[Terrapreta] Tree planting -- a bit more

[lou gold]

Hey Jim,

Yep, I totally agree. It is critical to place tree planting in context of
the eco-system and the human purpose. Interestingly, I did a photo shoot
yesterday of kids planting trees as part of a watershed restoration project
here in Brasilia. It was great.

Also, there are aesthetic, pleasurable and fruit-food functions that should
not be sneered at. And, in some transition phases, even a tree plantation
can be viewed as something kinder to the land as when pine replaces cotton.

Planting trees is a good thing except when done in the wrong places, or for
the wrong reasons, or to rationalize logging primary forests, or when
proposed as a panacea.

I tend to react strongly on the matter of tree planting because of the years
of timber industry hype that has used it to justify logging primary forest.
By now, just about every kid and adult in North America has seen TV ads
saying, "Weyerhauser where we grow our future. We plant one million trees a
day." The industry doesn't even have to call it reforestation because the
confusion is now endemic and culturally rooted -- the world's mostly urban
population doesn't know the difference between a forest and a tree farm.

It's hard for me to shut up about it in the context of a world that has cut
more than half (probably closer ti 70%) of all the natural forests on earth
since 1950.

lou





On Dec 4, 2007 11:49 AM, Jim Joyner <jimstoy at dtccom.net> wrote:

> Wow, sorry I missed the all-night party last night.
>
> Lou, You all seem to have covered trees and COs quite well. I have an
> opinion but no more to add. But, I would point that there are other
> reasons for planting trees.
>
> At present I am reforesting fields and parts of fields I inherited from
> another generation (and building "leaky dams"). The fields are too
> sloped to ever be very productive for one thing but, more importantly,
> trees hold the water back and provide good water shed for more
> productive fields and the folks that are below me. It time, these trees,
> as demonstrated in a few places in southern California can actually
> change climate for the better. Desertification is a process proceeding
> at a rapid pace world wide and it ain't all about CO2.
>
> It's all well and good to talk about taking carbon out of the atmosphere
> but if you don't link this with a concept effective water shed, you may
> find these efforts go for naught.
>
> Jim
>



-- 
http://lougold.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/sets/
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