permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

I've really been enjoying this line of reasoning-- the dialog over restoration of primeval landscapes-- because it brings so many issues to the forefront.

The consensus seems to be that restoration back to the point before European man came to these shores is good. But lots of caveats and questions come up.

The Native Americans lived in a robust landscape that was anything but endangered, so they could easily burn it off as far as the eye could see, thinking only that they could se the small game clearly without a lot of brush on the ground. The net result was that there was more fresh browse, and browsing animals increased. There were more rabbits as well because there were more succulents.

I have to compare this condition to that half of Maine (the Great North Woods) that is owned privately by the paper companies. They clearcut this area with total abandon, and in this particular climate it grows back fast-- really thich and bushy-- and supports a population of moose, deer, skunk, porkies, beaver etc that you just wouldn't believe. Even unusual animals like fisher martens that you rarely see anywhere else grow to giant size here.

A few years back when the environmentalists came to Maine they had a fit-- all clear-cutting was bad in their minds, and they put a referendum on the ballot to control how the timber barons managed their land. I was up there when the public dialog was taking place, and I found the timber interests for once had the more compelling argument.

They said they had been managing their land for well past 150 years and had learned to care for it as thoughtfully as any farmer did his own ancestral land. They were farmers and their crop was northern white pine. They said it might be different in other places but up here you cleared the land and let it rest for 30 or 40 years-- then you culled out all the underbrush and selected for your prime timber. The rest was pulped, or returned to the soil.

And it worked great. Coincidentally for the same period of time the lobstermen had evolved a set of traditional rules to manage the lobster that appeared to be better than anything that might have come up from Washington. That is, there were still more lobster out there than you could bring to market, and the only size that was pretty well depleted was the old jumbo whoppers, 100 years old (lobster are like beaver and racoons-- they never stop growing). But it was a good system, one that might not work anywhere else, just as anyone else's rules might not work there.

So if you develop a pristine landscape, are you going to let a transforming species like beaver (or in Africa, elephants) take the place of man and turn it into something else? Not always. I think sometimes you're going to want to step in, as an agent of modern landscaping management practise, and clear the varmints out so you can end up with more like what you want.

And if you want beaver, be sure to put your request in with all the municipalities. They don't have enough foster homes for urban beaver, so I suspect a lot of the varmints caught tree poaching in the city park end up as landfill.

Mike Elvin
Fuquay-Varina, NC

--- Begin Message ---

• From: Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>
• To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
• Subject: Re: [permaculture] Carbon Sinks / Fire Proof Forests
• Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 09:54:04 -0700

> However, as in the mountains of North-eastern Mexico,
> where they didn't exclude the deer they had 100% mortality of the trees they
> were trying to establish.
Or pigs, in the case of N. Cali, or South Is. NZ. A good case for carnivory,
I say. Or Jaguars.
> Personally, I think it's high time we got away from
> burning the land.
At least all the land. Wouldn't want to extinguish the pyrophiles now would
we?

> I'm all for a cooler moister
> climate, but in order to get us there we might have to begin with the plants
> that are better suited for our climate today - the whole C3 vs. C4 issue.
Fa true, mon!

> So a key factor also is what needs to be there now? What is going to help
> stabilize the atmosphere and rehumidify the interior of the continent? Most
> of these trees with seratinous (sp?) cones (seeds that are activated by
> fire) have likely either adapted to man using fire in the forest or escaped
> their original fire-frequent niches. Should such fire adapted plants be
> used in "restoration"?
I'd guess, some of the time.

>>> Beaver any place there's water. <<
>
> I really like your point about beaver. Our neighbor had beaver jamming up
> his creek and darned if he wasn't in there pulling the felled trees out to
> prevent water from backing up and killing his willow and cotton wood trees
> along the creek.
> I would be honored if the little guys came over here and constructed a dam.

Why not encourage them? How about you plant them some food, make 'em a
temporary lodge or two, maybe make a little place where the water gurgles
(constrict the flow- gets 'em excited!) and see what happens? You can always
put a pipe in first, capped at the bottom end and perf at the top: may prove
useful to have a tap in place.

> Aye, Mollison says we should be grateful that the Spanish brought horses
> back to the Americas when they did. Apparently, there are lots of trees
> who's seeds like to pass through the gut of horses.
Osage Orange for one, perhaps. It has been proposed that eliminating burros
from the Grand Canyon is a dumb waste of time if you're considering
restoring Cali Condors to the park too.
>
>>> and jaguars should be allowed to continue re-establishing their range.
> And maybe elephants. <<
>
> Whew, now you're talking! Wouldn't that be something.
Nice way to turn that grassland/mesquite either/or to a shifting mosaic, eh?

I again recommend *The Ghosts of Evolution* and *The Eternal Frontier* to
anyone wrestling with these ideas.

Bring 'em back alive!
-Rick






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