permaculture

[Claude Genest <genest@together.net>]

Kirby Wrote:

I recently flipped through an old National Geographic where they were
covering a Mojave Desert restoration project where one of their main
activities was going around and pulling up non-native tamaresk trees because
they were "thirsty" and concentrated salts in their leaf litter.


Claude replies:
Kirby, I once saw a show about South Africa where the "solution" to the
problem of lack of water was to uproot "thirsty" pine trees - he logic was
that by doing so, more water would make its way to the
dams/ponds/lakes/rivers/streams.... This seemed to me to be a short term
solution in that, yes water is not being "drunk" by the trees, but in the
longer term, the trees are not there to pump water up, keep the water table
high, transpire, catch, hold and otherwise "make" rain....


> From: "Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>
> Reply-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 10:37:55 -0500
> To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: [permaculture] Turning Deserts into Woodlands
> 
> 
> I recently flipped through an old National Geographic where they were
> covering a Mojave Desert restoration project where one of their main
> activities was going around and pulling up non-native tamaresk trees because
> they were "thirsty" and concentrated salts in their leaf litter.