Hello Chris
>Trees are renewable and the lumber industry now replants more
trees than it takes.<
The only problem with repanting trees, period, that i'm shocked no
one has mentioned (unless i missed it), is that the earth in a
particular area can only support 4-5 generations of trees before the
soil is completely exhausted. Trees take more nutrients out of the
soil to grow than just about anything else, and after several
generations they will NOT grow any longer. So yeah, replanting after
clear cutting is nice and all, but after a few times at the the soil
stops growing... anyhting...
I don't think there's any basis for this assumption, quite the
opposite. Forests can continue indefinitely. Some forests are 30
million years old. What sort of forests are you talking about? Can
you provide some references please?
And as far as deforestation goes, i'm more worried about places
outside developed countries where no one really cares if trees are
replanted. A lot of the slash and burn
Some, not most.
taking place in the rainforest is regular old people who are trying
to grow food or make money, clearing land for cattle and farms.
Mostly they've been marginalised, or they wouldn't need to do it.
It's worth checking what marginalised them, for a clearer picture.
They're the most widely blamed, though they're probably the least to
blame.
In tropical forests most of the nutrients are in the trees, with very
little in the soil. Slash-and-burn provides some mineral-rich ash
which "fertilises" the soil for a couple of years, and then, as the
fertility levels sink, pioneer weeds invade, their purpose to begin
restoring the fertility reserves. These weeds are generally very
tough, very hard to fight, like lalang grass in Southeast Asia. The
peasants are forced out, and have to slash-and-burn another site, and
use it for another couple of years. There are initiatives to
stabilise this cycle, several through agroforestry principles. If the
leaves and small branches of the trees that are cut down were
composted instead of burnt the poor forest soils could be maintained
at much higher fertility levels, with no pioneer weeds invading and
no need to move on.
Those people don't replant trees,
Quite often they do plant trees.
and they aren't part of a multibnation company with lots of
enviromental regulations to uphold.
Or ignore.
Best
Keith
_Chris N
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Joe Street
To: <mailto:Biofuel@sustainablelists.org>Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] How many trees were killed to build your home ?
Hi Hakan;
100% in agreement with all of that. Clearcutting IS bad, I thought I
made that distinction. It is also true that clearcutting does not hurt
<snip>
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