My first post to NSF forum was a couple of days ago, to the 'General Questions'. I have had no public response so far, but the subject is really important in the light of calls to clear forest in Victoria after the bushfires. I feel that this can only make things far, far worse on every level. I therefore hope it is okay for me to repost under this subject heading of 'trees', after reading Duane's remarks about how important they are. I am seeking comments/discussion on the points I raise below
I am a great admirer of Peter Andrew’s methods, theory and practice as described in his book. Here is my review at
http://candobetter.org/node/975
I have mentioned Peter Andrews in the article I discuss below (
http://candobetter.org/node/1062) and could well have written the article around his book – but - I was hoping Peter himself might respond to this post and perhaps write an article for candobetter.org.
At
http://candobetter.org/ We have also engaged with forest protection advocates and people involved in fire-fighting and forest management (generally keeping their anonymity for obvious reasons) in discussing the recent Victorian Bushfires and we have published information which is not available elsewhere about how the most managed landscapes (logged forests, thinned eucalypt forests, burned-off land and plantations) were the most affected in the fires, contrary to what appears to be damage control assertions backed by some industries on the mainstream media.
I am not looking to engage in controversy here about the bushfires; I am writing this to introduce the specific suggestions which I have written about here:
http://candobetter.org/node/1062, that we might attempt to repair and consolidate the natural forest hydrology in order to mitigate micro and local climate change and rainfall and water storage as well as bushfire risk. I have even suggested that we could recycle the Gunnamatta outfall in Victoria to irrigate (to whatever degree possible and could be regional or local etc) strategic forests (There are 190 GL of urban run-off available that go out to sea and cause enormous complaint at the outlet).
Objections I have received include an erroneous assumption that I am suggesting piping water over the Great Australian Divide; I was thinking more of hydrating the area where the most recent bushfires had attacked, with view to consolidating natural hydrology, microclimate and aiming to change the composition of the forests to promote wetter forest and potentially wetter local climate. We have a State government which thinks nothing of enclosing, pumping and piping water all over the place, anyway, and which is considerably interfering in natural hydrology to the detriment of landholders, animals, trees, and the whole state, IMHO. Also, we are currently diverting water to irrigate land for grain crops, where evaporation is huge.
Another objection communicated to me was that the research material I cited was about tropical rainforests; I don't think this is a substantial objection, since I am talking about how opening any forest will dry it. Also the pattern of severest fires reinforces my position. I intend to write a new article soon, based on learning from this article.
Note that some people may not agree with all the material on our website. We have numerous contributors, some international.
I am an environmental sociologist and most recently edited, Sheila Newman, Ed., The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, UK, 2008 which is a collection of scientific and political articles about the viability of new technologies, analysis of basis of economic growth, and the outlook for different countries within the fossil fuel decline paradigm. There is also a chapter called, “Peak Soil”.