full support of improving the environment, but it needs to be a well considered approach, and one that does not jeopardise the future health and vitality of the associated ecosystems.

[dentstudent]

Trees are very good at recovering water from the atmosphere causing it to rain.

Andrew - Trees don’t cause rain. Please can you explain this further with scientific references from peer reviewed journals, and not cases that are just anecdotal? With respectful thanks!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Yes they do cause it to rain! Lets take a look at plastic trees, huge nets stretched out to harvests airborn moisture, they were designed to immitate the same observations of moisture dripping from natural leaf foliage.

The desert island created by man was not anecdotal! A video of the whole process was shown on BBC television. The connection with removing the trees and the soil degradation was noted in the documentary.

Many coastal forests milk moisture from the ocean. It is common here in Paignton for the temperature in the woodland to be several dgrees lower than the environment clear of trees. We walk the dogs frequently through these woods when temperatures soar and on accasions we see the trees dripping with water as mist shrouds the trees yet does not shroud the surrounding coastal area and clouds appear to roll around the coast rather than crossing on to the land.

Plastic trees were used to great effect to immitate the real trees by providing a way to milk the atmosphere of airborn moisture. Introduction http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-26965-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

The frugal use of expensive water trucked in from distant wells was a way of life in the parched desert village of Chungungo, Chile — located in one of the driest parts of the world. In addition to being costly, the water was often contaminated, contributing to poor sanitation, ill health, and low food production.

Today, a simple technology collects water from fog, supplying villagers with two or three times more water than they once used and at a lower cost. What makes this possible is the persistent, extensive cloud cover (camanchacas) along the coast of Chile, which creates continual fog as the prevailing winds move inland across the mountains.

With IDRC funding, Chilean and Canadian scientists fashioned an inexpensive, sustainable water supply system by stretching polypropylene mesh between two posts -- like an oversized volleyball net. Precious water droplets form on the mesh as the fog passes through it. The droplets then run down into gutters that feed a reservoir and network of pipes in Chungungo.

Eighty collectors now supply Chungungo, providing an average of 10 000 litres of water per day. Meanwhile, a new prototype collector that is easy to build and maintain has been developed and tested. Twenty collectors based on the new design were installed on a new site in 1992.

The success in Chungungo has spurred interest in the technology elsewhere. Fogcatchers have been installed in Islay province and in the Manchay hills on the coast of Peru, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture's Instituto Nacional de Investigacion agraria y Agro-Industrial and Asociacion TECNIDES respectively. In Ecuador, systems are operating at Pululahua and Pachamama Grande. Sites in Namibia and South Africa are also being tested for their suitability. 

[dentstudent]

Thanks for that Andrew. It appears to me that what you are calling "rain" is the collection of water droplets / moisture held in suspension in the air that then condenses on the leaves and the rest of the tree strucure which then falls to the ground. I have absolutely no problem with this whatsoever, and I know of the Chilean forest that "captures" fog that you mention - but if the fog didn't form as a result of the air/sea combination, the forest would not be able to survive. But, this is not rain in the real sense of the word.

So, yes a forest can help capture moisture that is in the atmosphere and which can then form droplets on the trees which may then "rain" onto the ground, but they don't form rain-clouds. There are certainly instances where forests appear to drag cloud down, and this is the result of evapo-transpiration. I see it very frequently here in the Black Forest! These "clouds" remain highly localised and also remain at rather low elevations above the ground, and in fact rarely rise above the trees at all, or rather, when they do, they become dispersed and don't aggregate.

I think that it is a question of definition and semantics.

[dentstudent]

Andrew - there is one other point that I would like you to expand on, please. (But no too much, I've got to find time to read it too!)

"Nature does not like monoculture cash crops"

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Monoculture cash crops impoverish the soil causing eventual soil erosion. Monoculture forestry causes fires by failing to add diversity. alternating the material that is deposited in the soil by including trees that drop the leaves alongside trees that remain evergreen allows the continuation of farming without depleting the soil further. This is why indigenous people who live in the rainforest can do so for thousands of years without damaging the environment. The forest quickly reclaims the small openings they clear and the villagers move on when the soil becomes unproductive in the clearings.

Clear felling severely damages the soils but with careful introduction of indigenous trees alongside the cash crops we can continue to harvest without causing the soil to be washed away in floods.

[dentstudent]

Andrew - I would just be really careful about what seem to me to be very broad generalisations. You said that "nature does not like monoculture cash crops". Well, firstly, I don't think that "nature" really cares whether something is a cash crop or not. Secondly, there are many naturally occurring monocultures that are coincidentally also cash crops. In forest scenarios that are beech oriented, there is generally a 2 storey beech canopy - one of the overstorey, and the other of naturally regenerated trees. Beech operates in such a way that is detrimental to other species and therefore these stands are monoculture. However, I think that you are using the word "monculture" to define an anthropogenically altered forest, for example, a spruce forest. There is evidence that this type of monoculture is detrimental to ecosystems and to stand stability (either stable ecosystems or mechanical stability). However, there is also evidence that suggests that there are other forest types that are susceptible to damage. This can only be managed by species and structural dynamics. We cannot assess the effects against a natural forest (in Europe, at any rate) since they don't exist to any great extent. I agree that the use of indigenous species is a good thing, but, this is not going to be the case in several decades time. We will have to change our thinking away from current site adapted species to future site adapted species, and we can only speculate through the use of models as to how this will work, ie. which species and which structures. If we manage it correctly, we are able to make sure that the species that are used are not only site adapted/adaptable, but are also financially viable.