I read this note with some concern since it comes across that even tree
planting is not a good thing to do. Currently, I am working with the
Thai Royal Forest Dept to reforest an area that is part of a national
park. We are not planting a monoculture. In some areas of the world
planting a monoculture to begin with may be one of the best ways to
reclaim an area that has been over grazed, cut over too many times for
fuel wood, or just burnt up. Attacking all monocultures is no way to
proceed to solve the world's deforestation. There is just too much
"attacking" and "counter attacking" going on. Why don't we see more
news over the internet concerning the harvesting of seed from
non-commercial species, more information on how to deal with the seed
of tropical species, more on how to grow tropical species...maybe we
wouldn't have monocultures IF we stopped attacking and go on with the
job of producing seedlings from many differing species and planting
them into forests. I contend that we don't see these "practical"
issues being dealt with because of too much environmental
righteousness, too many big dollar grants going into 'monitoring'
projects, not enough technically trained 'global' extension foresters,
and too many philisophically minded scientists trying to save the world
from their PC on the internet. Yes, I would like to see fewer
monocultures, but we must remember that we aren't doing much about
producing diverse forests either. In so much of the world they are
still using 50 year old technology to grow and plant seedlings...of
course, we wind up with monocultures of the easiest ones to grow!
Problem is...studying a species of tree no one has heard of isn't
"sexy" research and won't get the big grant that developing spatial and
ecological scales of an ecosystem...we have quite a dilemma in front
of us. In Southeast Asia there are 100s of tree species and we know
little about most of them. The same for the Amazon. Maybe we should
get started ...soon.
Robin Rose, Project Leader, Technology Cooperative, Oregon State
University....send your comments to roser@fsl.orst.edu. I'll be happy
to entertain constructive comments aimed at planting more diverse
forests.
Mail converted by
MHonArc 1.1.0