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Great news -- Ireland is another country in bad need of reforesting. The British took all our trees to build their navy and Irish farmers finished off what litt
by s_dev 4y ago
Great news -- Ireland is another country in bad need of reforesting. The British took all our trees to build their navy and Irish farmers finished off what little remained. We have very few old growth forests as a result.
- Akronymus 4y agoI think you may have misread the title as ireland instead of iceland.
- profunctor 4y agoActually most of Ireland was deforested in the Neolithic age. We really should reforest as much as possible, preferable native species.
- arethuza 4y agoThat's what Trees for Life are doing in the Scottish Highlands: https://treesforlife.org.uk/ https://treesforlife.org.uk/
- edoloughlin 4y agoIt was said that a squirrel could travel from one end of Ireland to the other without ever touching the ground as more than 80% of the land was covered by forests https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/general-topics/history-of-forestry-in-ireland/ https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/general-topics/...
- wongarsu 4y agoIt would be interesting to see how this contrasts to other European countries. At a glance up to 1600 or so the history seems the same as other densely populated countries: dense forests made way for more and more farmland. "By 1600, less than 20% of Ireland was covered by forests." For comparison, both Germany and France are about 30% forest today. But where Ireland lost almost all woodlands by 1900, apparently driven by wood demand, Germany and France maintained forests for game hunting and developed sustainable foresting around the 1800s.
- stormdennis 4y agoI think that Ireland was largely deforested in prehistory by early settlers. Short cycle rotation cropping of Sitka spruce is about all that's been done about it in independent Ireland.
- closewith 4y ago> The British took all our trees to build their navy and Irish farmers finished off what little remained. That's something of a myth. Most of the deforestation in Ireland occurred long before the plantations (even BCE). While trees were cut for shipbuilding, deforestation was primarily the result of agriculture and a booming population pre-famine. https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/general-topics/history-of-forestry-in-ireland/ https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/general-topics/...
- OskarS 4y ago> long before the plantations (even BCE) Iceland wasn't settled by humans until the Viking age, in the 9th century CE. Are you claiming it was deforested a millennia earlier than that? Edit: I'm an idiot, I misread your comment. Apologies!
- Denvercoder9 4y agoThis subthread is about Ireland, not Iceland.
- rocketbop 4y agoOP is talking about Ireland, where there have been people for thousands of years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nixass 4y agoThere's similar myth where Venetians chopped down trees from Croatian coast, namely Dalmatia and Velebit mountain. It's just nonsense
- s_dev 4y agoYour link greatly understates later human (predominantly British people) impact from 1500 onwards: https://www.forestryservices.ie/history-of-forestry-in-ireland/ https://www.forestryservices.ie/history-of-forestry-in-irela... Basically my opinion is that we should be allowed to mess up our own island but another country messing with our island is a crime and infringement of our sovereignty. So yea -- thumbs up to Neolithic farmers trying to make ends meet vs a thumbs down to a global Empire bent on taking over the world through it's military navy.
- CalRobert 4y agoIt would help if we didn't have a cultural dislike of trees. I'm getting tired of "You'll be wantin' to cut them trees down for light" when people see my house.
- klondike_klive 4y agoOne of my earliest memories of my Irish grandad was him cutting down a tree in our back garden.
- BirAdam 4y agoI don’t know how cultural that is. In the aggregate, humans seem to enjoy sunlight. If a house is in the middle of the woods, I imagine there’s a subset of human who would prefer that but not so much the general population over a large time span. EDIT: though the lighting would probably be awesome for TV viewing or gaming… it’s important to remember that if the house is sticks and siding with asphalt covered shingles, there’s an increased maintenance burden and security risk from having a ton of trees close to the house.
- CalRobert 4y agoIf it matters, the culture I grew up in (central California) very much valued trees because of the shade they offered, as well as their beauty.
- pmontra 4y agoTrees shade is great in hot weather.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoFortunately Ireland is plagued by neither sunlight nor hot weather.
- CalRobert 4y agoConsidering the moaning caused by 30C I think we're in for a rough few centuries...
- badcppdev 4y agoSome interesting replies to your comment. As you included an interesting sentence claiming the trees were taken by the British I just wanted to ask what your thoughts on that were now?
- sonthonax 4y ago> The British took all our trees to build their navy Not only that, they took our young men to fight in their colonial armies; and deracinated the educated to serve as middeling officials in their colonial governments! Anyway, I'm being ironic, the Irish were part of the colonial project as much as working class factory workers were in Manchester were.