permaculture

[Heide Hermary <heidehermary@pacificcoast.net>]

I am not sure you are totally right about fire being introduced into 
landscapes
by humans.  Here in the Pacific Northwest huge forest fires caused by 
lightning
have always swept this part of the continent .  In fact, trees such as the
lodgepole pine have adapted to this cycle by developing cones that will ONLY
open in response to intense heat, such as from a forest fire. I don't know 
about
other parts of the world, but why should they be so different?  Where there's
lightning, there's fire.
Heide

Toby Hemenway wrote:

> on 4/29/02 5:37 AM, permed@nor.com.au at permed@nor.com.au wrote:
>
> > He also attributes this practice of using fire for cultivation
> > and managing the environment
>
> I've been thinking a lot (inspired by a conversation with Ben Haggard) about
> developing naturally fire-suppressant floras. Humans, particularly in North
> America, Australia, and other temperate zones, moved in with their fire
> sticks and converted the native vegetation to fire-adapted ones. This
> altered climate patterns, drying out large continental areas. There's much
> that is not "natural" about the large continental deserts: Humans helped
> create them.
>
> Since the experiment has been done once by humans, altering vegetation and
> climate on a large scale using fire, I wonder if we couldn't design and
> implement floras that would reverse the process, returning fire-resistant
> plants and soil moisture to large parts of now-dry continental areas. It
> would be nice if we could find a simple tool to do this, rather than brute
> force, the way a simple tool like fire transformed thousands of acres at a
> time to fire-requiring species in chaparral and desert. It may seem
> heretical (if you're wedded to the idea of "native" vegetation), but when I
> travel through the dry (human-made) chaparral of California, I dream of
> moist forests in its place.
>
> > I've a lot of thoughts about fire and cool-burning practice but no time
> > to elaborate just now.
>
> I'd love to hear them someday.
>
> Toby
>
>
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