In article
,
mothed out wrote:

On May 8, 4:14 pm, Des Higgins wrote:
On May 8, 3:17 pm, mothed out wrote:



On May 8, 12:49 pm, Des Higgins wrote:

On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:

On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:

TV documentaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in
those
countrysides but a relative scarcity of trees. Is it climate? Too
windy in Ireland? Sheep and/or other livestock?

One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.

Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. The
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.

You may well be right. I'm no real expert on this.
I can say that I once saw a documentary on the subject in which they
interviewed a farmer, who seemed a really reasonable person with a
willingness to help the environment as far as he is able. However, he
explained how he had no realistic option but to fell a lot of the
trees on his land because he then received better subsidies for
putting the land to different use. He just couldn't afford to write
off the sum he made from doing that, I couldn't have said I'd have
done a differently in his shoes, which spelt death for most of the
trees on his land.
Another EU factor which I think may have an impact on re-
forestation is the big subsidies that currently go to sheep farmers.

There are 2 issues here; one is whether or not EU subsidies are a good
idea for the environment. It is complicated; there are certainly
problems caused by it.
Equally, much of the environmental legislation here on water quality
etc. only exists or is only enforced because of the EU.
However, what we were asking about was tree cover. How come, I can
remember the Dublin mountains being just as treeless as they are now
(maybe more so), even before Ireland joined the EU? Ireland lost its
forests in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yes it is sustained partly
that way because of agriculture; centuries of it.
The EU is neither here nor there.

The para below is
fromhttp://www.woodlandsofireland.com/docs/No%5B1%5D._2_-_Woodland_Manage...

"By the time of the death of Elizabeth I
in 1603 AD, tree cover in Ireland was
diminished to the extent that, according
to estimates, woodland cover accounted
for no more that 12.5%, and as low as
2%, of the land area. At the same time,
both merchant and naval shipbuilding,
although never practiced on the scale it
was in Britain, also increased in Ireland.
Timber for ships was exported to England
from Waterford in 1608 AD, and the East
India Company is known to have established
a yard at Dundaniel in Cork some time
before 1613 AD (Neeson, 1995)."

this below is fromhttp://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/history.html

"Much of the area, particularly in the south, was heavily forested and
had proved a boon to rebelling forces during the centuries of war, so
a policy of removing the tree-cover was instigated. In fact, forestry
was already well established as County Wicklow's first true industry.
During the Tudor period, timber had become valuable. It was required
for fuel and heat, housing and ship-building. Wood-charcoal was also
the main resource used for smelting iron. The magnificent oak woods
near Shillelagh, in the south of the county, were particularly well
renowned and Sir Arthur Chichester in 1608 noted that the timber from
these woods could '...furnish the King for his shipping and other uses
for 20 years to come'. At this time Wicklow was the only remaining
county in Leinster with extensive tree cover."

For example, most of the hill landscapes in the british isles, in all
the various countries, are completely without trees because they are
given to sheep farming. As I understand, this farming would not be
happening on anything like this scale without the subsidies. I have a
friend with some land in Conemara, and the whole area is (in one way
of looking at it) 'devastated' by sheep farming. Just by fencing off a
part of his land, we soon saw how small tree saplings were taking root
which would otherwise be barren, close-munched grass. Also, when you
find small rocky areas where sheep can't reach on cliffs and
waterfalls, you will nearly always see the native tree species such as
oak trying to come though. I was pretty sad to find about ten
neglected sheep (belonging to his neighbour) dying slowly and
miserably on land less than a mile from their owner's house, mostly
dying of parasitic infection of the liver I believe. These sheep lie
incapacitated sometimes for days on the ground before dying. Someone
told me the owner doesn't really care coz he only keeps the sheep for
the subsidy. I don't know if that's true, but whatever, it didn't look
like real farming to me. On top of this, water supplies to places like
Galway have been rendered undrinkable because of washoff and general
shite from the farming, and the land owners are not fencing the
animals away from the watercourses, rivers etc, which they should be
doing I think, and is part of the cause of the problem. Personally I'd
like to see a long term policy regarding EU subsidy which moved away
from this kind of omnipresent artificially subsidised sheep industry.
It doesn't make much sense...for example, in Wales I remember being
able to see thousands of sheep from my windows, but would still always
find New Zealand lamb in the freezers of the local chain stores (and
stop to think how much energy and pollution was spent shipping that NZ
lamb to the UK). In view of the environmental damage this strangely
organised industry causes, surely there is some less damaging way we
could subsidise rural people? While this system holds sway, i don't
see how you'd get the chance to restore the kind of tree cover that
existed historically in Ireland.


Wouldn't dispute a word of it.
Where from here though?
Sadly, by and large, people don't plant trees unless they have a
significant commercial motivation, unless they are highly idealistic
and not forced to make an actual living from the land.
Globally, one reason much forest is removed is because the values we
may ascribe to trees, such as the pleasure of their presence, the way
they help other natural diversity, and the bigger environmental
benefits such as fixing carbon are losing out to more immediate and
short-term commercial objectives.
Various economic theorists have posited that until we can
ascribe (and somehow enforce) a system whereby these other values are
given a price that people have to take into account, then we cannot
hope to see forests either preserved or re-grown. In other words, if
we were forced to take into account the *real long term value* arising
from trees, which often includes a longer term view of things like the
actual monetary gain people who already sustainably use the trees (but
are often politically marginalised), and also the cultural value of
the forest as an environment for people , such as native Amazonians,
the later-arriving (but sustainably operating) rubber tappers, the
'pygmy' people etc. Also there is the very real long-term poverty
people suffer in the long term from living on degraded, eroded land
etc. But the political situation prevailing often means that the
people doing the felling never have to face those costs themselves.
For anyone who might argue that we can't enforce such an
'airy fairy' or 'idealistic' value of trees when faced with the 'hard
reality' of economic necessity, i think they should certainly take
into account the fact that the impetus for much deforestation has
*nothing to do* with 'inevitable' economic forces, but with the
strange and damaging effects of unfair and skewed political and social
regimes which do not themselves follow any particular economic logic
which took account of the long-term benefits to people living near or
in the forests (the historic deforestation of Ireland being a case in
point).. The artificiality of the whole system really came home to me
when I decided about 15 years ago to do a bit of research into why the
Amazonian forests in Brazil are disappearing so fast. One of the best
books I found on the subject were some of the text books for an Open
University course on environmental issues. It explained how much of
the deforestation in Brazil was occurring because BIG and politically
influential ranchers were seeking to maximise their (vast array of)
ranch land, because they could then benefit and profit from artificial
subsidies and tax breaks from the Brazilian govt. These big powerful
landowners were part of a big 'farmers union' or some such, which had
a lot of influence in the govt, making it difficult to change thigns.
Meanwhile, vast numbers of poorly represented poor folks (often pushed
off land by the powerful landownders with the guns and the money), may
be pushed further into the jungle to try and cut themselves a
sustainable small-holding. in due course, however, these people are
pressured into losing or amalgamating their lands into the ranches,
mostly being pushed further into the jungle....and so the system goes
on. Similarly, people representing groups such as the rubber tappers,
who exploited the trees sustainably without cutting them down, often
meet a sticky end, like Chico Mendez did, assassinated for his trouble
by powerful land-owning interest groups and their agents. And bear in
mind that these big ranches are not necessarily economic without the
subsidies, and tend to become less viable through the degradation of
the land once it loses tree cover. And all this because of vested
interests and how they¹ve been able to skew things through artificial
agricultural subsidies and the like.
Moving back to the european situation, while the worst
ravaging of the trees may belong in history, surely we (EU countries)
would also have to take a serious look at taking into account values
*other than* immediate and obvious financial returns to get some
serious reforestation happening. This would have to somehow translate
into the value of new woodland actually being taken account of euros
and cents, even if that means using Œartificial¹ subsidy as part of
the motive. Since the use of these truly vast swathes of land for
sheep seems to be sustained specifically by subsidy already, i don'
think it's so outlandish to see that as a key part of where we might,
collectively and with consent, change that and subsidise in a
different direction. Pricing living trees artificially, but with full
account of the 'non-immediate' value has got plenty of working
precedents. After all, look at the way that the imposition of carbon
pricing is being used to radically alter the balance sheets of
businesses in a way that aims to help the environment. It's entirely
based on Œartificial¹ regulation, but is nonetheless being applied to
radically change 'common sense' economic and industrial activity.
Interestingly, there is a serious and binding 'tree pricing' regime
starting up in London right now. In London there have been a huge
number of trees felled because of a big fear of subsidence caused by
tree-roots on the part of house owners. An organisation has (i
understand) been established to put a specific monetary price on
various trees, based on their age, beauty, recreational, aesthetic
etc. value. The idea is that when, say, an insurance company demands
that a tree close to a property should be felled, they will actually
have to justify removing the tree on a 'balance sheet' which compares
the loss 'to society' (as it were) as expressed in monetary value,
against the probable or real monetary cost of the damage the tree
might cause. Apparently some trees have been priced around the 750
thousand pounds stirling mark, so you can see how the case for removal
might lose the day (and therefore the planning go-ahead) when they are
required by a pricing scheme to look at the full longterm picture...

The name of the game is "privatize the profits, and socialize the cost".
Business gets the profits and the tax payers pick up the tab for
remediation.
The first step is education, because as long as our life style
looks cheap, it will be very expensive to repair the accumulative
damage. Indeed, it may already be too late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...1/28/AR2006012
801021.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feat...ing_point.html
--

Billy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related