7 ms·

Trees per acre seems like a seriously misleading statistic. A freshly planted tree farm is going to have the highest trees per acre, but be the most useless fo

Trees per acre seems like a seriously misleading statistic. A freshly planted tree farm is going to have the highest trees per acre, but be the most useless forest. I would expect a few old growth trees in an acre would be a substantially better forest, visually, environmentally, and ecologically, than having three times as many young trees.

greenie_beans 2y ago
"basal area" is the term you need and now i'm curious what is the typical basal area for an old growth stand?
- capitainenemo 2y ago
  http://talltimbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sloan1998a_op.pdf http://talltimbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sloan1998a... I found this, where they do note the number of trees has gone up markedly. They note the critical role of low intensity fire. I doubt selective logging can replace regular burns, but unfortunately there's a great deal of opposition to doing that. Mostly by people living in those fire-prone areas.
  - greenie_beans 2y ago
    lots of the public are very ignorant about ecologically sound forest management, unfortunately. "save the trees" is an effective emotional argument. i was once one of those people, but then i learned
    - neom 2y ago
      I spent a couple of years consulting to earthforce.io (they make forest management software)- before I started I thought I understood forestry, boy how wrong I was, how little I knew! For those interested in learning the basics, this is a pretty good playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOmkebY7k2UP4N_BicWVKWZZOf9ahavp https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOmkebY7k2UP4N_BicWV...
      - mistrial9 2y ago
        where is the Board of Directors, owners and investors of Earthforce.io declared in public?
        zie 2y ago
        Unless it's a public company/non-profit they don't have to make any of this information public in most(all?) US states. Usually all you have to do is make public the name of the company and the registered agent(typically the lawyer you hire to receive legal notices for the company). They appear to be a private company: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/earth-force-technologies https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/earth-force-technolo...
        mistrial9 2y ago
        ah right crumchbase - founder with a "crunchbase rank" in the two hundred thousands range, stanford-stanford-harvard. there is something about stealth combined with valuations.. can't put my finger on it..
        neom 2y ago
        Well Justin, who to be fair is my buddy, isn't exactly unknown in the valley: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/bird-confirms-acquisition-of-scoot/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/bird-confirms-acquisition-... | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadawe https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadawe They're building a lot of physical hardware, hence the need for cash (it was a pretty huge seed round) - He's a cool dude for real, very decent human, curious what your concern is?
      - greenie_beans 2y ago
        that seems like a cool job! do you think they still hire freelancers? i'm looking for freelance work and i'm very interested in forest management but don't have a forestry degree, i just own some land.
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      Instead of "us versus them" statements, I encourage vigorous examination of presuppositions. The urgency of the situation could not be more obvious. The claim "the public is ignorant" is oft repeated by industry-friendly experts in all levels of academia and government. But the policies of the experts have been an objective disaster in the US West. You appear to promote science that is invalidated in real time.
      - greenie_beans 2y ago
        i get what you're saying, but that's not what i'm saying. state and national forests are a shared natural resource owned by the public, therefore the public has input over these things, sometimes overriding the science. a lot of the "objective disaster in the US West" is due to these policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees. i'm talking particularly about non-old growth stands where the forest needs to be thinned, but it hasn't, like in the west. old growth stands are a whole 'nother thing. here is one such example where this old growth debate is happening with public input in vermont: https://vtdigger.org/2024/01/18/logging-versus-old-growth-plan-for-vermont-state-forest-debated/ https://vtdigger.org/2024/01/18/logging-versus-old-growth-pl...
        mistrial9 2y ago
        It is very difficult to cover all the angles in a few short comments. I disagree that "the public who wants to just save trees" is the responsible party.. it is more complex than that. >policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees I can give citations for a dozen extensive studies and workshops, some years in the making, alongside more recent research papers from California academia. The ones I know of mostly originate in the University of California system. Actual policy as implemented is informed by those studies but not dictated by them. Due to the rule of law, actual policy on the ground in the last forty years is divided in practice by the owners of the lands. In California, most of the "public" forest lands are owned by Federal agencies. The "desire to save the trees" conveniently dovetailed with a Federal obligation to maximize commercial value of National Forest timber. The combination of those two, different, policy groups resulted in what has happened in the last ten years.. that is, overcrowding of trees, disease, massive die-offs, and catastrophic wildfire. Another crucial point.. the pine trees of the low Sierra and North-Eastern California are not at all in the same category as the Coastal Redwoods, or South Sierra old-growth. yet this discussion here seems to make no distinctions.
    - seadan83 2y ago
      "save the trees" is probably better re-labelled as "save the old growth trees". Would you agree? Would you consider tree farms as ecologically sound? (I'll note those are intentionally over-planted, homogeneous, and burn like crazy) Which key facts caused you to change your mind?
      - greenie_beans 2y ago
        > "save the trees" is probably better re-labelled as "save the old growth trees". Would you agree? yes, we should most certainly protect old growth stands. they are very rare in the forests that i'm familiar with in the US east, and maintaining that ecology overrides any economic benefit gained from cutting the trees, imo. i'm in no way advocating for cutting down old growth stands, my comment was more in response to how we manage the forests that came after we cut the old growth. > Would you consider tree farms as ecologically sound? (I'll note those are intentionally over-planted, homogeneous, and burn like crazy) this depends on how the forest is managed. monocultures are bad and diversity is good (though a lot of stands have predominant species, naturally), forests need disturbances (whether through thinning or fire or naturally), etc. but a diverse forest can still be in rough shape. i'm getting at the edge of my knowledge fwiw. > Which key facts caused you to change your mind? i bought forest land and learned as much as i could about forest management, so there is too much information to list. i can share books if you're genuinely curious.
        seadan83 2y ago
        A sincere and big thank you for the response! The extra context and nuance are really useful to have. My reading list is already kinda long, I think that spares you from having to dig out any references :) My curiosity is perhaps most of what would interest a thru-hiker. I always want to learn more about how forests work, things like "bears would live here" - "these types of edible plants would grow here". If there are any books along those lines that jump to your mind - I would be very interested to add those to my reading list. Thank you again for your responses!
        greenie_beans 2y ago
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
seadan83 2y ago
I think you and parent comment might actually agree. The 3x trees is an indication of too much, too many small trees, too much fuel. Places that burn and recover lose their "excess" trees. The trees get more space and are healthy top to bottom. OTOH, tree farm trees are bred to have few branches and are planted very close together. Tree farms grow tree trunks, not trees. There is a line of thought, which honestly I think comes from the timber industry, that growing trees are a bigger carbon sink than existing trees. They do argue that the tree farm is actually better because it is growing. I'm extremely skeptical of that claim. Particularly skeptical because the trees in tree farms are so unhealthy, the total amount of green vegetative surface on them is confined to a small canopy and has no vertical depth. In comparison, old growth vs tree farm is night and day for ecology. Tree farms are very dense, rodents thrive in them but not necessarily much else. Old growth OTOH is generally a pleasure to walk through. > I would expect a few old growth trees in an acre would be a substantially better forest There's indeed a mixture of ages unless we are talking a tree farm. A tree farm is a mono-culture with trees approximately the same age all growing like Q-tips together. Old growth trees are fire resistant. The younger ones trees get overshaded and don't grow, or they burn down before they get tall enough. The young trees that do survive, they go on to become the next generation of old growth trees. (My experience on the subject: extensive time camping & bikepacking in Northwest forests, I've traveled through a several thousand miles of northwest forests in the last 10 years)
- partitioned 2y ago
  I mean if you’re turning carbon into wood and then turning that into buildings that’s good right
  - chimpanzee 2y ago
    If the building would be built anyways using more destructive processes or materials, then perhaps. There’s no guarantee that the building would have been built though. Sure most would probably be built anyways, but at some point the different costs would affect the supply and demand at a macro level. Nonetheless, it’s ignoring the entire carbon-sequestration system that the tree enables. What percentage of buildings are a net carbon-sink (including construction, use, maintenance and eventual demolition), or improve the naturally occurring carbon-sequestration process by merely existing? Any? I really don’t know. It’d be cool if we were constructing such buildings, but I doubt they’d be as efficient as just leaving old growth forests alone.
adolph 2y ago
The statistical trees per acre reminds me of: If the utilitarian state could not see the real, existing forest for the (commercial) trees, if its view of its forests was abstract and partial, it was hardly unique in this respect. Some level of abstraction is necessary for virtually all forms of analysis, and it is not at all surprising that the abstractions of state officials should have reflected the paramount fiscal interests of their employer. The entry under "forest" in Diderot's Encyclopédie is almost exclusively concerned with the utilité publique of forest products and the taxes, revenues, and profits that they can be made to yield. The forest as a habitat disappears and is replaced by the forest as an economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably. Here, fiscal and commercial logics coincide; they are both resolutely fixed on the bottom line. “Seeing Like a State” Jaces C. Scott https://files.libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like%20a%20State%20-%20James%20C.%20Scott.pdf https://files.libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like%20a%20State%20-...
akira2501 2y ago
> substantially better forest Why is it better environmentally and ecologically?
- pineaux 2y ago
  Environmentally because more diverse forrests tend to be more robust, depending on their climate (taiga is not very diverse). Tree growth doesn't slow down as trees get older. Their growth accelerates because: they have more foliage to gather sunlight and exchange gasses, everytime they add a growth ring it is a bigger ring than the last one, they grow taller or wider to get more sunlight and gas exchange. There is an optimal size/m² of course. Tree farms have ROIs and efficiency problems, they cannot take advantage of these qualities of forrests. They need straight timber and a payday at some point. Ecologically because old growth forrests have a much more diverse system with big fungal networks, ecological nooks and crannies, etc. A system takes time to build.

greenie_beans 2y ago

"basal area" is the term you need and now i'm curious what is the typical basal area for an old growth stand?

capitainenemo 2y ago
http://talltimbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sloan1998a_op.pdf http://talltimbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sloan1998a... I found this, where they do note the number of trees has gone up markedly. They note the critical role of low intensity fire. I doubt selective logging can replace regular burns, but unfortunately there's a great deal of opposition to doing that. Mostly by people living in those fire-prone areas.
- greenie_beans 2y ago
  lots of the public are very ignorant about ecologically sound forest management, unfortunately. "save the trees" is an effective emotional argument. i was once one of those people, but then i learned
  - neom 2y ago
    I spent a couple of years consulting to earthforce.io (they make forest management software)- before I started I thought I understood forestry, boy how wrong I was, how little I knew! For those interested in learning the basics, this is a pretty good playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOmkebY7k2UP4N_BicWVKWZZOf9ahavp https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOmkebY7k2UP4N_BicWV...
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      where is the Board of Directors, owners and investors of Earthforce.io declared in public?
      - zie 2y ago
        Unless it's a public company/non-profit they don't have to make any of this information public in most(all?) US states. Usually all you have to do is make public the name of the company and the registered agent(typically the lawyer you hire to receive legal notices for the company). They appear to be a private company: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/earth-force-technologies https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/earth-force-technolo...
        mistrial9 2y ago
        ah right crumchbase - founder with a "crunchbase rank" in the two hundred thousands range, stanford-stanford-harvard. there is something about stealth combined with valuations.. can't put my finger on it..
        neom 2y ago
        Well Justin, who to be fair is my buddy, isn't exactly unknown in the valley: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/bird-confirms-acquisition-of-scoot/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/bird-confirms-acquisition-... | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadawe https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadawe They're building a lot of physical hardware, hence the need for cash (it was a pretty huge seed round) - He's a cool dude for real, very decent human, curious what your concern is?
    - greenie_beans 2y ago
      that seems like a cool job! do you think they still hire freelancers? i'm looking for freelance work and i'm very interested in forest management but don't have a forestry degree, i just own some land.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    Instead of "us versus them" statements, I encourage vigorous examination of presuppositions. The urgency of the situation could not be more obvious. The claim "the public is ignorant" is oft repeated by industry-friendly experts in all levels of academia and government. But the policies of the experts have been an objective disaster in the US West. You appear to promote science that is invalidated in real time.
    - greenie_beans 2y ago
      i get what you're saying, but that's not what i'm saying. state and national forests are a shared natural resource owned by the public, therefore the public has input over these things, sometimes overriding the science. a lot of the "objective disaster in the US West" is due to these policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees. i'm talking particularly about non-old growth stands where the forest needs to be thinned, but it hasn't, like in the west. old growth stands are a whole 'nother thing. here is one such example where this old growth debate is happening with public input in vermont: https://vtdigger.org/2024/01/18/logging-versus-old-growth-plan-for-vermont-state-forest-debated/ https://vtdigger.org/2024/01/18/logging-versus-old-growth-pl...
      - mistrial9 2y ago
        It is very difficult to cover all the angles in a few short comments. I disagree that "the public who wants to just save trees" is the responsible party.. it is more complex than that. >policies that are informed by a public who only wants to save the trees I can give citations for a dozen extensive studies and workshops, some years in the making, alongside more recent research papers from California academia. The ones I know of mostly originate in the University of California system. Actual policy as implemented is informed by those studies but not dictated by them. Due to the rule of law, actual policy on the ground in the last forty years is divided in practice by the owners of the lands. In California, most of the "public" forest lands are owned by Federal agencies. The "desire to save the trees" conveniently dovetailed with a Federal obligation to maximize commercial value of National Forest timber. The combination of those two, different, policy groups resulted in what has happened in the last ten years.. that is, overcrowding of trees, disease, massive die-offs, and catastrophic wildfire. Another crucial point.. the pine trees of the low Sierra and North-Eastern California are not at all in the same category as the Coastal Redwoods, or South Sierra old-growth. yet this discussion here seems to make no distinctions.
  - seadan83 2y ago
    "save the trees" is probably better re-labelled as "save the old growth trees". Would you agree? Would you consider tree farms as ecologically sound? (I'll note those are intentionally over-planted, homogeneous, and burn like crazy) Which key facts caused you to change your mind?
    - greenie_beans 2y ago
      > "save the trees" is probably better re-labelled as "save the old growth trees". Would you agree? yes, we should most certainly protect old growth stands. they are very rare in the forests that i'm familiar with in the US east, and maintaining that ecology overrides any economic benefit gained from cutting the trees, imo. i'm in no way advocating for cutting down old growth stands, my comment was more in response to how we manage the forests that came after we cut the old growth. > Would you consider tree farms as ecologically sound? (I'll note those are intentionally over-planted, homogeneous, and burn like crazy) this depends on how the forest is managed. monocultures are bad and diversity is good (though a lot of stands have predominant species, naturally), forests need disturbances (whether through thinning or fire or naturally), etc. but a diverse forest can still be in rough shape. i'm getting at the edge of my knowledge fwiw. > Which key facts caused you to change your mind? i bought forest land and learned as much as i could about forest management, so there is too much information to list. i can share books if you're genuinely curious.
      - seadan83 2y ago
        A sincere and big thank you for the response! The extra context and nuance are really useful to have. My reading list is already kinda long, I think that spares you from having to dig out any references :) My curiosity is perhaps most of what would interest a thru-hiker. I always want to learn more about how forests work, things like "bears would live here" - "these types of edible plants would grow here". If there are any books along those lines that jump to your mind - I would be very interested to add those to my reading list. Thank you again for your responses!
        greenie_beans 2y ago
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

seadan83 2y ago

I think you and parent comment might actually agree. The 3x trees is an indication of too much, too many small trees, too much fuel. Places that burn and recover lose their "excess" trees. The trees get more space and are healthy top to bottom. OTOH, tree farm trees are bred to have few branches and are planted very close together. Tree farms grow tree trunks, not trees. There is a line of thought, which honestly I think comes from the timber industry, that growing trees are a bigger carbon sink than existing trees. They do argue that the tree farm is actually better because it is growing. I'm extremely skeptical of that claim. Particularly skeptical because the trees in tree farms are so unhealthy, the total amount of green vegetative surface on them is confined to a small canopy and has no vertical depth. In comparison, old growth vs tree farm is night and day for ecology. Tree farms are very dense, rodents thrive in them but not necessarily much else. Old growth OTOH is generally a pleasure to walk through. > I would expect a few old growth trees in an acre would be a substantially better forest There's indeed a mixture of ages unless we are talking a tree farm. A tree farm is a mono-culture with trees approximately the same age all growing like Q-tips together. Old growth trees are fire resistant. The younger ones trees get overshaded and don't grow, or they burn down before they get tall enough. The young trees that do survive, they go on to become the next generation of old growth trees. (My experience on the subject: extensive time camping & bikepacking in Northwest forests, I've traveled through a several thousand miles of northwest forests in the last 10 years)

partitioned 2y ago
I mean if you’re turning carbon into wood and then turning that into buildings that’s good right
- chimpanzee 2y ago
  If the building would be built anyways using more destructive processes or materials, then perhaps. There’s no guarantee that the building would have been built though. Sure most would probably be built anyways, but at some point the different costs would affect the supply and demand at a macro level. Nonetheless, it’s ignoring the entire carbon-sequestration system that the tree enables. What percentage of buildings are a net carbon-sink (including construction, use, maintenance and eventual demolition), or improve the naturally occurring carbon-sequestration process by merely existing? Any? I really don’t know. It’d be cool if we were constructing such buildings, but I doubt they’d be as efficient as just leaving old growth forests alone.

adolph 2y ago

The statistical trees per acre reminds me of: If the utilitarian state could not see the real, existing forest for the (commercial) trees, if its view of its forests was abstract and partial, it was hardly unique in this respect. Some level of abstraction is necessary for virtually all forms of analysis, and it is not at all surprising that the abstractions of state officials should have reflected the paramount fiscal interests of their employer. The entry under "forest" in Diderot's Encyclopédie is almost exclusively concerned with the utilité publique of forest products and the taxes, revenues, and profits that they can be made to yield. The forest as a habitat disappears and is replaced by the forest as an economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably. Here, fiscal and commercial logics coincide; they are both resolutely fixed on the bottom line. “Seeing Like a State” Jaces C. Scott https://files.libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like%20a%20State%20-%20James%20C.%20Scott.pdf https://files.libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like%20a%20State%20-...

akira2501 2y ago

> substantially better forest Why is it better environmentally and ecologically?

pineaux 2y ago
Environmentally because more diverse forrests tend to be more robust, depending on their climate (taiga is not very diverse). Tree growth doesn't slow down as trees get older. Their growth accelerates because: they have more foliage to gather sunlight and exchange gasses, everytime they add a growth ring it is a bigger ring than the last one, they grow taller or wider to get more sunlight and gas exchange. There is an optimal size/m² of course. Tree farms have ROIs and efficiency problems, they cannot take advantage of these qualities of forrests. They need straight timber and a payday at some point. Ecologically because old growth forrests have a much more diverse system with big fungal networks, ecological nooks and crannies, etc. A system takes time to build.