[Terrapreta] if yer nor forest....

[lou gold]

Thank you David. You made my day ... and much more!
I am grateful for your eloquence.

lou

On 9/21/07, David Yarrow <dyarrow at nycap.rr.com> wrote:


 having spent many profound and peaceful hours in the shade and shelter of
> many ancient forests doing surveys to locate and document the 1/2 of 1% of
> the eastern US forests that remain as old growth, i find this anaylsis of
> old growth forests as inferior carbon sinks to be tragic, absurd and
> incredibly near sighted -- a foolish rationale for the continued rape and
> ravage of the most supreme manifestations of the living biosphere.  the idea
> that we can store more carbon in young, fast growing trees instead of
> ancient forests is dangerously dumb.
>
> first of all, in this discussion of ancient vs. young forest as carbon
> sink, the keyword here is deforestation.  young forests of supposedly
> rapidly growing trees only exist because the original forest has been
> logged, burned and destroyed.  those catastrophic processes quickly release
> nearly all of the carbon and nutrients that were accumulated over decades
> and centuries, and stored in the original trees, understory, highly organic
> soil, and other living organisms.  in those processes, most of the carbon is
> oxidized, while most of the nutrients leach away into subsoil and
> watersheds.  and most of the wildlife is displaced and must find new
> habitats for food and shelter.  those displaced chemistries create
> widespread disturbances and disruptions in far distance places.
> deforestation is a catastrophic release of chemistry and chaos, and
> traumatic degradation of complex biotic communities.
>
> it will take many, many years of young forest growth, however rapid it
> MIGHT seem to be, to compensate for the catastrophic disruptive releases of
> deforestation.  and if in our analysis, we include not just crude measures
> of weight and volume in tree and soil biomass, but complexity, density,
> diversity, and stability, this entire young-over-ancient argument becomes a
> no-contest triumph for these climax ecosystems.
>
> at any rate, ancient forests are profoundly more than magnificent carbon
> and nutrient sinks.  they are a complex communities of interacting organisms
> that perform multiple funcations to regulate, stabilize and sustain the web
> of living processed that make most earth's resplendent bounty and beauty
> possible.  the current discussion is like discounting our lungs and kidneys
> as merely being so many pounds of protein, fat, minerals, and water that
> could be ground up and turned into one or two nutritous dinners.  forests
> are powerfully effective to regulate the atmosphere, including the release
> of not just oxygen and many other more subtle gaseous molecules that are the
> scent of sublime, not to mention the ions that form the electromagnetic
> unity of the troposphere.  forests and their leaves also filter the air,
> removing impurities and wastes, restoring ionic balances, releasing moisture
> as humidity,, reducing winds and creating a zone of substory serenity.  a
> forest exerts multiple profound physical,  chemical and electromagnetic
> effects to reduce the extreme winds and violent rains of storms into
> beneficial
>
> ancient forests and their deep, nutrient rich, living soils are the
> guardians of watersheds.  they filter and purify the rains and snows,
> removing toxics and excesses.  they hold excess rain and snowfall  in their
> spongy biomass complexity, slowing their release to reduce floods with their
> muddy catastrophic erosions that degrade aquatic habitat and render
> estuaries and seacoasts into useless, barely habitable mudflats.  they shade
> and cool the land and water, to further regulate the temperature of the
> soil, water and atmosphere, and improve its stability and viability as
> habitat for the complex communities of living organisms.
>
> but if we just stick to simple minded measures of weight and volume of
> carbon and nutrients, very soon we must realize that given the constant
> influx of solar energy per square meter, ancient forests are far more
> sophisticated at making use of that harvest of extra-terrestrial photons.
> just in terms of trees, which the superstructures to generate complex forest
> habitat zones, the multi-level canopy, understory and ground-story
> structures of an ancient forest are capturing and converting the solar
> influx into carbohydrate biomass with as much or more efficiency that a
> chaotic outburst of upstart young trees.  any tree will organize its canopy
> to intercept and absorb a maximum of solar influx.  a tree growing in an
> open field will direct that growth into more horizontal than vertical
> growth, creating a landscape of short, fat trees and a low canopy and a
> tangled understory.  a tree growing in a forest will direct that same amount
> of energy into growing narrow and tall, stretching to reach the high canopy,
> meanwhile creating a broader, open zone at the land surface under that high
> canopy wirhin which many other complex biotic organisms and processes to
> become established.
>
> however, having spent 25 years working with agriculture, i've spent a lot
> of time contemplating the invisible processes below the land surface within
> the soil.  i've developed a rare and profound respect that there is as much
> if not more growth and biomass happening under the soil as above.  and the
> most critical factors in this soil biotic ecology isn't the plant roots or
> the inert organic matter, its the living biomass of unseen microscopic
> creatures.  and this is exactly the most profound gift of terra preta -- the
> soil biology it engenders and sustains -- the so-called
> "microbial reef" effects.
>
> enough of this.  all these words barely scratch the surface to decribe and
> enumerate the awesome, ivaluable, irreplacable living complexities of
> ancient forest communities in comparison to young forests or grasslands.
> the notion we can cut these tightly woven, ecological tapestries and replace
> them with fast growing high efficiency tree plantations is ridiculous if it
> were not so dangerous for the long-term integrity and unity of the planetary
> biosphere.
>
> back to other more useful tasks.
>
> David Yarrow
> "If yer not forest, yer against us."
> Turtle EyeLand Sanctuary
> 44 Gilligan Road, East Greenbush, NY 12061
> dyarrow at nycap.rr.com
> www.championtrees.org
> www.OnondagaLakePeaceFestival.org
> www.citizenre.com/dyarrow/
> www.farmandfood.org
> www.SeaAgri.com
>
>
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