Thank god PA didn’t end up like Scotland. (It’s incredibly sad that the trees literally can’t grow back)

And the state bought the ruined land on the cheap to create the state forest system, with the goal to harvest sustainably instead of nuking it.

They didn't just spring back up by magic here either. It took a mass reforestation campaign, particularly in the depression era. The state and federal government bought up 'waste' land and put thousands of jobless men to work restoring them in a program called the Civilian Conservation Corp.

Got that and def appreciate. But Scotland screwed up their environment so bad, they just can’t.

I never heard about that. I wonder what the difference was that made things so much worse there?

Soil erosion, nutrients getting stripped. Sheep and deer eating all the saplings. (Although I can imagine the deer in PA doing something similar today)

Yeah, I imagine the sheep could make a big difference. The soil here was pretty far gone as well (hence why it was considered waste land and cheap to buy up).

Not sure what the time scale was like there, but here reclamation efforts were generally within 50-70 years of the end of logging.

Thank God for the trees and the effort taken to preserve them. Whenever I'm back home in pa I love seeing how well preserved it is

Deforested twice over

It was also almost entirely barren of wildlife in the early 1900's, the water quality was so bad that it was undrinkable without getting typhoid or a myriad of other diseases.

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basically: the ONLY thing that has kept our state (and most of the US) from being an absolute waste land is the gov't stepping in and stopping capitalism

And Republicans want to lift those restrictions, because Feudalism Was Good, Actually™

Pennsylvania is not the only state.

Feudalism was great... if you were a lord

Every time I hear someone go on about how regulation destroys businesses and all that jazz, I want to hit them with a history books. We have proof that companies will literally let us die (or kill) us without regulation. You can not trust people who only want to make money.

I wonder if they had a dedicated workforce if they could still make it happen. Should they though? Would it benefit the wildlife at this point? I have no idea.

And we are likely heading back to it. Who knows what long term effects the fracking chemicals will have.

They pinky-swear that money and power will be trickling down any day now. I'm just a down-on-his-luck millionaire.

There are a bunch of mansions in Bellefonte that were the homes of the lumber barons.

Don't forget coal and oil companies, they did their part. Amazing recovery, actually.

Conservation and preservation are different. The bulk of the state forest system conserves and utilize through ethical harvesting. Preservation is not touching the trees and keeping it just as natural process of succession plays out.

Nature is rarely static.

Someone posted a picture of my little town from the late 1800s and it’s crazy how few trees were in town, the hills were completely barren. It’s also wild how recognizable a bunch of the houses are still.

There’s an old CCC camp turned POW camp turned sky daddy camp up the road from the Pine Grove Furnace. Not a lot to see but cool spot to explore nonetheless

Same thing happened in the 1700's when enormous trees, up to 200 feet tall, were cut down for masts for ships. The branches were left behind in huge piles which caused massive wild fires leaving the forests a wasteland.

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Whole damn state was clearcut. The forest ain't what it used to look like. We still had loads of pines from the last ice age, and after they were stripped down, all we got back were deciduous, which I guess are more suitable for the climate. You find a 200 year old tree in Pennsylvania, you cherish it, they are few and far between.

Those companies are still at it though. We're northern Dauphin. Companies make off the wall, I guess attractive $ offers to private land owners. Our few acres border TWO larger land owners- both tend to cave.

It looks like a war out here sometimes, just shattered landscape devoid of wildlife and prime tinder for the next wildfire.

This stuff isn't quite over.

Wildfires are actually good. It's the houses in the way that are an issue.

America was mostly deforested in the 1800s, mostly because most homes in America are made of wood. FTFY.

https://earthlymission.com/area-of-virgin-forest-in-the-usa-1620-vs-today/

What does it look like now?

Trees are a fully renewable resource. If you want more trees, buy more paper.

With very few exceptions, coast to coast, America was clear cut. We had to build millions of homes, schools, hospitals.

Anyone know if the Dcnr has an open library of their historical pictures?

I took a trip to Pine Creek Gorge last year, and was surprised that there were almost no Pine Trees. Which led me to this wiki article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States

Millionaire's Row in Williamsport as well. At one point, the city had the most millionaires in the USA.

There's luckily a few areas left with Virgin forests that are now protected by the state.

I just learned one of the larger parks by me in Pittsburgh is completely man made/grown, BLEW my mind because it's so beautiful to just get lost in the trees. I love wandering out in the woods on a hike with my dog and just can't even imagine there not being trees everywhere I look.

I also frequently travel across state and see them cutting down more and more large patches/hills of trees and it makes me sad when I see the big empty patch of dirt it leaves behind 😔

Greetings, my fellow temporarily embarrassed Millionaire! I'm expecting that trickle down they've been promising for the last forty-five years any day now. Yup, any day it'll trickle down...

We don’t deserve this planet. We really don’t.

r/latestagecapitalism

I went to college there and lived in one of those old Victorian mansions. It was a complete shithole chopped up for multiple student units on the inside but at least looked nice from the outside hah!

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Preservation programs mostly allow the harvesting of trees. And the running of gas pipelines.

They can be. When the result of left-over timber and various organic debris left by indiscriminate logging it's a different story.

There are quite a large number of 200-y.o. beech trees in PA. One in Elm, PA, that's 350+ y.o. Beech is not a good burning tree and it was not all that useful for furniture or construction.

Iron forges also cut down large swaths of trees. I have a charcoal pit in my backyard.

You lost me at some sky daddy

and yet it continues to happen via Ryan homes, and others. Everyone is chill while they're just screwing up Allegheny county, but unchecked it'll be happening everywhere

well, we'll need that again given whats happening with the invasive Oriental Bittersweet vine that PennDOT(?) accidentally introduced into the seed mix for slope stabilizers. The vine is everywhere and takes over tree canopies. It'll destroy entire areas of trees when unchecked, as is the case in many areas

that this kind of voice not remain longer on the earth

Not to mention what I've anecdotally heard is that their homes are overpriced pieces of shit, so we can look forward to them falling apart instead of being lasting housing.

Visiting Cook Forest in NW PA is an eye opener. Seeing these massive old growth white pines and hemlocks towering 150 feet tall is something else. I'm thankful for the forests we have now but seeing what it used to be is down right depressing. Our forests today would look alien to someone from the past before everything was clear cut.

Its crazy cuz now their arent sny trees in pennsylvania and the place is a desolate industrial wasteland. Will we ever learn!

There is very little old growth forest left east of the Mississippi for this reason.

There's organizations working towards reforestation in Scotland. An interesting take is Norway has similar problems with farmland taking away old growth, while also being at such a northern latitude.

But in the last century much progress was made there (norway) in reforestation, so there is a frame work for Scotland to do the same.

The deer problem there is also exasperated by their Hunting regulations. It boils down to not having public hunting grounds (hunting isn't included in their right to roam law as far as I'm aware). So private estates that hold huge swaths of land basically hord all the Stags and charge $$$$$$ to anyone who wants to shoot them. So unless your extremely wealthy, you ain't culling the herd.

This always blew my mind as a kid but it also made so much sense because how else would so much of the woods be uniformed in the size and age of the trees.

it's so easy to find evidence and opinion of this that it's hardly anecdotal anymore :(

the only solution is more people get involved with their municipal boards. Ryan homes talks $$ and community growth. People need to say that they don't want that growth, or find new ways to created limited pockets of mid-rise condo towers, that fit with homeowners budgets, and maybe some re-imagined idea what that lifestyle can look like

How is it different? A tornado can come through and drop trees as well. Disease can wipe out trees as well. Fire ban wipe out invasives and some seeds need fire to germinate. Native trees can handle fire as well.

Fire is healthy which keeps the fuel load down. This logging may concentrate the fuel but the remedy is still fire.

Edgy way to be anti-religious.

Heck there is a sad scar to unchecked corporate greed just north of me here. Just head up rt 248 towards Palmerton and as it bends towards Bowmanstown look to your left. Trust me that mountain looked alot worse 20 years ago. Thank a Zinc company from NJ that was allowed to basically kill the mountain. Even government regulations can go so far, you can never account for greed and corruption.

I was hoping it was Tengri. Some true sky daddy.

I lived over in Jim Thorpe for a little while and they've tried so many times fixing that.

Ahh, so what I'm hearing is take the land from the rich.

What's crazy to me is that apparently Britain was already largely deforested, by the time the Romans showed up.

https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests

God.damn.right.

Where my libertarian homies at

What? I know someone who owns a company involved with lumber processing. He said more trees get planted as demand goes up.

it should be obvious, but this does nothing to develop an untouched forest that develops into old-growth without being 'sustainably harvested' or otherwise.

You've described a self-serving process of ensuring one's own business, or a state forestry syndicate ensuring a commercial forest business-ecosystem.

Conflating these with a process of redeveloping and protecting old-growth forests (for hundreds of years into the future) is either useful-idiocy, veiled greed, or a worse evil.

and despite these words, your response is likely to be a galvanization of your initial position.

which old growth forest is being used for harvest

The Chicago Fire cleared lot's of forests in Michigan. Probably fires in cities added to deforestation. It is a good thing we learned to make forests sustainable. Railroad ties, fuel for heat, it could have gotten bad without conservation.

Did you read the post and threads? Literally the entire state, going back to the beginning of the colonial push

did you? The company is in PA. It plants new forests.

Lets talk about whats going on now, not 200 years ago. We are all aware of the clearcutting done in PA hundreds of years ago.

If you want new forests NOW then buy paper. The history of clearcutting doesnt change this.

You didn't describe a sustainability plan. Unless you can demonstrate that you're not unknowingly repeating corporate propaganda, you's just singin' someones blues

the sustainability plan would be to plant more trees because consumer demand is going up. basic economics

you've demonstrated you are avoiding the topic of old growth forests.

So all of this thread was willful misdirection.

Facepalm.jpg

hey, you could have a some real cards to ante in for this opinion. But bluffs are BS online unless you doxx or ante a bit. If there's a new business model that will solve it, show your work.

soiler - if you have one, i'll help

By definition they don't, at least when I got my degree in forestry they didn't.

The simplest way to put it:

National Parks = Preservation

National Forests = Conservation.

I can't think of a single time I've heard of a harvest in an area that was marked for preservation, at least not one that was for commercial purposes, I could see some cutting being done to remove invasive species.

>The soil here was pretty far gone as well (hence why it was considered waste land and cheap to buy up).

Also likely why you see a lot of pine in our state forests, from what I remember working in ohio it grows well in reclaimed mine land.

I believe commercial tree farms are not eligible for preservation or conservation easements. But they are for stewardship and, I believe, CREP. Woodlots, on the other hand, are treated differently. Not exactly sure why but it's been awhile since I've looked at the regs or other program language.

On what grounds do you believe that?

Privately owned tree farms can (and almost always are) be managed for conservation; they more than anyone else have an interested in being good stewards.

https://www.treefarmsystem.org/certification-american-tree-farm-system

I'm really curious where you're checking, the line between what is conservation and what is preservation hasn't moved in over 100 years.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/features/conservation-versus-preservation

Preservation and conservation as you use them are marketing terms.

Preservation and conservation as I use them are "selling/gifting" of development rights under the tax code or pursuant to ag regs, ie, preserving the family farm (conservation easement) or keeping nature natural (C.R.E.P. program).

Stewardship of tree farms is somewhat related, but not really.

>Preservation and conservation as you use them are marketing terms.

Those terms are from the United States Forestry Service, not "marketing terms". If you read the link I posted instead of doubling down on tax designations you might have learned something today.

The difference is that Scotland was held by private individuals in massive estates . To help pay for those estates they raise sheep 🐑 on most of the land , or well off landowners kept large herds of deer (no predators because we killed them off due to eating livestock) for occasional hunting parties. It’s the same issue Israel has , to many herd animals eating every stick before it can get a foot tall. This is a fixable issue but without any incentive to change it will not happen

I've dropped a sky fairy or three in my life but you're absolutely right lol