Ghost Cat wrote:
True, and I mostly looking at the places where the top soil was removed,
like former mines. There are tens of thousands of them in the US. In will
take a very long time for such place to heal itself. Anyway we destroy
forests faster than mother Nature can bring them back. The least we can do
is to give a little help.

I live on a property where the soil is mostly clay. The house was built
years ago and the developers spread the layer of straw with the grass seeds
on it but it is still mostly clay. Even in the best places the top soil was
only a couple of inches deep. I was nearly broke when I moves in last fall
so the only thing I could afford is to collect leaves from everywhere and to
make the compost piles in some spots. A week ago I moved one of the piles to
the next spot. Seven days later the old spot looks like a little jungle.
Things that grew up there! I have never seen such plants in my life. Where
did they come from? And it only took a week. Yesterday the groundhog came
to one of such places closest to its burrow and just sat there staring at it
all evening.

Another interesting thing. The garden shop gave me a full truck of top soil
last fall. They needed to get rid of it before the place was closed for
winter. I filled a couple of pits created by erosion with it. Nothing yet
grew up there at all. It just remains the black spots, even the one where I
put a half a dozen of the alternate layers of the leaves and the top soil.
What kind of top soil do they sell in shops?

But the most interesting thing is that I don't have the garbage pick up.
Instead of paying $20 a month I adjusted my shopping style and my diet so
almost everything is compostable.

"Joe Zorzin" wrote in message

"Ghost Cat" wrote in message
. com...

Wasteland to Forest

www.wastelandtoforest.com


Mother Nature will also do a restoration, which is not to say that most
logging is properly done- since most of it isn't. But, even some properly
done logging will look that atrocious in the short term. But, if done
correctly, the healing will be quick- if done wrong, the healing will take
centuries.

So, the REAL issue, isn't that some logging looks ugly as sin. The real
issue is that the logging was carried out by honest and competent

foresters

who are trained to know what the results will be, how the land will

respond,

and who understand the economics of the project- the LONG TERM economics-
including present externalities, i.e., costs not generally accounted for

to

be paid for by the public- and including some positive benefits also not

put

into the accounting equation.

--
Joe Zorzin
http://www.forestmeister.com






Rebuilding soil is definitely the hard part, but it can be hurried a
bit. (heres where our resident mushroom man jumps in-where are you Dan).

As a person who actually does restoration forestry, I've got to say a
LOT of faith is involved when starting with a just-harvested clearcut.
Still, it happens. I drive by stands that look exactly like the one on
your page twenty five years ago and now they're well past their PCT
stage and looking great.

Conservation easements between the owner and a land trust are a fine way
to ensure that forestland doesn't get developed before it regrows. I'd
recommend taking that path anytime.