Trees for Life
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20:13 · 718K views · Aug 9, 2016
Alan Watson Featherstone, founder of Trees for Life, describes nearly 30 years of work restoring the ancient Caledonian Forest in the Scottish Highlands, illustrated with his photography.
Cited in ecology threads as background on how overgrazing prevents Scottish forests from regenerating.
5 comments from Hacker News
For those who are interested in the topic of soil reconstruction and balance in nature, some more sources: Documentary on the Loess plateau in China: [LINK] Talk on the Caledonian Forest: this video Talk on using the "herd effect" in Africa: [LINK] A talk presenting a realistic view on soil reconstruction, what IMO is the best argument to convince farmers: [LINK]
Keystone species are fascinating and show how we really need more systemic thinking. The one that tons of people have seen is how reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone changed the course of rivers, made them less eroding, and generally increased ecosystem diversity: [LINK] Beavers are another one: [LINK] Remember how we learned a lot of westward expansion in US colonial days was led by mountainmen trapping beavers to use their pelts in fancy european hats and we kept going further west because we kept killing off the beavers while demand for fancy hats kept going up? Turns out when you remove all those beaver ponds that would slow down water flow, you end up with a lot more erosion, incision, and flooding -- the landscape we have now. Fisherman think beaver ponds decrease fish populations because they tend to have warmer water, but this doesn't quite pass the thousands-years-of-coevolution-before-beaver-extermination sniff test... some experiments have showed that beaver ponds actually increase fish stock because they create lots of fish nurseries, and trout and salmon can instinctively swim up through beaver dams. Then when you consider how things like aquaponics incorporate fish because fish poop makes great fertilizer, it starts to become clear how important beaver ponds can be to nutrient cycling in these ecosystems. One of the most fascinating fish-based nutrient flows is salmon migrations... they're hatched upstream, put on most of their growth and biomass in the ocean,
> the amount of grazing required for that is absolutely larger than anything we have today Who's to say that there wasn't more grazing (by area) back then? > Further, grazing makes fields more robust if done property. I'm not a farmer, but I know that this depends a lot on what is doing the grazing. Sheep for example apparently graze the grass down really far, and prevent the growth of bushes and tree saplings that are otherwise important for balancing the ecosystem. In the US in the 1800s, there was outright armed conflict between sheep and cattle ranchers over this issue: [LINK] And as far as I know, England and Scotland lack trees specifically because overgrazing prevented forests from regenerating after being cut for timber: this video
"To be fair much of Scotland used to be covered in forestry and has been denuded. There are some interesting projects showing what happens if the land is simply protected from over grazing (particularly by deer)." Interesting this popped up, as I'm studying an Ecosystem Restoration Design Course and the first week was studying exactly this, related Ted Talk here - this video But yes, overgrazing is the main culprit there (and also in a lot of other places that have suffered ecosystem collapse).
Given your location, this might be of some peripheral interest... "Restoring the ancient Caledonian Forest Alan Watson Featherstone TEDxFindhorn" this video