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Reforestation Increasing

 
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sundubuman



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul

PostPosted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:06 am    Post subject: Reforestation Increasing Reply with quote

I'm guessing the doomsayers at Bali didn't spend much time on subjects like this, since the sky is falling and all......

New look at world's forests shows many are expanding

For years, environmentalists have been raising the alarm about deforestation. But even as forests continue to shrink in some nations, others grow � and new research suggests the planet may now be nearing the transition to a greater sum of forests.

A new formula to measure forest cover, developed by researchers at The Rockefeller University and the University of Helsinki, in collaboration with scientists in China, Scotland and the U.S., suggests that an increasing number of countries and regions are transitioning from deforestation to afforestation, raising hopes for a turning point for the world as a whole. The novel approach, published this week in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks beyond simply how much of a nation's area is covered by trees and considers the volume of timber, biomass and captured carbon within the area. It produces an encouraging picture of Earth's forest situation and may change the way governments size up their woodland resources in the future.

�Instead of a skinhead Earth, we may enjoy a great restoration of forests in the 21st century,� says study co-author Jesse Ausubel, director of The Rockefeller University's Program for the Human Environment.

The formula, known as �Forest Identity,� considers both area and the density of trees per hectare to determine the volume of a country�s �growing stock�: trees large enough to be considered timber. Applying the formula to data collected by the United Nations and released last year, the researchers found that, amid widespread concerns about deforestation, growing stock has expanded over the past 15 years in 22 of the world's 50 countries with most forest cover. In countries where per capita gross domestic product exceeds $4,600 (roughly equal to the GDP of Chile), richer is greener. In about half the most forested countries, biomass and carbon also expanded. Earlier work showed that by the 1980s wooded areas in all major temperate and boreal forests were expanding.

Forest area and biomass are still being lost in such important countries as Brazil and Indonesia but an increasing number of nations show gains. The forests of Earth�s two most populated nations no longer increase atmospheric carbon concentration: China�s forests are expanding; India's have reached equalibrium.

The researchers found that among the 50 nations studied, forest area in percentage terms shrank fastest from 1990 to 2005 in Nigeria and the Philippines, and expanded fastest in Vietnam, Spain and China. Growing stock fell fastest in Indonesia, Nigeria and the Philippines, and increased fastest in the Ukraine and Spain. In absolute terms, Indonesia and Brazil experienced the greatest losses of both forested square kilometers and cubic meters of growing stock; China and the USA achieved the greatest gains.

�For many years, the Earth has suffered an epidemic of deforestation. Now humans may help spread an epidemic of forest restoration,� says Ausubel.

When forest transition occurs at a global level depends largely on Brazil and Indonesia, where huge areas of tropical forests are rapidly being cut and cleared. Encouragingly, in many other tropical areas forests are regrowing. Studies in Central America show tree cover in El Salvador grew one-quarter from 1992 to 2001. Forests are also recovering fast in the Dominican Republic in harsh contrast to deforested Haiti, on the same Caribbean island.

�The main obstacles to forest transition are fast-growing poor populations who burn wood to cook, sell it for quick cash and clear forest for crops,� says study co-author Pekka E. Kauppi, of the University of Helsinki. �Harvesting biomass for fuel also forestalls the restoration of land to nature. Through paper recycling and a growing reliance on electronic communication, people help the transition by lessening demand for wood products.�

In addition to the measurement of forest area and growing stock, the researchers offer a formula to calculate atmospheric carbon being stored incrementally in the trees of a given area, knowledge critical for mitigating climate change. A rapid forest transition on a global scale would mean that atmospheric carbon dioxide might not rise as fast as many fear.


Last edited by sundubuman on Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:12 am; edited 1 time in total
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sundubuman



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul

PostPosted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And this is of course anecdotal, but in the near decade since I've been in Korea, I cannot believe how lush it has become during the summer months, even in Seoul. CO2 does the plants some good.

I'm guessing the flora of the Earth will sequester many times more carbon than the bureaucrats in Bali could ever dream of doing.

Also interesting to see how wealthier Dominican Republic is reforesting while low carbon footprint Haiti is nearly totally deforested. Could burning more carbon lead to living better and treating the environment more gently....??
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Czarjorge



Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

PostPosted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The important bit is that forests in Brazil, namely the great rainforest, is shrinking. They're called the lungs of the world for a reason, and the trees themselves are only part of the equation. When the trees go the vegetation goes as well.

Additionally, quoting the benefits of the growth of forests in the US is a non sequitur as that is directly related to the increase in paperless offices. The trees that represent the "growth" of forests are trees that would have been cut down to make paper, less call for paper and presto, more trees.

Also, increasing CO2 is not a good thing in some areas. The wild and harmful proliferation of kudzu in the south US is a perfect example.
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igotthisguitar



Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)

PostPosted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Has anyone been following what carnage is underway in the forests of BORNEO?

Saw an absolutely jaw-dropping piece on CNN last week.

Thanks to the island's "take no prisoners" clear-cut logging practices orangatans (sic) are slated for extinction within the next few years Crying or Very sad
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Czarjorge



Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

PostPosted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That kind of ecological devastation is the reason I don't oppose cloning research. It might be the only way to insure the continuation of some species.
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sundubuman



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 2:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Czarjorge wrote:

Additionally, quoting the benefits of the growth of forests in the US is a non sequitur as that is directly related to the increase in paperless offices. The trees that represent the "growth" of forests are trees that would have been cut down to make paper, less call for paper and presto, more trees.



That's not entirely true. If you think of the massive suburban areas around many cities, expecially in the Midwest, they are largely becoming somewhat forested where naturally they would be grasslands. And the homes themselves contain an awful lot of sequestered carbon in the form of wood.

Also, throughout the farm belt, a lot of land has been left fallow and in many places has been reverting to forest.
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nautilus



Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Forest cover is increasing because the ice is retreating across the N. hemisphere.
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matthews_world



Joined: 15 Feb 2003

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's a nice narrative written by Jean Giono in 1953 called "The Man Who Planted Trees" for all you environmentalists out there. Worth the look.

Text | Audio (search archives)
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Czarjorge



Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sundubuman wrote:
Czarjorge wrote:

Additionally, quoting the benefits of the growth of forests in the US is a non sequitur as that is directly related to the increase in paperless offices. The trees that represent the "growth" of forests are trees that would have been cut down to make paper, less call for paper and presto, more trees.



That's not entirely true. If you think of the massive suburban areas around many cities, expecially in the Midwest, they are largely becoming somewhat forested where naturally they would be grasslands. And the homes themselves contain an awful lot of sequestered carbon in the form of wood.

Also, throughout the farm belt, a lot of land has been left fallow and in many places has been reverting to forest.


Trees don't make for forests. Is my neighborhood a forest since all the homes have six or seven trees in their yards? The presence of trees and the presence of a forest ecosystem are two very seperate things. In the case of the trees that aren't being harvested for paper they are part of a forest ecosystem, generally in the northwest. Forests eat up carbon much faster than just a tree or two around someone's house. Forests are what is being lost.

And I don't know when the last time you were in the "Farm Belt" but land is MUCH too valuable to be left to go "fallow." If crops aren't planted wild grasses are allowed to grow. The only reason crops aren't planted is that the farm subsidies for not planting are worth more than the crops themselves would be. New regulations allow for the harvesting of these wild grasses as hay, making it doubly lucrative for the farmers. No where is farmland being turned into forest.
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W.T.Carl



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you wish to see an excellent program for reforrestation, you merely have to look at what Pak Chung Hee did during his term of office. It should be used as a model for all third world nations.
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igotthisguitar



Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

W.T.Carl wrote:
If you wish to see an excellent program for reforrestation, you merely have to look at what Pak Chung Hee did during his term of office. It should be used as a model for all third world nations.


Now however, uner the No Moo-Hyun admin, treeplanting day ... has been abandoned Idea
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