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For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to dr
by Dibby053 2mo ago
For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to drain and reclaim what was considered an inhospitable wetland, where shepherds famously walked around on stilts. Pine resin and needle litter makes it exceptionally flammable, and being an uninterrupted monoculture on flat land it lacks natural barriers to stop the fire from advancing.
- artisinal 2mo agoMight be time to revert it back to wetland.
- ColdStream 2mo agoSounds like a good plan to me. Probably a dozen reasons why we cannot that I am unaware of, but from my arm chair it looks good.
- coldbrewed 2mo agoThe water was likely redirected for agricultural purposes and the farmers won't/can't surrender it on top of drought, if it's anything like the US. Would be real cool if we could make investments like this though.
- jcattle 2mo agoIn this case no, all the water is drained. I don't think meaningful amounts are retained for agriculture.
- svara 2mo agoThe pine forest is the agriculture.
- phoronixrly 2mo agoWell... Turns out that it went up in flames...
- verisimi 2mo agoThis is another point that is overlooked. If you transform a landscape, moving the water through quickly or whatever, preventing the natural action (eg deeply drenching the ground) perhaps you create a high risk of a fire where the ground gets very hot, where that wasn't a possibility before.
- zekrioca 2mo agoLet it burn then?
- ornornor 2mo agoPeople live there. So do animals and insects. Never mind the air pollution.
- Den_VR 2mo agoAnd later, different animals and insects will live there.
- ornornor 2mo agoOh ok this is fine then.
- Brian_K_White 2mo agoMight well be. You understand that forest fires are actually natural, and this forest actually isn't, and so the suggestion is at least not automatically invalid.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo agoDon't worry about the end of the world, I heard the cockroaches will survive the apocalypse.
- palata 2mo agoDepends on the time scale, I guess? We are living in a mass extinction that is orders of magnitudes faster than the one of the dinosaurs. So the norm, right now, is that later there will be fewer animals and insects. In Europe, we've lost 80% of insects in the last 20 years, something like that? That was completely unrelated to climate change. I guess climate change is just coming to help with the remaining 20%.
- pvaldes 2mo agoJail the arsonists is much better
- xbmcuser 2mo agoLooking at what this group is slowly doing all over the world I don't think it is impossible tough but possible. https://www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth https://www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth
- aaron695 2mo ago[dead]
- manyatoms 2mo agoor even just re-planting different types of trees
- timpera 2mo agoFrom Le Monde: > Some efforts have begun to diversify the Landes forest and to maintain or promote deciduous trees, particularly along the edges of plots. The major difficulty, according to foresters, is that very few species are able to grow in this region, where the sandy soil is very poor and very acidic (it is one of the poorest soils in Europe). Foresters describe the maritime pine as a "miracle species" in this regard. > While other species can still grow, it is much more slowly and with greater difficulty. Radically transforming this vast forest, currently 80% dominated by maritime pines, therefore seems complicated, and there is also a significant economic stake involved in timber production in the region.
- tremon 2mo agoIs the solution repeated burning of pine to enrich the soil, making it easier for other tree species to gain a foothold in the area?
- Cthulhu_ 2mo agoPossibly, but the other option is to let it return to barren wasteland. If left alone it'll find itself a new balance, eventually.
- pvaldes 2mo agoBurning the pine is how you end with a soil composed of 90% sand. Respecting the slow building of fertile soil is basic. There are several decicuous trees able to grow in very acid soils. Not so much in acid, plus sandy, plus salty. A fact that is not being noticed is that pine trees forests evolve naturally to substitute the pines with a bigger mix of species so if you plant a pine monoculture you need to manage it to keep the monoculture. This forest evolution happens for free by natural means unless: Sheep enter the forest or... Weather is very cold or very hot or... Soil is really poor, because wildfires. Keep controlled this variables for a generation and the flammable monoculture problem will fix itself. All forests evolve to be eventually less flammable, but they need time to do this.
- breppp 2mo agoWe could reintroduce malaria, that might be a nice return to nature
- ballsac 2mo ago[dead]
- reco98gg 2mo agoThe main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need to acknowledge it. Article explaining when pine tree forest resist well or not to fire. https://www.sudouest.fr/faits-divers/incendies/incendies-en-gironde-et-dans-les-landes-le-probleme-n-est-pas-le-pin-mais-la-secheresse-30061837.php https://www.sudouest.fr/faits-divers/incendies/incendies-en-...
- superfrank 2mo agoI don't think the person you're responding to was trying to deny global warming being a factor. I think they're just explaining why this fire is so bad compared to other fires we have seen in France before. I know global warming plays a major role in this, but I still found it interesting to know why this fire seems so bad.
- markdown 2mo agoThe pine forests have been there for centuries, so it being pine is no explanation at all for why it's burning so badly now.
- AlecSchueler 2mo agoThey've actually been there for less than two centuries, just to be pedantic.
- applepearlime 2mo agoBut one pine forest in France has burned badly in the past as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Landes_forest_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Landes_forest_fire Did you check for forest fires in the past?
- superfrank 2mo ago
- ignoramous 2mo agoSomething about the Pine tree that the British also planted forests of them in the Levant: https://www.trtworld.com/article/9ab8ec0a341a https://www.trtworld.com/article/9ab8ec0a341a
- khimaros 2mo agosounds like Japan
- pvaldes 2mo agoEt Lancelot dans Brocéliande Dans le roman de la Rose Les pierres alignées de la lande On sent quelque chose derrière les choses Pines are the survivalists of the forests. They can grow where nobody else can. What I mean is that this monoculture of Pine trees is not really a monoculture. Is an ecosystem. The Landes are set over a lot of marine sand, so is not easy to create a firewall (mixing flammable and less flammable trees). The solution of just replacing pines by other species is not so easy technically. Pines are the only native tree that can trive in such poor soil.