US forest management is definitely more wild than I've seen in Germany, but it's not always necessarily a return to natural state. For example, in many parts of the country, reforestation meant planting pine monocultures where there were previously diverse old-growth forests or savannas. People look at these monoculture forests and think they are "the way things used to be", when in reality they are nothing but a shadow of the kinds of biodiversity that was destroyed.

Something that bothers me is the gristly, meager attitude of a certain type of conservation ecology. I think we are really going to start having to cultivate healthy ecosystems from the ground up, regardless of who's originally "from here" or not. I'm very optimistic about permaculture and wild cultivation techniques. I think they deserve more of a shot than people often give them.

And that "ag-tech" oligopoly has gotta go, along with its foolish, ignorant, exploitative approaches to ecology and economics alike.

The industrial forests of Sweden is nothing like a 'natural' state, and I don't think we even know what a natural state would look like since people have been around since the ice age.

But the case in point was that the countryside has changed considerably because of changes in agriculture.

It seems like a lot of American logging has pushed to the Pacific Northwest, where it's very wet, doesn't get very hot/cold and new growth is very fast. I was talking to someone in Portland out in the middle of nowhere who said, "Almost everything you see is new growth; less than 60 years old. It grows that fast." The Singapore City gallery had a display where they talked about growing plants sustainability for paper.

It may grow fast, bug the pacific north west once was covered with HUGE trees. Those trees may seem normal, but they are small in comparison to how things "normally" looked before Europeans. https://www.google.cz/search?q=spruce+giants+olympic&source=...

Yep - PNW forestry is a fairly reasonable solution, at least in the sense that it's sustainable as-is. But it's far from a natural condition for that area.

The comparison between relatively preserved parks and National Forests (e.g. Willamette) and the rest of the states forests is truly jarring.

For that matter, the same pattern can be seen across the country. Much of Pennsylvania is densely forested, but the entire state has only a few thousand scattered acres of old-growth woods.

Yup, Fat growing pulpwood is what they use. 20-40 year cycle. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1634930/is-the-larg...

Weyerhaeuser, etc. grow those fast growing pulpwood trees and harvest.

Sounds like they may have been referring to the Tillamook Burn. Also, I doubt it was you, but this reminds me of a conversion on Saddle Mtn that happened to be right while the Eagle Creek fire was starting.

I think the point was made at the end of the previous post that pine (or other non-deciduous) forests are being planted there. I think it's a similar story across Europe, but I'm most familiar with Ireland where modern forestry has used Sitka Spruce which is non-native and impacts biodiversity.

Sustainable logging isn't enough in itself to really maintain insect diversity because logging forests aren't very diverse forests so they only help a small number of insects thrive. But if done right (e.g. leaving some dead tree trunks behind when harvesting, as homes for insects) it is much better than nothing.

> before settlers arrived

I think you mean "before Native Americans arrived". One of the side effects of the European arrival to North America was reforestation due to a disease-driven decline in the population of Native Americans.

Seems appropriate to mention controlled burns preceding European settlers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire

Test

Even in the adgricultural midwest reforestation is notable. One factoid I recall is this: At the beginning of the 19th century, Indiana was about 85% forest and 15% barrens (prairies). By the 20th century it had become 20% forest and 80% open land and farmland. Now it is ore like 25% forest and 75% open land and farmland.

European deforestation was most extreme during the late middle ages and early modern period. When people were using wood for fuel in a growing economy, before switching to coal, major European nations were running out of trees. Coppicing was adopted out of a desperate need for basic resources.

Not everywhere. Much of the Midwest used to have a fire ecology, leading to prairie and Oak Savannah. Now forests of non-fire-resistant trees crop up on any bit of unused and unmaintained land.