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Yes, but people still cut down trees. The question is how much faster forests would spread since there would be less deforestation.

PeterisP 6y ago
Cutting down trees does not generally decrease the area of forests in the first world - it decreases the volume of forests, it's essentially "harvesting the crop" because the same plot usually is replanted, and it often is required to be replanted. A reasonable mental model to think of most first world forests is as an equivalent to a wheat field, with the difference that ist's harvested and replanted not once a year like wheat, but once every 20-30-50 years depending on the tree species. Cutting down more trees is the equivalent of harvesting early, cutting down less trees is the equivalent of letting it grow some more before the inevitable harvest. It's not wilderness, it's something that's managed and taken care of. Also, forests don't spread on their own. Well, they do in some untouched wilderness, but if I think of e.g. a central european landscape, there's no free space for them to expand to - in general, all land is owned by someone who wants some return out of it, so a forest ends right where something else starts, almost all usable land is productively used if it's not a national park or something like that. A place can be a forest only if people let it be a forest - and that has nothing to do with cutting down trees, it's about the fact that seeds can't grow into saplings if someone's doing something with that land. A forest can spread only in two cases - either someone intentionally plants one (the most common scenario, but it relies on the expectation that in a few decades it will be allowed to harvest the 'crops'), or it's a result of decrease in agriculture, as some pastureland or farmland got abandoned because it was worthless to work it, and it overgrew with trees over the years. But such abandoned land is relatively rare, because even if it does "simply" get overgrown with trees, then it's profitable to take proper care of that forest (ensuring sparsity of trees, etc) so it usually gets done. So if we don't cut down trees, or cut down trees slower than they grow, then (assuming no changes in agricultural land) forests don't spread, the trees just grow taller and wider. Forest area remains stable, forest volume increases - e.g. the current USA situation. And, of course, no new forests would get planted, because it's not practical to do so if you expect that you'll be prohibited to harvest it once it's grown. There are more forests in Europe than before because it became more profitable to plant and cut down trees rather than use the same land for e.g. pastures, so forests got planted - they did not spread on their own.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  You're missing the point. The claim in the headline states that fighting against poverty helps with deforestation. My argument is that this is not absolute. It helps fight against deforestation in (some) poor countries, because poor people there cut down forests for wood and farmland. This doesn't happen anywhere near as much in first world countries. The question about those countries was there to ask about the magnitude. I was trying to underline the point that there are more variables at play than just poverty.

PeterisP 6y ago

Cutting down trees does not generally decrease the area of forests in the first world - it decreases the volume of forests, it's essentially "harvesting the crop" because the same plot usually is replanted, and it often is required to be replanted. A reasonable mental model to think of most first world forests is as an equivalent to a wheat field, with the difference that ist's harvested and replanted not once a year like wheat, but once every 20-30-50 years depending on the tree species. Cutting down more trees is the equivalent of harvesting early, cutting down less trees is the equivalent of letting it grow some more before the inevitable harvest. It's not wilderness, it's something that's managed and taken care of. Also, forests don't spread on their own. Well, they do in some untouched wilderness, but if I think of e.g. a central european landscape, there's no free space for them to expand to - in general, all land is owned by someone who wants some return out of it, so a forest ends right where something else starts, almost all usable land is productively used if it's not a national park or something like that. A place can be a forest only if people let it be a forest - and that has nothing to do with cutting down trees, it's about the fact that seeds can't grow into saplings if someone's doing something with that land. A forest can spread only in two cases - either someone intentionally plants one (the most common scenario, but it relies on the expectation that in a few decades it will be allowed to harvest the 'crops'), or it's a result of decrease in agriculture, as some pastureland or farmland got abandoned because it was worthless to work it, and it overgrew with trees over the years. But such abandoned land is relatively rare, because even if it does "simply" get overgrown with trees, then it's profitable to take proper care of that forest (ensuring sparsity of trees, etc) so it usually gets done. So if we don't cut down trees, or cut down trees slower than they grow, then (assuming no changes in agricultural land) forests don't spread, the trees just grow taller and wider. Forest area remains stable, forest volume increases - e.g. the current USA situation. And, of course, no new forests would get planted, because it's not practical to do so if you expect that you'll be prohibited to harvest it once it's grown. There are more forests in Europe than before because it became more profitable to plant and cut down trees rather than use the same land for e.g. pastures, so forests got planted - they did not spread on their own.

Mirioron 6y ago
You're missing the point. The claim in the headline states that fighting against poverty helps with deforestation. My argument is that this is not absolute. It helps fight against deforestation in (some) poor countries, because poor people there cut down forests for wood and farmland. This doesn't happen anywhere near as much in first world countries. The question about those countries was there to ask about the magnitude. I was trying to underline the point that there are more variables at play than just poverty.