6 ms·

We want to be environmentally friendly and avoid plastic straws and plastic bags and replace them with paper straws and paper bags. Yet we are disgusted when f

by sccxy 2y ago

We want to be environmentally friendly and avoid plastic straws and plastic bags and replace them with paper straws and paper bags. Yet we are disgusted when forests are cut down and then replanted.

dubcanada 2y ago
What part of this article suggested the forest cut down was being replanted?
- sccxy 2y ago
  I have worked in forestry and and have planted 500 trees daily... And there are laws that replanting must be started within 2/5 years of cutting. If you look aerial photos of the area in article then you can see that this process is started. Cannot find exact spot but looking around in the village.
  - vintagedave 2y ago
    Author here. I'm actually sitting in a cafe in a town close to the village this is about right now. I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species taking advantage of open ground, a mix of grasses, shrubs, birches, and others. There is no sign, that I have personally seen, of the ground being restored, or of systematic replanting. I write this noting I have not been to every site, so I can't definitely state there's been zero replanting. Some places were so lovely I just don't want to revisit :( I picked a lot of wild strawberries on one of these plots of land just a couple of weeks ago. It used to be damp soil even in summer, lots of moss, mist commonly held between the trees (there's a photo.) Now it was baking hot with deep trenches from the machines. But hey. Hiding among the undergrowth there were strawberry plants. _Something_ will grow back. Often in these things the replacement ecosystem is very different.
    - sccxy 2y ago
      > (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)
      - vintagedave 2y ago
        Yes :) What should I be looking for? As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.
        sccxy 2y ago
        It would be good to have forestry experience before writing articles. I guess one day of planting a forest is already a lot of help. Planting apple tree in garden is not forestry. I wouldn't write an article about how doctors treat cancer wrong if my only experience is my dead grandmother.
        fxtentacle 2y ago
        You had a chance to educate a genuinely curious fellow human. And you blew it by being overly negative.
        sccxy 2y ago
        He has no forestry experience and many of the things he considers bad are actually additional costs to the landowner to make the forest grow back faster.
        watwut 2y ago
        I kinda feel like writing about how someone does nothing when they actually do things, you just did not bothered to actually investigate how what you write about works is being overly negative in the first place.
  - algo_trader 2y ago
    What level of mechanisation is used? And what level of automation do you think can take this x10 ?
  - dubcanada 2y ago
    According to https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide there are exceptions to that rule and it's 2 years. I only have information available to me, but I do not think this is a hard set rule. What if they were cut down for housing? https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ appears to suggest that within the past decade tree loss has doubled. While the population has been flat. So it does suggest that what you are saying is not happening.
snowpid 2y ago
who is we?
- SiempreViernes 2y ago
  In this particular case the "we" seems to be: people who want to sell cheap mass produced timber but pretend it is sustainably source wood.
  - vintagedave 2y ago
    A lot of it is actually burned for heating in other countries: "biomass". A nice marketing term that makes it sound, as you say, sustainable.
vintagedave 2y ago
I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again. That's very different from what's seen in Estonia, where there's logging in national parks, and random plots of land in the forest are clear-felled. Ten years ago you'd drive through the countryside and enjoy the trees, uninterrupted stretches of old forest. These days you drive and count the number of empty spots where someone has owned a plot and cleared it. This article talks about that: a village where beautiful, specific tracts of land with wonderful nature just -- vanished.
- sccxy 2y ago
  Estonian forests are not that old as you would guess. The main land use changes in Estonia during the 20th century have been the decrease in agricultural land from 65% in 1918 to 30% in 1994 and the increase in forests from 21% to 43%, respectively.
  - vintagedave 2y ago
    True. That's still thirty years, fifty years, eighty years, up to a century... Estonia is very fortunate to have had such forest density, and it's rare among European countries. It is not something -- IMO -- to be casual about decreasing. It takes a long time to regrow that: decades!
- rob74 2y ago
  As the report on wood pellet production linked in your article mentions: > Estonia is a forest-rich country; 51 per cent of the territory is covered by trees. Most forests in the country are classified as semi-natural, i.e. are composed of native tree species that have regrown after previous logging and have characteristics of undisturbed natural forests. Old-growth forests are rare in Estonia. About half of the forests belong to the State and are managed by the State Forest Management Centre (Estonian abbreviation: RMK). A significant share of the other half of Estonia’s forest that is in private hands is owned by large companies both domestic and foreign. Only 14 per cent of all Estonian forests is strictly protected meaning that no economic activities may take place in them. Various degrees of protection (e.g. limits to clearcutting) also apply to an additional 11.3 per cent of forests. So only 14% of forests in Estonia are "completely" protected, and an additional 11.3% are partially protected (e.g. from clearcutting). Which means that around 75% are completely unprotected, even if they are semi-natural and have "characteristics of undisturbed natural forests". So these are actually "tree farms", just ones that have been left alone for slightly longer than usual. Of course, it's still painful to see them being cut down, but the real old-growth forest being cut down (or burnt) somewhere else (e.g. the Amazon rainforest) is far worse...

by sccxy 2y ago

We want to be environmentally friendly and avoid plastic straws and plastic bags and replace them with paper straws and paper bags. Yet we are disgusted when forests are cut down and then replanted.

dubcanada 2y ago

What part of this article suggested the forest cut down was being replanted?

sccxy 2y ago
I have worked in forestry and and have planted 500 trees daily... And there are laws that replanting must be started within 2/5 years of cutting. If you look aerial photos of the area in article then you can see that this process is started. Cannot find exact spot but looking around in the village.
- vintagedave 2y ago
  Author here. I'm actually sitting in a cafe in a town close to the village this is about right now. I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species taking advantage of open ground, a mix of grasses, shrubs, birches, and others. There is no sign, that I have personally seen, of the ground being restored, or of systematic replanting. I write this noting I have not been to every site, so I can't definitely state there's been zero replanting. Some places were so lovely I just don't want to revisit :( I picked a lot of wild strawberries on one of these plots of land just a couple of weeks ago. It used to be damp soil even in summer, lots of moss, mist commonly held between the trees (there's a photo.) Now it was baking hot with deep trenches from the machines. But hey. Hiding among the undergrowth there were strawberry plants. _Something_ will grow back. Often in these things the replacement ecosystem is very different.
  - sccxy 2y ago
    > (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.) That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)
    - vintagedave 2y ago
      Yes :) What should I be looking for? As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.
      - sccxy 2y ago
        It would be good to have forestry experience before writing articles. I guess one day of planting a forest is already a lot of help. Planting apple tree in garden is not forestry. I wouldn't write an article about how doctors treat cancer wrong if my only experience is my dead grandmother.
        fxtentacle 2y ago
        You had a chance to educate a genuinely curious fellow human. And you blew it by being overly negative.
        sccxy 2y ago
        He has no forestry experience and many of the things he considers bad are actually additional costs to the landowner to make the forest grow back faster.
        watwut 2y ago
        I kinda feel like writing about how someone does nothing when they actually do things, you just did not bothered to actually investigate how what you write about works is being overly negative in the first place.
- algo_trader 2y ago
  What level of mechanisation is used? And what level of automation do you think can take this x10 ?
- dubcanada 2y ago
  According to https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide there are exceptions to that rule and it's 2 years. I only have information available to me, but I do not think this is a hard set rule. What if they were cut down for housing? https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ appears to suggest that within the past decade tree loss has doubled. While the population has been flat. So it does suggest that what you are saying is not happening.

snowpid 2y ago

who is we?

SiempreViernes 2y ago
In this particular case the "we" seems to be: people who want to sell cheap mass produced timber but pretend it is sustainably source wood.
- vintagedave 2y ago
  A lot of it is actually burned for heating in other countries: "biomass". A nice marketing term that makes it sound, as you say, sustainable.

vintagedave 2y ago

I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again. That's very different from what's seen in Estonia, where there's logging in national parks, and random plots of land in the forest are clear-felled. Ten years ago you'd drive through the countryside and enjoy the trees, uninterrupted stretches of old forest. These days you drive and count the number of empty spots where someone has owned a plot and cleared it. This article talks about that: a village where beautiful, specific tracts of land with wonderful nature just -- vanished.

sccxy 2y ago
Estonian forests are not that old as you would guess. The main land use changes in Estonia during the 20th century have been the decrease in agricultural land from 65% in 1918 to 30% in 1994 and the increase in forests from 21% to 43%, respectively.
- vintagedave 2y ago
  True. That's still thirty years, fifty years, eighty years, up to a century... Estonia is very fortunate to have had such forest density, and it's rare among European countries. It is not something -- IMO -- to be casual about decreasing. It takes a long time to regrow that: decades!
rob74 2y ago
As the report on wood pellet production linked in your article mentions: > Estonia is a forest-rich country; 51 per cent of the territory is covered by trees. Most forests in the country are classified as semi-natural, i.e. are composed of native tree species that have regrown after previous logging and have characteristics of undisturbed natural forests. Old-growth forests are rare in Estonia. About half of the forests belong to the State and are managed by the State Forest Management Centre (Estonian abbreviation: RMK). A significant share of the other half of Estonia’s forest that is in private hands is owned by large companies both domestic and foreign. Only 14 per cent of all Estonian forests is strictly protected meaning that no economic activities may take place in them. Various degrees of protection (e.g. limits to clearcutting) also apply to an additional 11.3 per cent of forests. So only 14% of forests in Estonia are "completely" protected, and an additional 11.3% are partially protected (e.g. from clearcutting). Which means that around 75% are completely unprotected, even if they are semi-natural and have "characteristics of undisturbed natural forests". So these are actually "tree farms", just ones that have been left alone for slightly longer than usual. Of course, it's still painful to see them being cut down, but the real old-growth forest being cut down (or burnt) somewhere else (e.g. the Amazon rainforest) is far worse...