Pre-European Forests

[swampwhiteoak]

Got sent this link today:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm

It is an article from Atlantic magazine about what the Americas were like before Europeans got here. Although this train of thought isn't new by any stretch I find it interesting and thought I would share it with you.

Here are some excerpts:

. When I went to high school, in the 1970s, I was taught that Indians came to the Americas across the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago, that they lived for the most part in small, isolated groups, and that they had so little impact on their environment that even after millennia of habitation it remained mostly wilderness. My son picked up the same ideas at his schools. One way to summarize the views of people like Erickson and Balée would be to say that in their opinion this picture of Indian life is wrong in almost every aspect. Indians were here far longer than previously thought, these researchers believe, and in much greater numbers. And they were so successful at imposing their will on the landscape that in 1492 Columbus set foot in a hemisphere thoroughly dominated by humankind.
_____

More important are the implications of the new theories for today's ecological battles. Much of the environmental movement is animated, consciously or not, by what William Denevan, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin, calls, polemically, "the pristine myth"—the belief that the Americas in 1491 were an almost unmarked, even Edenic land, "untrammeled by man," in the words of the Wilderness Act of 1964, one of the nation's first and most important environmental laws. As the University of Wisconsin historian William Cronon has written, restoring this long-ago, putatively natural state is, in the view of environmentalists, a task that society is morally bound to undertake. Yet if the new view is correct and the work of humankind was pervasive, where does that leave efforts to restore nature?
________

Guided by the pristine myth, mainstream environmentalists want to preserve as much of the world's land as possible in a putatively intact state. But "intact," if the new research is correct, means "run by human beings for human purposes." Environmentalists dislike this, because it seems to mean that anything goes. In a sense they are correct. Native Americans managed the continent as they saw fit. Modern nations must do the same. If they want to return as much of the landscape as possible to its 1491 state, they will have to find it within themselves to create the world's largest garden.

[Ron Wenrich]

Somewhere we have to find a balance.  What I think of as pre-European forests are large expanses of natural growing forests going through their natural cycles.  The Indian population was fairly small, and they were more nomadic, which limited their impact.

Europeans came and the first thing they practiced was slash and burn agriculture.  This practice was continued into the plains.  We have industrialized our forests and our farmlands.  We have made them highly productive, but at great expense to the natural cycle and the environment.

One problem you get into is the interpretation of history.  Most people can't even grasp recent history very well, and you will find stories vary widely.  The further away from the time of the event, the more mythical it becomes.  As the generations get more removed, the stories handed down become more jaded.  My uncle used to tell me stories his father told him about the Civil War.  I'm sure that my retelling is rather different.

But, the question remains whether we can manage and utilize forests in a more natural cycle.  That would mean leaving the industrialization behind.  There are more products in the forest than board feet.  

To do this would require longer rotation cycles.  75 years in a hardwood forest isn't that long.  I think 150 years is realistic, and in some areas, you could be looking at 400 years.  That would take you through several successions of the forest before you would start over.  Managing for old growth.  But, it is better suited to public lands, and not private lands.  

So, how would you define pristine, and why is it a myth?

[Frank_Pender]

Man builds and writes his myths to fit the needs of his time.  The Egytians changed the Mesopotamians to fit their needs.  The Greeks changed the Egyptians  for theirs.  The Romans changed the Greeks for theirs and a host of organized beliefs changed them all to fit theirs.   Those in turn are in a constant "state" of change.   Even the "tree hugger groups", if you were to go back enough and clossely examine will find changes and off shoots of changes.  Who is to say what is correct today based on yesterday and research gained tomorrow will help direct the following day. :P

[Bud Man]

Uneducated Modern Man has an idea in mind of applying it's usage of the forest and lands in terms of a lifetime as it applies to management of the Forest, with sometimes a carryover to the next generation. This stems from the annual agricultural systems that were tied to ownership of the lands.  The Indians utilized Forest's as shelter and firewood and harvested every fruit and herb it would bear and also utilized the forest and it's fruits so that it would perpetuate the next crop and were mindful of the next generation of it's people.. They were nomadic as the Manchurians are today, in so much as they utilized and moved on to return another day and utilize it again, ownership was not primary and boundaries were plentyful and worked out within the various tribes. I believe they were of the mindset akin to the physcians as they utilized the : "Above All Else Do No Harm Rule" and I'm sure they harmed much till they learned the cyclical measures that worked best. By the time European's came to North America the best cycle had been worked out for the most part, and since then Americans have been applying their rape and ravage within a lifetime economical management style with little or no concern for the future.  Much of todays meeting of the minds problems is that segments of society disagree on the terms of a cycle and how a resource should be used. And the rest of the story will be settled probably in a court of law with judges and juries.  :'(  Enforcing on people to utilize in a way that will hopefully perpetuate the most for the most since we don't seem to be able to settle it out on our own without forced intervention.  I'm Rambling- ...........

[L. Wakefield]

   Budman, I was doing some 'rambling' myself the other day- in terms of musing on the theoretical consequences of a long-term change in climate and hence in the crops and other foodstuffs and useful materials. This type of change arguably has led to nomadic cultures in the past, as you relate (an interesting question is 'which came first?'- were the cultures nomadic 'to begin with' and thus prepared to deal in a quick way with potentially devastating changes- or were there settled communities which then were forced into a nomadic existence in response to stressful cataclysmic change?)

   But I was viewing the change in values that would come upon us were we forced into a nomadic lifestyle. This has already occurred once in miniature in the depression and dustbowl times. And of course was forced upon the Cherokee and other Native American tribes by government action in earlier periods.
   Poverty seems to have been the over-riding feature of the depression and dustbowl period. If one views lifestyles of long-term nomadic cultures- the use of yurts, for example, as portable housing- they can actually be quite nice. But the concept of personal property either in terms of portable goods or in terms of land- would undergo a drastic change.  lw

[Bud Man]

Nomadic cultures still exist but ownership within is limited to what they carry on their backs. I'm sure nomads came about as a result of limited resources forcing a move and not a yearning to see a different scene.  The resettlement of the Native Americans  is by far the most saddening of all, haveing taken away their lands and then giving them the lousyest piece of ground that was unwanted by anyone else, or at the time was unwanted. I'm sure the Government would like Oklahoma and It's oilwells back. The dust bowl nomads were brought about as a result of the owners of the lands ravaging the lands using uneducated agricultural applications as a means to almost destroy the land for the future.(Sheer poverty and ignorance)

[PeterRennie]

One factor seldom discussed in these topics is the role of glaciation. The last ice age ranged from approximately 25,000 to 9,000 years ago.

In that time, animal and tree species migrated south ahead of the ice and then recolonized as the ice receded.

If anyone has looked at a glacier receding and the compacted soils without a molecule of organic matter, it's surprising how far nature can come.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've seen lots of modern day nomads.  They are usually traveling down I-81 and have Quebec license plates.   :D

[L. Wakefield]

   Also, those who go from Maine or other frigid climes to sunny Florida. Usually have property both places. Which is kinda the way nomadic herdspeople tend to go about things. They have a favored territory in the summer ground and in the winter ground. This is of course quite different from unplanned or forced displacement. Always best to have a plan... :  lw

[Bibbyman]

I rode back to San Diego with son Chris about 10 years ago.  We topped the rise coming into Yuma, Arizona to see the desert valley shining with silver for miles and miles.  Thousands and thousands of snow birds in their Silverstreams setting out the winter in the warm southwest.