I am still coming to terms that a most places in human history were covered by vast forests.
Long ass article. Some highlights:
"Fortunately for Gilgamesh a great primeval forest grew in the mountains just north of the lowlands we now call the Fertile Crescent. These timberlands occupied such a huge swath of land that no one, not Gilgamesh or anyone else, knew how far they stretched. (modern Iraq)"
"In the poet Hesiod’s time timber grew throughout Greece. Some 300 years later Plato reminisced how in an earlier period “there was an abundance of wood in the mountains” but “now they only afford sustenance to bees.”
"A few miles north of Rome lay a forest, described by the historian Livy as more impenetrable than those in Germany, at that time regarded as wilderness."
"As the English lost its woods to agriculture and industry, the country, once coveted by Rome for its trees, now searched abroad, as had the Romans years before, for necessary commodities."
"Centuries of providing England, as well as France and Holland, with its biggest trees took its toll. By the beginning of the 18th century few trees large enough grew in the Baltic."
"Indiana, at the beginning of the 19th century, was “one vast forest.” Ohio, though, presented “the grandest unbroken forest of 41,000 square miles that was ever beheld.”
“ "What did the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down the forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained sufficient fertilizer from the ashes for one generation of highly profitable coffee trees, care that the heavy tropical rains later washed away the now unprotected upper stratum of the soil and left only bare rock behind?” he (Engels) asked in his Dialectics of Nature."
Albeit, there was a highly interesting story I read about Russia's forest management programs.
While Russia's forests are essentially being clear cut at an alarming rate, they're being replanted at a significantly larger rate than deforestation.
If I remember the figures, over the last 15 years... Russia's forests have actually grown by something like 11,000,000 acres.
There's a new found aggressive attitude about public ownership over the forests. And while the Russian government is doing an O.K. job with forest management, part of the forest regrowth in Russia actually privatized in nature.
Apparently, aside from cultural preferences, the use of wealth in reforestation comes from the idea that it will be a valuable long-term investment once oil and gas starts drying up.
Ditto for Ethiopia, I believe they were once one of the wealthiest kingdoms on the african continent due to wood exports.
Forestry is difficult, Japan is now facing the decline of their forests due to lack of managements (too many old growth decaying at the same time, not enough replacements).
Also "poaching" of trees and other plant material is a rapidly growing black market in the US, so the under world is ahead of the game.
I've always enjoyed the old laws of forest protection (for national security) in the wooden ship era. Also interesting to note the role it played in post-WWI reparations sanctioned on Germany (interestingly the Nazis thought their forests were an important part of their German roots and their "blood and soil" policies had strict policies on lumbering too)
Dec 3, 10 4:42 pm ·
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Peak Wood
Just came across an amazing article that talks about history of wood construction dating back to ancient times.
I am still coming to terms that a most places in human history were covered by vast forests.
Long ass article. Some highlights:
"Fortunately for Gilgamesh a great primeval forest grew in the mountains just north of the lowlands we now call the Fertile Crescent. These timberlands occupied such a huge swath of land that no one, not Gilgamesh or anyone else, knew how far they stretched. (modern Iraq)"
"In the poet Hesiod’s time timber grew throughout Greece. Some 300 years later Plato reminisced how in an earlier period “there was an abundance of wood in the mountains” but “now they only afford sustenance to bees.”
"A few miles north of Rome lay a forest, described by the historian Livy as more impenetrable than those in Germany, at that time regarded as wilderness."
"As the English lost its woods to agriculture and industry, the country, once coveted by Rome for its trees, now searched abroad, as had the Romans years before, for necessary commodities."
"Centuries of providing England, as well as France and Holland, with its biggest trees took its toll. By the beginning of the 18th century few trees large enough grew in the Baltic."
"Indiana, at the beginning of the 19th century, was “one vast forest.” Ohio, though, presented “the grandest unbroken forest of 41,000 square miles that was ever beheld.”
“ "What did the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down the forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained sufficient fertilizer from the ashes for one generation of highly profitable coffee trees, care that the heavy tropical rains later washed away the now unprotected upper stratum of the soil and left only bare rock behind?” he (Engels) asked in his Dialectics of Nature."
No comment.
Hello sexy!
yup.
Sorry, I had written a small essay on this subject and then deleted it. Now all I can think about this is this!
Albeit, there was a highly interesting story I read about Russia's forest management programs.
While Russia's forests are essentially being clear cut at an alarming rate, they're being replanted at a significantly larger rate than deforestation.
If I remember the figures, over the last 15 years... Russia's forests have actually grown by something like 11,000,000 acres.
There's a new found aggressive attitude about public ownership over the forests. And while the Russian government is doing an O.K. job with forest management, part of the forest regrowth in Russia actually privatized in nature.
Apparently, aside from cultural preferences, the use of wealth in reforestation comes from the idea that it will be a valuable long-term investment once oil and gas starts drying up.
Ditto for Ethiopia, I believe they were once one of the wealthiest kingdoms on the african continent due to wood exports.
Forestry is difficult, Japan is now facing the decline of their forests due to lack of managements (too many old growth decaying at the same time, not enough replacements).
Also "poaching" of trees and other plant material is a rapidly growing black market in the US, so the under world is ahead of the game.
I've always enjoyed the old laws of forest protection (for national security) in the wooden ship era. Also interesting to note the role it played in post-WWI reparations sanctioned on Germany (interestingly the Nazis thought their forests were an important part of their German roots and their "blood and soil" policies had strict policies on lumbering too)
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