NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/skeptic/22824

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-25 | 1.7 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Robert McGrath)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: does this sound right?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:53:50 GMT
References: <1993Jan23.4286.31987@dosgate>
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Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
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In article <1993Jan23.4286.31987@dosgate>, "dan mckinnon" <[e-mail]> writes in part:
|>    The "gone forever" part gives me more trouble, unless every acre is
|> on a mountainside and quickly devastated by erosion, or unless third
|> world countries are erecting shopping malls at an alarming rate.

Got it on the second try (at least in the Amazon basin).  The soil
of the forest pretty much turns to useless muck in about two years
after the trees are cleared.  The forests do not grow back.  Nothing
much grows at all, especially if cattle are grazed on it.

And in the case of ANY primary growth forest, clearing it out
is permanent. Even if a secondary growth forest develops (after
decades) it is NOT the same kind of forest, and much of the life
that lives there is gone forever.  Lots of trees is not the same
thing as a climax forest ecology.  Compare, for instance, the
unlogged forests of Oregon with the secondary growth in, say,
Michigan, which was logged out about 1910.

"Gone forever" is a pretty fair statement.  The issue really is
how big of a problem this really is, and what should be done about
it (assuming you think it is a problem at all, which I gather you
might not).

--
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  [e-mail]