CLEAR CUTTING.
So, I just finished reading a book by Jared Diamond called The Third Chimpanzee and one of the final chapters spoke a lot about humans' propensity to over kill, over cut and over eat. Humans seem to do this until there's nothing left, and it's been well documented from the beginning of civilizations until now. One of the things that bother me the most is clear cutting which obviously is removing vast amounts of forest completely. It's very hard to argue against this for two major reasons; we need the wood and people say that trees are a renewable resource and it's very true. However, the book spoke about three places were humans clear cut their tees; Chaco Canyon, Easter Island and Petra, still thousands of years later the trees have not grown back.
Trees are renewable, but there are a few reasons why this does not apply to clear cutting- when you cut down a 100 year old tree and a new one grows, chances are that will be cut down after 15-25 years. In my opinion that 100 year old tree was not renewed. The more scientific reasons against this are what happened in Chaco Canyon, Easter Island and Petra- To build their civilizations (in Easter Island, their statues), the surplus of timber was exhausted which caused mass extinctions of animals, the weather to change, the ground to erode which in turn changed the irrigation and in the end resulted in no trees growing back thousands of years after the fact.
Chaco Canyon, for instance, used over 200,000 timbers to construct their civilization. Trees dwindled as they had to trek further out, sometimes over 50 miles to seek wood. When those sources dried up and the habitat changed due to clear cutting they were forced to move.
Easter Island's fate was a bit more grim, essentially the same thing happened when trees were used to transport the massive concrete sculptures and erect them. When trees died off, shortly after the animals did and the Easter Island residents started to war for territory, food, slavery and cannibalism until a small handful were left. Petra, was basically the same scenario- trees were used, trees died, trees did not grow back and turned the area into a dessert.
I don't know, I am not preaching or anything but there are better options to clear cutting (i.e. selective cutting) where only certain trees are harvested while others stay. It just sounds like a better option to me.
In order, Chaco Canyon, Easter Island & Petra.
