Mhm… The findings are probably just as good as the data… I got a little suspicious when it claimed that 93% of forests in Europe are natural forests, because as far as I know, e.g. Germany has (almost) no natural forest. See also the history of Forests in Central Europe [0].
In any case, looking at the report [1] they include Russia in Europe. Fair enough, Europe without Russia: Only 70% natural forests. Which still seems high to me, given that Europeans exploited our forests so much.
The main report distinguishes between: natural forests (no definition), plantations (think rows and columns) and 'other planted' which can look like a natural forest when matured.
I quickly checked the country data for Germany [2]. They report 50% natural forests and 50% other planted. Which is just bollocks. Large parts of forests in Germany are planted and mono culture. Only 6% of forests in Germany are protected (which doesn't mean much, because you can still do forestry!?) and only 0.6% of Forests are off-limits. I might write an enquiry as to why 50/50 was reported.
It is certainly true that it is hard to find any forest in Germany which is as untouched as untouched rain forest in South America. But somehow Germany manages now for centuries to use the forest for business and to retain a more or less constant amount of forest at the same time. I am not saying Germany couldn't do better, certainly it could. But I see the forest usage in Germany as quite good.
Around the city where I live, the forest is owned by something like a trust fund to the benefit of the citizen of the city. That exists since the 14th century in or another form. This forest is certainly not untouched but its owners are interested in its long-term development.
Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? I just quickly checked the Wikipedia links and it says 29% of German forests are government owned. 19% corporate owned and 50% private owned. Assuming nowhere near every single person that owns private property with a forest on it is busy chopping it down, it is safe to assume these figures would be at least close to accurate.
page 22
"By nature, Germany is beech country and if left to nature, today’s forest area would be made up of 75 % beech forests and 17 % oak forests. Where beech forests would naturally grow, today only 21 % beech forests stand;"
"15 % of the forests have a very semi-natural composition and another 21 % a semi-natural composition of tree species"
Are we sure that the countries reporting aren't mixing it up?
The Netherlands and UK report 10% natural regenerating forests, Ireland 13%, Germany 50%, France 85%, Czechia 5%, Poland 21%. (Rough percentages). To me this seems weird and looks like there are different definitions as to what "natural regenerating" means.
And I think you are right, that I might mix up natural (untouched) and "natural regenerating". But that's beside the point, I merely am trying to call out that the data seems to be inconsistent.
Furthermore I think it is weird to throw untouched rain forest/boreal forests into the same category as forests that have been planted like 200 years ago. In Germany a lot of those have been mono-culture pine trees which are now plagued by bark beetles.
I have been reading a lot for the last year about the French "forests" and ... I realized that the vocabulary used is quite far from its common sense.
It's a technical jargon, resulting in part of the super broad definition of a "forest" by the FAO. Savannas, jungles and tree plantations are all forests. Anything bigger than 5,000 square meters with some trees is a forest.
And the history of Europe is long. Deforestation became an issue for French kings as soon as the XIVth century. No forest is "natural" in the sense of untouched. So if a forest stayed untouched or hardly exploited for a "long" period, it's considered as "naturally growing". Which is sort of true in the context.
A "long" period is very contextual as well, from 30 to 300 years.
50% of French forests are plantations, with rows and columns. Most of what I would call a forest, with a good level of general biodiversity, results from the fragmentation of ownership: 75% of forests are private and owned by 3.5 million people. Very small plots of 2 to 3,000 square meters that have been mostly left alone since electricity and natural gas replaced fires of wood in modern houses.
There is no public forests in France: they are all privately owned by 11,000 towns (69% of the 25% of forests owned privately by a public actor). The rest is mainly owned by the French State, large forests inherited from the monarchy. Part of it is protected at very different degrees but 40% of the wood produced in France comes from those 25%, so it is quite exploited.
There is no "natural park" comparable to the US national parks. Because there are little towns and houses everywhere... and archeology shows it has been the case at least since the last 2,000 to 2,500 years. The deforestation had its peak in the XIIth century. The level of protection of the Nature varies a lot from park to park, to the point of being more marketing for tourism and/or political spin.
There is no wilderness in France. So the notion of Nature, hence what is natural and what is not is very contextual. The most naturally-growing parts results from the said fragmentation of ownership and disinterest by the owners. They are very often qualified as "abandoned". "Forests" are to French people what lawns are to the American Suburbia. Wild is not a positive notion ; the Nature is man-made. I think this is largely true in most part of Europe.
Btw, in Russia, only the part west of the Oural chain of mountains is considered as European. The rest is Asia. Definitions again.
It's very annoying to have to decipher all the time what a so-called forest really is on the ground. Now that ecology has become at last a political issue, these uncommon use of words is a very efficient tool to manipulate the opinion.
The truth is that the part of plantations is growing, eg agriculture of trees and not forests with their large biodiversity of plants.and animals of all sizes and a dense network of fungi.
31% of the French territory in Europe (the Guyane territory is part of the Amazon jungle) is qualified as forests and 50% of those are plantations. Still, wood and paper is the third commercial deficit of France. Hence the Macron policy very favorable to the wood industry and biodiversity is totally forgotten: planting trees is presented as the panacea against climate change.
We import manufactured wood from Germany and export logs to China who send back furniture. France has a wood industry problem. Biodiversity? What the heck, we are.capturing carbon and replacing concrete and steel by wood, stocking CO2 to fight climate change.
So we need to fight to protect true forests in France as much as for the Amazon forest in Brazil, where they are doing what we did from 3000 BC to 1850 AD, eg deforesting, even of replantations and some protection were introduced on the XIVth century (in order to... have trees for the French Navy against the English mainly and for royal hunting).
Was just about to mention that. In Roman times much of Germania was forest. I suspect the wood was utilized in the following centuries, but by the 1850s or so much of the old growth was utilized and the need for large wooden ships was subsiding. I suspect from there onward we saw an increasing utilization of iron, coal and steel. Many woods grew back. Sure not hundred plus year old trees, but 80-100 year old trees can still make a forest
I’m not sure tbh. Maybe there’s “official” usages I’m unaware off. I am just guessing based on the words themselves. IMO a forest that wasn’t planted or cultivated is natural even if it’s not old for example.
They're mentioning that deforestation is slowing down, but not mentioning Bolsonaro and the current ramping up of Amazon deforestation in Brazil.
Bolsonaro has been quickly destroying decades' worth of efforts in the Amazon.
Between August 2020 and July 2021, the rainforest lost 10,476 square kilometers – [...] The figure is 57% higher than in the previous year and is the worst since 2012.
this document is already in my own research library, along with the similarly solid 2018 version (thx linux and pdf). The interactive graphics in the web-page version make for reader engagement certainly, but I prefer the details and the references.
My own take on the topic is that it is both impressive, and problematic, to take on "The World's Forests" in one overview, since the context is so very,very different on each continent and in each biome. If you are reading this far, I encourage any and everyone to get to the science as quickly as possible, because this is large scale change and it is happening now. All hands on Deck!
That's a really important fact, I think... as everyone is screamaing at South America but to my knowledge, very few people know the problem seems to be getting a lot worse in Africa.
Also, surpising that South America has the highest percentage of protected forests in the world at 30%, much higher than North America and Europe.. and that while Russia and Brazil have the biggest forests in the world, Russia actually has more than double the amount forest as Brazil!
It's a little silly to make such a big deal out of 54% of global forest area being in five countries when those five countries make up more than 35% of the earth's land area.
It's kind of big deal when one of those countries decides to just tear down the forests. That's 20%. If a second country decides to go the same route, you're now 40%.
Forests have been pleasantly growing in europe in the last 2 decades, even with all the deforestation going on(though to be said it's still way lower compared to the previous industrial periods).Yes part of it is due to climate change, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing(mainly because you cannot fit more trees in places already occupied, whereas the more you go to the arctic region, the more free estate there is,assuming the soil is good).We need these forests more than ever to clean our air and provide necessary oxygen for growing populations.
In any case, looking at the report [1] they include Russia in Europe. Fair enough, Europe without Russia: Only 70% natural forests. Which still seems high to me, given that Europeans exploited our forests so much.
The main report distinguishes between: natural forests (no definition), plantations (think rows and columns) and 'other planted' which can look like a natural forest when matured.
I quickly checked the country data for Germany [2]. They report 50% natural forests and 50% other planted. Which is just bollocks. Large parts of forests in Germany are planted and mono culture. Only 6% of forests in Germany are protected (which doesn't mean much, because you can still do forestry!?) and only 0.6% of Forests are off-limits. I might write an enquiry as to why 50/50 was reported.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_forest_in_Centr...
[1]: https://www.fao.org/3/ca9825en/ca9825en.pdf
[2]: https://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/fra-2020/cou...