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Originally Posted by lio45
Craziest thing? Seems normal to me 
I was actually going to politely dispute Drybrain's claim that it takes 500 years for the forest to return to a natural state.
I'm a historical records geek, and after digging in those I found that a good part of my ~150 acres outside this small northern New Hampshire town used to be a farm in the early 1800s. It's a hilly area, and this land has the quite rare characteristic of being mostly flat, nestled between two hills, and right off the main road too. It's therefore not very surprising that it was a farm site back when everyone had to grow their stuff locally.
There currently are mature trees 50-100 years old over there (as well as beavers, deer, woodpeckers, etc.)
As long as you've got a few generations of mature trees (for reproduction), I don't see what exactly you're missing that takes an extra 300-400 years to build up...?
For biodiversity, I would say it seems to compare with Beckett Woods in Sherbrooke, a very rare original forest that was never cut (I mean of course you'll have 300+ years old maples there, etc. but in terms of flora/fauna, they don't really do anything more than a 50 year old one, do they?)
i.e. being familiar with both, I can't manage to name one single fauna/flora item that Beckett Woods, an intact pre-Columbian forest in the same area, has, that my forest doesn't have, if you don't count age as a characteristic. |
Your talking about farm land.
Also your talking about it as if you've never seen it, it's a very different effect in person, especially over a very very short period of time.
The tar sands aren't just removing trees, but soil, water ways rivers, bogs etc.
Not only are you removing stuff your creating gaps in a biome, a no mans land that causes life on both sides of this gap to also face reduced biodiversity.
Forests are often thought about like big flower beds that are in a pristine balance with nature, when in reality are massive biochemical processes.
Nature is never in a stationary balance. It's in a state of constant change.
Biomes are masters to adapting to constant change.
They regulate the chemistry of the soil, and they maintain water levels in the ground. By maintaining the amount of fresh water they in turn regulate microclimates. As a moist bog or whatever regulates temperature much better than a pile of dirt or rock.(water stores heat way more effectively than anything else in nature)
A biome may have 10,000 different species with only 100-500 species dominating that biome at a time. However there is always a king of the hill type struggle where as one species becomes dominant, another dormant species is able to establish a new niche.
It's cylical with cycles on top of cycles. It might be several hundred years before one of those less prevalent species becomes the talk of the walk, but the point is they are there.
Ironically what people fail to recongize is that our business society essentially functions on the exact same principles as nature.
One of the ironies with the whole nature is perfect debate, is that nature isn't better because it is natural.
Nature is better because it's established with a proven track record.
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Keep in mind much of that clear cutting in not only southern Ontario but Quebec was done to support ship building back in Europe. It also helped clear the land for some of the most fertile farm land on the continent. Also large swaths of Southern Ontario were and are mixed woods plains.
) but it's still extremely directly correlated with extreme min temps.
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