"The paper identifies even higher potential for afforestation of grasslands in the Eastern USA (and in some other places). I am not in a position to have any opinion about that."
I am in that position and have opinions that are fairly representative of actual conditions... and I say that this landscape is not only about as "reforested" as it could be but it is also an excellent example of how abandonment is not reforestation.
For one thing, the New England ecosystem of the last 12000 years or so has never NOT had human management. Intensive and extensive. Humans planted and built and culled (mostly through controlled burnings, but also slaughter when ungulate and rodent predation became excessive) for as long as there has been land cleared of glaciation.
For another, we have introduced far too many invasive species of all sorts and allowed for those rodent and ungulate populations to soar. It is too late for us to turn our backs on the mess we've made in a "so long and thanks for the memories" migration to cities.
Finally, where exactly is the food for those urban populations going to come from if not from the land that is free of urban populations?
You are exactly correct. They need to get out of the basement labs and pick up a shovel. Carbon sequestering is not the goal. The goal is healthy ecosystems that are able to manage material and energetic flows on their own. Ecosystems that include us. Because we are part of it wherever we live and it seems to me that we are more of a burden when we live distant from the places where our needs are produced.
Thanks Jonathan, we are on the same page. Sweden converted huge areas of bog and wetlands to forest the last hundred years, and in most cases that has lead to decreased carbon storage.
The subjects you touched on conjured several thoughts. “Abandoned lands” can take many forms. They’re fueling wildfires in Portugal. Especially land planted in fire-loving non-native pine and eucalyptus. In the US, people are not allowed to live in protected parks but this doesn’t preclude proper management to foster diverse habitats and biodiversity. Lastly, I worry a lot about the perverse incentive of carbon markets to perpetuate carbon myopia. Thanks for the groundtruthing🫤.
Just a quick point about the carbon sequestered. That 75 year mark for measuring dense forest capture vs savannah or grasslands misses a point. Carbon stored above ground will be rejoining the atmosphere in relatively short order one way or another. But 75+ years of savannah grazed by passing massive herds of ungulates creates deep soil stored carbon over much longer time frames. As well as providing ecosystem services, predator including human food production, and disturbance resiliency. Mob grazed grasslands are key to this storage cycle.
Some of the researchers came to see what what I do and they did not know what a shovel was. They wanted a motorized back hoe.... and when I showed them a horse they wondered what kind of fuel it took!
Excellent piece Gunnar. A singular focus on a singular abstracted problem more often than not leads to a whole host of new and emergent problems, especially when the particularities of a place are ignored by standardised singular "solutions". It is a lesson that should be hammered into every ecology undergraduate.
"The paper identifies even higher potential for afforestation of grasslands in the Eastern USA (and in some other places). I am not in a position to have any opinion about that."
I am in that position and have opinions that are fairly representative of actual conditions... and I say that this landscape is not only about as "reforested" as it could be but it is also an excellent example of how abandonment is not reforestation.
For one thing, the New England ecosystem of the last 12000 years or so has never NOT had human management. Intensive and extensive. Humans planted and built and culled (mostly through controlled burnings, but also slaughter when ungulate and rodent predation became excessive) for as long as there has been land cleared of glaciation.
For another, we have introduced far too many invasive species of all sorts and allowed for those rodent and ungulate populations to soar. It is too late for us to turn our backs on the mess we've made in a "so long and thanks for the memories" migration to cities.
Finally, where exactly is the food for those urban populations going to come from if not from the land that is free of urban populations?
You are exactly correct. They need to get out of the basement labs and pick up a shovel. Carbon sequestering is not the goal. The goal is healthy ecosystems that are able to manage material and energetic flows on their own. Ecosystems that include us. Because we are part of it wherever we live and it seems to me that we are more of a burden when we live distant from the places where our needs are produced.
And in a computer model all you really see are numbers
And the food produced on that land must come from somewhere else. With higher and higher pressure on less and less foodproducing areas.
Thanks Gunnar. You may appreciate this post and a few others of mine: https://predirections.substack.com/p/should-we-just-plant-trees-everywhere
Thanks Jonathan, we are on the same page. Sweden converted huge areas of bog and wetlands to forest the last hundred years, and in most cases that has lead to decreased carbon storage.
The subjects you touched on conjured several thoughts. “Abandoned lands” can take many forms. They’re fueling wildfires in Portugal. Especially land planted in fire-loving non-native pine and eucalyptus. In the US, people are not allowed to live in protected parks but this doesn’t preclude proper management to foster diverse habitats and biodiversity. Lastly, I worry a lot about the perverse incentive of carbon markets to perpetuate carbon myopia. Thanks for the groundtruthing🫤.
Just a quick point about the carbon sequestered. That 75 year mark for measuring dense forest capture vs savannah or grasslands misses a point. Carbon stored above ground will be rejoining the atmosphere in relatively short order one way or another. But 75+ years of savannah grazed by passing massive herds of ungulates creates deep soil stored carbon over much longer time frames. As well as providing ecosystem services, predator including human food production, and disturbance resiliency. Mob grazed grasslands are key to this storage cycle.
Some of the researchers came to see what what I do and they did not know what a shovel was. They wanted a motorized back hoe.... and when I showed them a horse they wondered what kind of fuel it took!
Excellent piece Gunnar. A singular focus on a singular abstracted problem more often than not leads to a whole host of new and emergent problems, especially when the particularities of a place are ignored by standardised singular "solutions". It is a lesson that should be hammered into every ecology undergraduate.
Really good, thank you Gunnar.