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There is a difference between a forest and a tree plantation. It is deceptive to call a tree plantation a "forest". Sure, both contain trees, but the plantatio

There is a difference between a forest and a tree plantation. It is deceptive to call a tree plantation a "forest". Sure, both contain trees, but the plantation is a monoculture, with all the problems that brings. Also, the trees are not allowed to mature - they are harvested as soon as they reach a certain size. If you removed plantations from the listed forests, people would be shocked. Actual, natural forest? There isn't really all that much of it...

marcinzm 3y ago
Wouldn't a plantation also be less likely to burn as it's maintained better as there is a monetary incentive to do so?
- acc_297 3y ago
  Actually not really they burn quicker and hotter since the tree planters are meant to put a pine or spruce tree very regularly every 6-8 feet in more or less a grid which gives the resulting trees a very bushy characteristic and crowds out the wet undergrowth that an older forest would have Not mentioning that the old discarded branches from the original logging are left behind to bake in the sun for 2-3 years before replanting which don’t really decay very fast For the first 10-20 years after logging an old cut block is like a pile of very dry fuel
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    I bought 800 acres of land that was clear cut in the early 2000s, I'm letting it reforest naturally. The dead wood was gone in less than 10 years, 20 years is a stretch. To be clear, clear cutting is a horrible practice, as is mono-culture planting.
LeSaucy 3y ago
I recently went on a canoe trip through some of the old growth forest in Ontario that has never been logged, and it was remarkably different than sections of the forest that has been thoroughly logged in the last century.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>Actual, natural forest? There isn't really all that much of it... Can you quantify "not really much"? Because I don't think you're correct; I think that Canada has tons of natural forest.
- bradley13 3y ago
  The most specific figures I found for Canada: Of 417.6 million hectares of forest, 234.5 million hectares are "commercial forests", i.e., tree plantations.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    There are about 3.47 million km2 of forest and of that 2.06 million km2 are covered by a management plan that includes production, conservation or other uses[1]. That does not mean all 2 million km2 are tree plantations. In fact relatively little will be - there is a ton of natural forest in that area and it's not all for commercial use. The rest of the 3.47 million km2 is located in more remote and northern areas and often relatively undisturbed by human activity. Accessibility is the distinction, not if it's a plantation or not. [1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/2018001/sec-2-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/2018001/sec-2-e...
  - ameister14 3y ago
    'Not much' means 180 million hectares? So just an area three times the size of France.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      This doesn't imply that the forest remains untouched, unlogged, or unmanaged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37336122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37336122
      - ameister14 3y ago
        The way op put it did imply it, but I take your point that it doesn't actually mean it.
Ensorceled 3y ago
> If you removed plantations from the listed forests, people would be shocked. The vast majority of Canadian forests are not plantations and are, in fact, actual natural forest. In fact, we learned our lessons about "mono-culture tree plantations" in the 80s and a lot of replanting is mixed except in areas that already had naturally occurring mono-cultures.
- bradley13 3y ago
  See my reply to the earlier comment. More than half of Canadian forests are "commercial¨, i.e., tree plantations.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    There is a reply that directly disputes this. "Commercial" means that it is privately owned and can possibly be logged. Not that it has been logged and replanted. Calling large swaths of forest that have never been logged in human history "tree plantations" because they can be legally harvested at some point is, at best, disingenuous.
WeylandYutani 3y ago
In my country all forests were planted. Apparently as early as the 17th century we had to import wood from the Baltics for ship building.

marcinzm 3y ago

Wouldn't a plantation also be less likely to burn as it's maintained better as there is a monetary incentive to do so?

acc_297 3y ago
Actually not really they burn quicker and hotter since the tree planters are meant to put a pine or spruce tree very regularly every 6-8 feet in more or less a grid which gives the resulting trees a very bushy characteristic and crowds out the wet undergrowth that an older forest would have Not mentioning that the old discarded branches from the original logging are left behind to bake in the sun for 2-3 years before replanting which don’t really decay very fast For the first 10-20 years after logging an old cut block is like a pile of very dry fuel
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  I bought 800 acres of land that was clear cut in the early 2000s, I'm letting it reforest naturally. The dead wood was gone in less than 10 years, 20 years is a stretch. To be clear, clear cutting is a horrible practice, as is mono-culture planting.

LeSaucy 3y ago

I recently went on a canoe trip through some of the old growth forest in Ontario that has never been logged, and it was remarkably different than sections of the forest that has been thoroughly logged in the last century.

itsoktocry 3y ago

>Actual, natural forest? There isn't really all that much of it... Can you quantify "not really much"? Because I don't think you're correct; I think that Canada has tons of natural forest.

bradley13 3y ago
The most specific figures I found for Canada: Of 417.6 million hectares of forest, 234.5 million hectares are "commercial forests", i.e., tree plantations.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  There are about 3.47 million km2 of forest and of that 2.06 million km2 are covered by a management plan that includes production, conservation or other uses[1]. That does not mean all 2 million km2 are tree plantations. In fact relatively little will be - there is a ton of natural forest in that area and it's not all for commercial use. The rest of the 3.47 million km2 is located in more remote and northern areas and often relatively undisturbed by human activity. Accessibility is the distinction, not if it's a plantation or not. [1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/2018001/sec-2-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/2018001/sec-2-e...
- ameister14 3y ago
  'Not much' means 180 million hectares? So just an area three times the size of France.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    This doesn't imply that the forest remains untouched, unlogged, or unmanaged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37336122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37336122
    - ameister14 3y ago
      The way op put it did imply it, but I take your point that it doesn't actually mean it.

Ensorceled 3y ago

> If you removed plantations from the listed forests, people would be shocked. The vast majority of Canadian forests are not plantations and are, in fact, actual natural forest. In fact, we learned our lessons about "mono-culture tree plantations" in the 80s and a lot of replanting is mixed except in areas that already had naturally occurring mono-cultures.

bradley13 3y ago
See my reply to the earlier comment. More than half of Canadian forests are "commercial¨, i.e., tree plantations.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  There is a reply that directly disputes this. "Commercial" means that it is privately owned and can possibly be logged. Not that it has been logged and replanted. Calling large swaths of forest that have never been logged in human history "tree plantations" because they can be legally harvested at some point is, at best, disingenuous.

WeylandYutani 3y ago

In my country all forests were planted. Apparently as early as the 17th century we had to import wood from the Baltics for ship building.