[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

With you all the way on this one Dent. I was referring to manufactured cash crops not naturally occurring cash crops but you made a good point about the beech tree forming it's own monoculture. Never thought of relating to monoculture like that before. Thanks

The potato famine in Ireland gives another insight into cash crops. When they fail it is often not without disastrous consequences.


The picture below is not unique and shows clearly how moisture rolls along a coastline due to thermals rising from the hot sands and black tarmac roads. At night when temperatures drop the clouds cross onto the land and rain falls as a result. Observed many times here in Devon.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Little Sula planting trees for the future on televison news.

Autumn has arrived and the seeds are on the ground ready to be picked up and planted where trees have fallen or been chopped down.

We had a lovely stroll the other day through a woodland that is 11 years old and some of the trees are 20 feet tall, there are spindle, whitebeam, holly, ash, oak, crab apple, maple, hazle field maple, chestnut, hawthorn thriving, deer have moved in and wild flowers are beginning to settle in nicely. Trees have begun to self seed and more saplings are thriving ready to be transplanted out to new ground.

Please give a hand and start your own planting project.



Click on the image to view photographs of our new woodland in Cockington Devon

[BenV]

You should try developing some heathland for your next project - I think it's the most endangered habitat in the UK now...

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

You should try developing some heathland for your next project - I think it's the most endangered habitat in the UK now...

Only heathland because the trees have been removed in the first place. Maintaining heathland is practiced so doubtfully in decline although the constant burning of the gorse and small trees is adding to soil erosion.

So how do you propose to devolop more heathland?

[BenV]

Now that's a good question, and one to which I really don't know the answer!  I'm not sure of the successional stages that lead to heathland, or those that degrade it naturally.

It's obviously never going to be as simple as 'plant a load of heather and gorse'; proper management would need light grazing, occasional cutting and burning, removal of excess nutrients (i.e. from local agriculture) etc etc etc...

Actually, reading up about it, it seems that Devon is one of the most significant areas for lowland heath - I assume there are geological considerations...

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

The problem with heathland and the moors is the grazing and burning required to maintain it. It is not a natural habitat but clearly a manmade habitat and as you say in Devon and Cornwall we have more than our fairshare of this useless landscape which could easily be put back to forest.

The burning adds to pollution and global warming and the grazing stock contributes methane although does add some fertility to the soils.

Certain areas like the spring bogs and streams are very attractive for visitors but many leave without taking their litter problem with them, a few weeks ago I collected a carrier bag full of litter and glass bottles that people had discarded in a few hundred yards from the car park among grazing Dartmoor ponies.

If we are to begin to address global warming we really need to consider replacing the forests we devour each day before considering to cut more trees down in order to provide more heathland, just my humble opinion mind.

Andrew

[BenV]

Heathland is as important as forest, without a shadow of a doubt.

Grazing animals, natural fires and limited resources all occur naturally, so health lands are certainly a natural, rather than man made environment.

Forests are great, but support a different range of species to other environments.  If we were to replace all of England's heath with forest, we would lose almost all of our remaining reptile species, a few species of ground bees, several other insects and probably a few birds.

Boundaries between one habitat and another tend to be the most species rich areas.

[rosy]

Ye-es. However. I've always suspected planting trees was a footling way of approaching climate change (in the sense that it would never make sufficient difference to be meaningful. I've always vaguely meant to do the sums...
It turns out the very clever (and thorough) David Mackay has done the sums for me.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c31/page_245.shtml
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c31/page_246.shtml
So we might as well stick to husbanding our forest and heathland environments to preserve diverstiy.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Heathland is as important as forest, without a shadow of a doubt.

Grazing animals, natural fires and limited resources all occur naturally, so health lands are certainly a natural, rather than man made environment.

Forests are great, but support a different range of species to other environments.  If we were to replace all of England's heath with forest, we would lose almost all of our remaining reptile species, a few species of ground bees, several other insects and probably a few birds.

Boundaries between one habitat and another tend to be the most species rich areas.

Nope, Heathlands are managed with fire and domestic grazing animals, nothing natural about them at all!
http://www.theheathproject.org.uk/news.html?newsId=20&page=3

Deserts are the end product of this stupidity.

One only has to look at Australia to see the end product managed now by sheep and dairy farming along with rabbit and native grazing animals.

Most of Australia is now desert. The credit given to the native Australian bushpeople. But the truth is they burned the vegetation to kill and cook the wildlife and rid the area of deadly snakes!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Ye-es. However. I've always suspected planting trees was a footling way of approaching climate change (in the sense that it would never make sufficient difference to be meaningful. I've always vaguely meant to do the sums...
It turns out the very clever (and thorough) David Mackay has done the sums for me.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c31/page_245.shtml
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c31/page_246.shtml
So we might as well stick to husbanding our forest and heathland environments to preserve diverstiy.

Rosy,

All depends on how you look at the problem, pull blinkers on and yes you will see straight ahead and yes the sums will add up to anything you want to focus on.

We are however not trying to completely offset the carbon from every person with just trees, the ocean lake and river sinks provide some “Co2 sucking” and as pointed out the minerals also provide some Co2 sucking.

Let us also remember that trees are very good at burying their own timber in the root systems which remain underground long after the above ground timber has been utilised.

And let us also remember the foliage dragged below ground by earthworms or foraged by moulds and deposited below the soils enriching them.

But most of all let us remember that shielding the suns energy from reaching the soils and drying it out contributes to keeping the climate cool and the transpiration in the air also blocks out a lot of the sun’s energy.

So it is nonsensical to try to separate the carbon emission trade off without considering the huge amount of water storage the prevention of soil erosion by the root system and of course the production of fruits, animal fodder, shelter, increased moisture, reduced temperature micro climates created by the trees and habitats for wildlife and humans. And then there is also that valuable age-old useful product called timber.
Almost forgot preventing flash floods, mud slides and dry river beds.
On the other hand there is always a handful of lucky heather for the gypsies to be found in the heath lands.

[litespeed]

Andrew - You wrote: " Nature needs a little help if she is ever going to address the most devastating attack this planet has ever seen."

First, it is this sort of exageration that gives greens a bad name. The planet has suffered far worse in the past. Believe me, you would not wish to live where you do now a mere 10,000 years ago. Think ICE age. Think Jurrasic astroid, or any Super volcano you wish.

That said, I plant and tend trees on my wood lot adjacent to the house. I leave the dead ones standing for the wood peckers, and weed out encroachments. Furthermore, I grew up in Ohio with many small farms.  Many of them were not amenable to large scale farming and have returned to brushland and even woods. Even the beavers have returned.  We never had beavers were I lived as a kid. So cheer up, bucky!

PS - It is looking more and more like wind power has come of age. It already supplies Texas with three or four percent of its total power grid.  And the things are going up like weeds all over West Texas. Wind pricing is based on Natural Gas prices which are also plentiful in Texas. I drove up to one of the windmills, and it was an impressive thing.  Also impressive was the ground level wind speed which was constant and VERY fast. Uncomfortably fast!  Lots of wind in Texas!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Hi and thanks for letting us know of your tree planting. Great work!

The ice age was probably brought about by changes in weather due initially to global warming and the removal of vegetation, for example the giant freshwater lake in Canada released onto the ocean surface down the St Lawrence river is thought to have caused the Atlantic conveyor system that drives not only the ocean currents but the world’s weather to grind to a halt, this is said to have caused a catastrophic drop in temperature following the warming that released it.

Here again the temperatures are rising and the caps melting spilling onto the oceans surface, diluting the surface water and interrupting the saline flow and return system that effectively drives the massive flow of sea water to the equator and back.

Huge volcanoes and Earthquakes fail to come close to mans disease on the soil. Deserts and desertification pose more problems than any short-term catastrophic disaster, no matter how spectacular. Take the dustbowl in America for example. Ignore the signs and continue to overexploit the soils and they will blow away leaving behind a desert.
The ancient Egyptians, the Anastasian Indians, the Incas, the Chinese, the Mesopotamians, have perished and their bones tell the story of impoverished diets, disease and starvation. Many more have left their feeble irrigation channels buried beneath the drifting sands.

The dinosaurs became exports at degrading their environment, impressive sizes were reached as more and more efficient plant eaters evolved. Is it a coincidence that many of their bones are found not in lush green forested areas but in sands devoid of vegetation?

If we don’t address the expanding deserts soon we won’t be on this planet for much longer!

Wind power is a smart move to generate electricity reducing pollution significantly but with all due respect it cannot address the worlds inherent lack of fertile soil and failing rainfall, coupled with the all too familiar flash floods and imbalance in rain distribution.

More forests planted along the desert coastlines will permit the ocean born moisture to cross onto the land and cause rain to fall where it is needed most and therefore relieving the burden of too much rainfall in other areas that are still forested.

As the forests grow with or without mans help rain clouds will begin to pass inland to feed more forest rather than falling where they are not needed by vegetation. As the clouds cross the dry deserts the air will cool and the suns energy will be prevented from heating up the sandy soils shaded by the airborne moisture. Then global temperatures will fall.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Millions of trees felled in UK forestry crisis

By Dan Gledhill

Sunday, 1 October 2000

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/millions-of-trees-felled-in-uk-forestry-crisis-698477.html
A crisis in the UK's forestry industry has forced the destruction of millions of sap-lings, according to one of the UK's largest tree growers.

A crisis in the UK's forestry industry has forced the destruction of millions of sap-lings, according to one of the UK's largest tree growers.

In the latest episode of an orgy of felling uneconomic trees that has bedevilled the industry in recent years, the privately-owned Maelor Nurseries is having to close a big nursery in Scotland. On the eve of its harvest, Maelor has also started destroying saplings planted just three years ago on its Welsh Borders' farm. Millions more will have to go, the company predicts.

Ironically, Britain is the world's second-biggest importer of timber, buying £6.5bn of wood from overseas every year, according to official statistics. Only 20 per cent of wood consumed in the UK is grown in this country.

At the same time, Britain has sunk near to the bottom of Europe's afforestation table. Only 10.5 per cent of British land is now wooded thanks to a steady decline in commercial planting. A damning report by the Horticultural Trade Association (HTA) highlighted a particularly worrying decline in the planting of conifers and broad-leaved varieties. The HTA is also critical of much of the planting which has gone on, condemning the use of cheap and unregulated foreign stock likely to have a negative environmental impact.

Britain's forestry problems have been aggravated by the actions of conservationists, industry figures say, even though groups like Greenpeace oppose the indiscriminate felling in the virgin forests of developing countries. The creation of commercially sustainable forestry in the UK has been frustrated by interest groups concerned about the impact on local wildlife. Michael Harvey, managing director of Maelor Nurseries, believes the opposition is misconceived.

"Modern forestry is no longer concerned with the monotonous conifer planting that was popular before the 1980s," he says. "We believe that such an important subject should be viewed in the global context and controlled through more public debate."

Mr Harvey also blames red tape for the destruction of 15 million new trees which was forced on Maelor last year. Not even the awarding of a series of lottery grants to fund millennium planting projects has been enough to stem the tide of felling.

The impact of the trend has been felt beyond the industry, especially in remote parts of the country where forestry has traditionally been one of the most important employers.

In the light of the crisis, Mr Harvey is calling for an urgent review of the Government's forestry policy. He believes that the UK should take a leaf out of the books of Holland and Ireland, where forestry's positive environmental effects - for example, its ability to reduce carbon in the atmosphere - are factored into the equation when planting policy is formulated.

[Bass]

Recently back from wilds of Alabama with a few updated photos

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Tornado tract- 700 acres cleared, burned and ready for planting this winter

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3 year old loblolly tract

[Bass]

continued...

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5 year old longleaf tract

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8 year old loblolly tract

Photos show our forests in different stages of growth/rehbilitation.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Bass Great photographs showing dedication and common sense environmentalism

Fantastic work, far better covered in trees for the wildlife and for preventing flash floods further down the road.

We don't need a pat on the back for our efforts it's enough to stand among those trees and think of nothing more than the eye candy and sun on our backs.

Thanks for posting the pictures Bass

Andrew

[rosy]

Andrew..
One of the forum rules is that we ask that all posts be (primarily) English language, we don't have the resources to moderate foreign language posts, and although in the case of the above article in (presumably) Thai I am reasonably confident there is nothing anyone need worry about, that position has to be maintained so that we can enforce it elsewhere. Please post a translation instead.

[litespeed]

Andrew:

Do you attempt to recreate primeval mixed forest, or do you specialize in Oak? Either way the more hardwoods the better. In the states we have something called Arbor day when people plant trees. I don't know much about it.  However, we have a LOT of land area that is returning to nature since it does not lend itself to industrial farming.

My local stomping grounds in NE Ohio is one good example. The farm land seems to have been divied up three ways. 1) Some of it is absorbed into larger farms; 2) Some of it is subdivided for suburban housing; an 3) Some of it has simply been abandoned from agricultural or suburban development.

The wildlife tell the story. When I was a kid we trapped Muskrat out of the swamps for extra money. I don't think anyone traps them anymore. Whatever. Even the beavers have returned and are now a nuisance, as are deer.

Thats progress. Keep up the good work!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Hi Rosy

The post in Thai is a direct translation to Thai from the original pocket full of acorns project. There is nothing to worry about in the text, although I do understand your concerns.

This project is aimed at schools to encourage children to plant trees, nothing more than that.

Andrew..
One of the forum rules is that we ask that all posts be (primarily) English language, we don't have the resources to moderate foreign language posts, and although in the case of the above article in (presumably) Thai I am reasonably confident there is nothing anyone need worry about, that position has to be maintained so that we can enforce it elsewhere. Please post a translation instead.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Andrew:

Do you attempt to recreate primeval mixed forest, or do you specialize in Oak? Either way the more hardwoods the better. In the states we have something called Arbor day when people plant trees. I don't know much about it.  However, we have a LOT of land area that is returning to nature since it does not lend itself to industrial farming.

My local stomping grounds in NE Ohio is one good example. The farm land seems to have been divied up three ways. 1) Some of it is absorbed into larger farms; 2) Some of it is subdivided for suburban housing; an 3) Some of it has simply been abandoned from agricultural or suburban development.

The wildlife tell the story. When I was a kid we trapped Muskrat out of the swamps for extra money. I don't think anyone traps them anymore. Whatever. Even the beavers have returned and are now a nuisance, as are deer.

Thats progress. Keep up the good work!

Thanks litespeed.

Yes I do encourage planting of hardwoods, where ever possible, monculture cash crops while useful can increase the chances of fires, mixed planting can create fire breaks and afford firefighters with a chance of bringing the fires under control sooner.

My goal is to begin at the coastline, planting new forests so that moisture from the ocean can cross onto the land and fall as rain. Hot barron sandy coastlines look great but provide a thermal barrier which prevents moisture crossing onto the land and falling as rain when temperatures drop. This means that inland forrest does not receive sufficient rainfall. Common sense I know, but sadly lacking in many governments.

Andrew