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The Pagan 'problem'
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BuckyE
468 posts

Re: The Pagan 'problem'
Sep 17, 2010, 19:06
No, sorry, the seed bank necessary to recreate a pre-human forest is no longer there. That's what Stonegloves is on about when he says, "...No fungi, micro-invertertebrates, lichen...'

Here in the American Piedmont, at least, one can certainly allow land to regrow. Loie and I have about six acres that's been doing just that for twenty years. At first, we tried rehabilitating patches, but soon gave up. After hundreds of years of ploughing and foresting, our little new woods are an entirely different ecosystem than what existed preEuropean invasion. Even back then, the land was not totally "natural," in that Native Americans had been setting fires to create meadows, farming in less intrusive ways, etc. But it was certainly much more "natural."

The forests floors were feet deep in duff: leaf and branch litter being decomposed by fungi, and tunneled by ants and other insects. Dozens of species of forbs had their seeds distributed by the ants; dozens of others spread by rhizomes. There were dozens of species of understory shrubs and small trees.

None of this will reestablish itself naturally. The few places where the forbs still grow in something like profusion are so far apart, and the browsing animals so densely packed, the plants can't possibly get from there to here. Even the few specimens we planted are long gone, eaten up.

Asian stilt grass is taking over. So are Japanese honeysuckle, English house sparrows, Oriental Bittersweet. Native bees are pretty much dead of foreign mites and viruses. The list goes on and on.

On the other hand, the woods are green. There's plenty of growth! Succession would take over our mown yard in a few years, the way it has on the few acres of field and few acres of stream bank. If I leave a patch unmowed for even one season, oak, poplar and walnut trees spring up in profusion. Good old eastern gray squirrels doing their job. Although I understand introduced ones are extirpating your native native Red Squirrels.

Sigh.
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