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Trees take hundreds of years to grow that large. If we replanted the forest today, it would take until perhaps the year 2500 to restore the forest to its former

Trees take hundreds of years to grow that large. If we replanted the forest today, it would take until perhaps the year 2500 to restore the forest to its former glory. A redwood forest is, on the scale of a human lifespan, a non-renewable resource.

Cyberdog 3y ago
If by "redwood forest" you only mean old-growth forests, sure. The trees being harvested commercially today are only a few decades old. Second-growth and managed forests won't have the occasional ancient giants the old-growth ones have but they are still clearly forests to the humans and other animals living among them.
- slavik81 3y ago
  I mean the forest in the article that was turned into decking. > The trees being harvested commercially today are only a few decades old. The province of British Columbia publishes figures on old growth logging. They're cutting down ~40,000 hectares per year. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-logging-british-columbia-how-much-is-harvested-each-year-1.6987777 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-l...
  - UncleEntity 3y ago
    I don't think anyone defends what they were doing to the redwoods in the 80s and 90s. But, you know, public opinion changes, policies change and, as it turns out, they have learned a lot about the ecosystem from studying how the clear-cut areas regrow.
  - Cyberdog 3y ago
    The decking in the article was rhetorical. And I admit I was speaking exclusively of the forests in northwestern California. I have no idea what anyone does in British Colombia.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    I worked for Weyerhaeuser Canada in the late 90's / early 00's when they bought Macmillan Bloedel. This was notable because Weyerhaeuser quietly harvested in the interior of BC and Northern Alberta/Sask - much of it secondary growth - while MacBlow was ground-zero of the old growth fight on Vancouver Island. I don't think Weyco had any idea of the controversy they were stepping into with that purchase. I still think it was done solely so executives from the mother ship in Tacoma could just go to Vancouver when visiting Canadian headquarters vs. the pain of going into the boondocks interior.
KorematsuFredt 3y ago
With sufficient investment in this it is pretty easy to grow a large forest. May not be redwood forest and may not be tree whose bark is wide enough to drive a car through, but you can grow pretty large trees in < 30 years which can capture tonnes and tonnes of carbon every year. Suburban housing boom, building more homes is one good way to put that into long term storage while reducing cost of housing and improving our carbon footprint as suburban homes can last for a century. We can also genetically modify trees to grow faster and bigger.
- hnbad 3y ago
  You're not talking about forests, you're talking about tree farms. Man-made "forests" are monocultures that are extremely susceptible to environmental hazards and the trees are usually intentionally short-lived. In Europe for example there are barely any natural forests left because most so-called forests were planted for pre-modern industrial uses. Forests are good at carbon capture but forests are intricate biotopes with different plants serving different functions and debris from dead trees fulfilling an integral role. Building more homes is definitely important but suburbia is probably one of the worst ways to do this as sustainable housing must be walkable and integrated, not car-centric like American suburbia always is. It also assumes those homes will last for centuries when most American houses are torn down and rebuilt on much shorter cycles than that. And that doesn't even get into how building more homes generates emmissions first.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    I live in Sweden where most forests are natural, isn't that hard to make those either. Just do nothing with a piece of land and a ton of trees starts to grow, it is hard to not get trees every year you have to go and pull all the new small trees that started growing if you don't want a forest, not sure how it could be hard to plant such forests.
    - skeeter2020 3y ago
      Forest management is a little more complicated than "just do nothing" with a piece of land. Most of the US lumber stock is under private management; Canada is owned by the crown and licensed to private companies. Lumber is a very expensive, very bulky commmodity, and supply managment needs to balance a lot of market, logistic and environmental factors.
Retric 3y ago
You could use old growth redwoods as a renewable resource, you just cut down ~1/500th per year across a large enough area, make sure replacements are of the same species, and you can keep doing so essentially forever. At that scale it wouldn’t even be obvious the forest was being harvested. People don’t do that because they don’t really want old growth redwoods specifically and or don’t generally care about sustainability. However, setting up a trust to manage some forest while maintaining an income stream is probably viable.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > At that scale it wouldn’t even be obvious the forest was being harvested. Humans' hand is always visible: the stumps of cut-down trees, and the (mostly, if not complete) absence of fallen trees. Besides the odd trail used for vehicles. And trash, wood chips, markings on trees, etc. Such signs remain visible for centuries. Natural forests are littered with fallen trees, which serve as food for sapplings that take their place (nurse logs). And trees don't fall with a clean cut: they are ripped from the ground in a storm, split by a lightning strike, or they die, rot & come down in pieces. Doesn't take an expert to see what's what.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Noticeable yes, obvious no. I seriously doubt you’re going to notice century old wood chips and markings on trees. Similarly large branches would look like fallen trees in other forests. A given section may not have seen anyone in 30+ years, others would have more noticeable impact but you’d have trouble seeing the logging vs all the trees. There would be remnants of trails and even some fresh ones, but that doesn’t specifically imply logging.
- shitpostbot 3y ago
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- seadan83 3y ago
  > People don’t do that because they don’t really want old growth redwoods specifically and or don’t generally care about sustainability. Yip, folks got greedy and cut down the redwoods. They use to be common, running all the way from south of San Francisco to well into Oregon. What remains is a patch work. "Today, only 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains, along a 450-mile coastal strip." [1] > You could use old growth redwoods as a renewable resource, you just cut down ~1/500th per year across a large enough area Hence to do that, we're probably talking nobody cutting down another red wood for a good 500 years. Considering Europeans have been at it for only about 200, and have nearly cut down all of the redwoods... ... I would urge anyone to go visit these trees. It's truly soul-touching, they are something to be protected, if only for that. [1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/# https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/#
deleted 3y ago
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Cyberdog 3y ago

If by "redwood forest" you only mean old-growth forests, sure. The trees being harvested commercially today are only a few decades old. Second-growth and managed forests won't have the occasional ancient giants the old-growth ones have but they are still clearly forests to the humans and other animals living among them.

slavik81 3y ago
I mean the forest in the article that was turned into decking. > The trees being harvested commercially today are only a few decades old. The province of British Columbia publishes figures on old growth logging. They're cutting down ~40,000 hectares per year. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-logging-british-columbia-how-much-is-harvested-each-year-1.6987777 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-l...
- UncleEntity 3y ago
  I don't think anyone defends what they were doing to the redwoods in the 80s and 90s. But, you know, public opinion changes, policies change and, as it turns out, they have learned a lot about the ecosystem from studying how the clear-cut areas regrow.
- Cyberdog 3y ago
  The decking in the article was rhetorical. And I admit I was speaking exclusively of the forests in northwestern California. I have no idea what anyone does in British Colombia.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  I worked for Weyerhaeuser Canada in the late 90's / early 00's when they bought Macmillan Bloedel. This was notable because Weyerhaeuser quietly harvested in the interior of BC and Northern Alberta/Sask - much of it secondary growth - while MacBlow was ground-zero of the old growth fight on Vancouver Island. I don't think Weyco had any idea of the controversy they were stepping into with that purchase. I still think it was done solely so executives from the mother ship in Tacoma could just go to Vancouver when visiting Canadian headquarters vs. the pain of going into the boondocks interior.

KorematsuFredt 3y ago

With sufficient investment in this it is pretty easy to grow a large forest. May not be redwood forest and may not be tree whose bark is wide enough to drive a car through, but you can grow pretty large trees in < 30 years which can capture tonnes and tonnes of carbon every year. Suburban housing boom, building more homes is one good way to put that into long term storage while reducing cost of housing and improving our carbon footprint as suburban homes can last for a century. We can also genetically modify trees to grow faster and bigger.

hnbad 3y ago
You're not talking about forests, you're talking about tree farms. Man-made "forests" are monocultures that are extremely susceptible to environmental hazards and the trees are usually intentionally short-lived. In Europe for example there are barely any natural forests left because most so-called forests were planted for pre-modern industrial uses. Forests are good at carbon capture but forests are intricate biotopes with different plants serving different functions and debris from dead trees fulfilling an integral role. Building more homes is definitely important but suburbia is probably one of the worst ways to do this as sustainable housing must be walkable and integrated, not car-centric like American suburbia always is. It also assumes those homes will last for centuries when most American houses are torn down and rebuilt on much shorter cycles than that. And that doesn't even get into how building more homes generates emmissions first.
- Jensson 3y ago
  I live in Sweden where most forests are natural, isn't that hard to make those either. Just do nothing with a piece of land and a ton of trees starts to grow, it is hard to not get trees every year you have to go and pull all the new small trees that started growing if you don't want a forest, not sure how it could be hard to plant such forests.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    Forest management is a little more complicated than "just do nothing" with a piece of land. Most of the US lumber stock is under private management; Canada is owned by the crown and licensed to private companies. Lumber is a very expensive, very bulky commmodity, and supply managment needs to balance a lot of market, logistic and environmental factors.

Retric 3y ago

You could use old growth redwoods as a renewable resource, you just cut down ~1/500th per year across a large enough area, make sure replacements are of the same species, and you can keep doing so essentially forever. At that scale it wouldn’t even be obvious the forest was being harvested. People don’t do that because they don’t really want old growth redwoods specifically and or don’t generally care about sustainability. However, setting up a trust to manage some forest while maintaining an income stream is probably viable.

RetroTechie 3y ago
> At that scale it wouldn’t even be obvious the forest was being harvested. Humans' hand is always visible: the stumps of cut-down trees, and the (mostly, if not complete) absence of fallen trees. Besides the odd trail used for vehicles. And trash, wood chips, markings on trees, etc. Such signs remain visible for centuries. Natural forests are littered with fallen trees, which serve as food for sapplings that take their place (nurse logs). And trees don't fall with a clean cut: they are ripped from the ground in a storm, split by a lightning strike, or they die, rot & come down in pieces. Doesn't take an expert to see what's what.
- Retric 3y ago
  Noticeable yes, obvious no. I seriously doubt you’re going to notice century old wood chips and markings on trees. Similarly large branches would look like fallen trees in other forests. A given section may not have seen anyone in 30+ years, others would have more noticeable impact but you’d have trouble seeing the logging vs all the trees. There would be remnants of trails and even some fresh ones, but that doesn’t specifically imply logging.
shitpostbot 3y ago
[dead]
seadan83 3y ago
> People don’t do that because they don’t really want old growth redwoods specifically and or don’t generally care about sustainability. Yip, folks got greedy and cut down the redwoods. They use to be common, running all the way from south of San Francisco to well into Oregon. What remains is a patch work. "Today, only 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains, along a 450-mile coastal strip." [1] > You could use old growth redwoods as a renewable resource, you just cut down ~1/500th per year across a large enough area Hence to do that, we're probably talking nobody cutting down another red wood for a good 500 years. Considering Europeans have been at it for only about 200, and have nearly cut down all of the redwoods... ... I would urge anyone to go visit these trees. It's truly soul-touching, they are something to be protected, if only for that. [1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/# https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/#

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]