> thousands of years. Yes, many thousands of years. That's what "young" means for forests. Probably not in its present form, because it's a quite sensitive fo

> thousands of years. Yes, many thousands of years. That's what "young" means for forests. Probably not in its present form, because it's a quite sensitive forest, that may have probably changed a lot in that time. But almost all of it hasn't been directly changed by people until 300 years ago. Technically, most still hasn't, but we are getting really close on that "most" thing. And yeah, there have been civilizations there. They didn't change most of the forest, overall your understanding that it was just there is about right.