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They are. If you kill a reef it’s gone for a really long time. And the rainforest needs time to grow back. What makes something renewable is that we take care t
by jschwartzi 7y ago
They are. If you kill a reef it’s gone for a really long time. And the rainforest needs time to grow back. What makes something renewable is that we take care to steward it. Forests in the US are renewable because the forest service surveys them and limits their uses so that they will continue to be available. In contrast the slash and burn agriculture that replaces the rain forest just consumes more land without replacement. The cattle farmers extract the resources from the soil and then move on. Nobody replaces the plant life they burned out. So it’s not a renewable resource in human time.
- Spooky23 7y ago> Forests in the US are renewable because the forest service surveys them and limits their uses so that they will continue to be available. Not really. More like we already cut them all down and it's easy to have sustainable use of young forests.
- maxerickson 7y agoAlso, the US Forest Service only manages national forests, and doesn't really focus on productivity. An awful lot of forest land is managed by commercial foresters, with an eye towards maximizing the value extracted over long periods of time. And then there is the management of small plots, which is also often done by commercial foresters, with an eye towards immediately extracting as much value as possible once they convince the landowner to let them do a cut.