In my early twenties I was looking for a field of work that was semi environmentally friendly. I had grown up in southern Alberta where it’s all factory farming, mono culture crops, and O&G. For a minute (as a prairie kid) I thought tree planting might be a good way. Basic research even back then showed me that young women who expect to get pregnant within the next fifteen years should not be handling seedlings because the fungicides and pesticides dusted on the root balls are so toxic. Then there’s the GMO monoculture of the species of trees they’re replanting with.
End of the day I didn’t feel like contributing to the next wave of suburb and luxury condo developments. Rednecks always like to say “they grow back” when we talk about protecting old growth forests and it’s obvious that trees (individually) can be grown on a given plot of land (like wheat in a season on the plains)… But the conversation ends when we talk about how it takes millennia to grow the type of environmental diversity primal forests have established.
Oh no! Pine Beatles and drought and other things are affecting our crop of trees! Who could’ve predicted such a thing!?? Bailout please.
I understand that. However logging is taking out fir forests and replanting with pine and spruce. I hazard a guess that if the biomass were left alone less issues would occur given those primary forests have thrived for a very long time on their own.
The first are native but all non profitable tree species have been pushed out. That area of Oregon was most likely predominantly pine a couple hundred years ago.
In my early twenties I was looking for a field of work that was semi environmentally friendly. I had grown up in southern Alberta where it’s all factory farming, mono culture crops, and O&G. For a minute (as a prairie kid) I thought tree planting might be a good way. Basic research even back then showed me that young women who expect to get pregnant within the next fifteen years should not be handling seedlings because the fungicides and pesticides dusted on the root balls are so toxic. Then there’s the GMO monoculture of the species of trees they’re replanting with.
End of the day I didn’t feel like contributing to the next wave of suburb and luxury condo developments. Rednecks always like to say “they grow back” when we talk about protecting old growth forests and it’s obvious that trees (individually) can be grown on a given plot of land (like wheat in a season on the plains)… But the conversation ends when we talk about how it takes millennia to grow the type of environmental diversity primal forests have established.
Oh no! Pine Beatles and drought and other things are affecting our crop of trees! Who could’ve predicted such a thing!?? Bailout please.
You know it’s just occurred to me that the people making these kind of large scale policy defining decisions might not be terribly bright ☹️
This is a great post, but I would like to point out that Douglas fir are not part of the monoculture problem. These are native trees, forests.
I understand that. However logging is taking out fir forests and replanting with pine and spruce. I hazard a guess that if the biomass were left alone less issues would occur given those primary forests have thrived for a very long time on their own.
That does seem likely. I just wanted to clarify for those who aren’t so familiar with the region and its trees.
The first are native but all non profitable tree species have been pushed out. That area of Oregon was most likely predominantly pine a couple hundred years ago.