[HN Gopher] How to Plant the Forests of the Future ___________________________________________________________________ How to Plant the Forests of the Future Author : nautilus Score : 21 points Date : 2021-09-02 11:21 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com) (TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com) | hinkley wrote: | Not one mention of succession. If you're starting what we already | know to be a multigenerational project, then what matters is not | what are the "right" trees to grow but what are the right trees | to grow to get more trees, and the right trees to grow to get | more carbon in the ground. So that's succession pathways and | growing soil by focusing on the soil food web. | | From that perspective something like alder or other short-lived | tree may be better. They flame out and die young, and then you | can seed trees that like to grow on nurse logs, things like | hemlock, which will refill the canopy and help keep the process | going. Then you plant the monster trees that you see in a mature | forest. If you let this happen organically it will of course take | longer, but you can nudge things along by planting in clearings | instead of waiting a lucky germination, cull trees in areas where | they the pioneer trees are doing too well, reintroduce understory | plants and other wildlife, microbes, etc. | betwixthewires wrote: | IMO this is a terrible idea. Humans love to try to engineer | things and wind up mucking things up sticking their fingers in | it. Think of all the invasive deliberately introduced species | worldwide. In some cases it worked out, but the results were not | predictable, in most cases it caused unforseen problems usually | as bad as or worse than the one people were trying to solve. | | > Currently voluntary for foresters, transferring seedlings in | anticipation of future climate conditions will soon become | mandatory. | | Think of this: those forests that are there, when the climate was | different before there were probably different sorts of plants, | no? I'm not talking millions of years ago, I'm talking ten | thousand years ago, way too short of a timeframe for evolution. | So how did those plants get there? | | The answer is clear, either the trees that are there are more | adaptable than we give them credit for, or the seeds were winding | up there but didn't germinate until climate changed to the | conditions they needed. | | Either way no intervention is necessary. | | So why don't we just let it happen naturally the way it always | has? Why do some people think a solution to (pardon my French) | putting your dick in the pudding is to put your dick in the | pudding some more? Maybe quit digging the hole and leave shit | alone? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-03 23:02 UTC)