Rewilding the trees. Let there be no forest. Frans Vera PhD. Photo Ted Green

Transcription

1 Rewilding the trees Let there be no forest Photo Ted Green Frans Vera PhD

2 Open grown Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) Photo Ted Green

3 Open grown Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) Photo Frans Vera

4

5 However, we seem to consider trees only as part of the forest Photo Frans Vera

6 However, we seem to consider trees only as part of the forest Photo Frans Vera

7 Why do we seem to consider trees only as part the forest? l Because, where trees can grow the forest is commonly considered as the natural state of the vegetation and therefore of the trees; l Why do we consider the forest as the natural state of the vegetation? l Because of the shifting baseline syndrome (Daniel Pauly, 1995); l What is the shifting baseline syndrome? l It is the gradual change in the perception of what is the natural state of our environment.

8 What caused the shifting baseline syndrome?

9 The guild of true grazers Tarpan in 1887 Low numbers Aurochs in 1627 of other species because of hunting and poaching

10 All what was left, were agrarian landscapes.

11 Because of that we suffer from the shifting baseline syndrome.

12 The Shifting Baseline Syndrome occurs when: l People do not know of how nature originally was; l Each new generation redefines nature and natural according to their own experience; l Changes in the unnatural environment happen slow and are therefore hard-tonotice.

13 The Shifting Baseline Syndrome brings on that: l Each new generation views the environment with wildlife they remember from their youth as natural; l A continuing lowering of the standard for nature takes place; l A degraded state of nature is accepted as the normal thing.

14 The consequences of the Shifting Baseline Syndrome for biodiversity are: l The community becomes very tolerant for the creeping loss of biodiversity; l A large educational and psychological hurdle in efforts to reset expectations and targets for nature conservation; l The hurdle is how we reconstructed the natural vegetation.

15 Mankind disturbed nature.

16 The German forester von Cotta in 1816: If mankind would leave Germany, after 100 years it would be totally covered with forest.

17 The succession theory of Clements (1916): if man stops disturbing nature, nature will rebound spontaneously to her original state.

18 Photo Frans Vera

19 Potential Natural Vegetation

20 All European indigenous large herbivores became forest animals. The natural density is the density that does not prevent the regeneration of the forest, because the forest is the natural vegetation. Photo Frans Vera

21 Circular reasoning However, forest is constructed by excluding the influence of wild, indigenous, large herbivores

22 The Heinz forest Ellenberg becomes (1986): a large Central educational Europe and would psychological have been a hurdle monotonous for discussing wooded the landscape, role of large if mankind herbivores had not in nature created and for the discussing colourful mosaic targets of for fields, nature heaths, conservation. hay lands and Why? pastures. Landnam-theory

23 Part of agriculture was the wood-pasture system

24 Everywhere in Europe there were wood-pastures

25 The experience: cattle prevent the rejuvenation of trees in the forest; Cattle do not belong in nature, because the species is introduced by man; Threfore:

26 Wood pastures changed into closed canopy forests Photo Frans Vera

27 Photo Frans Vera

28 In 40 years 50% of all vascular plant species were lost Diameter distribution National Park Dalby Söderskog

29 Why was cattle removed from wood-pastures? Because of the shifting baseline syndrome

30 The Auerochs and the Shifting baseline syndrome

31 The Aurochs became extinct in 1627

32 The Aurochs became extinct in 1627 l l l l Only in 1827 the Aurochs is scientifically described and recognized as a species, however living in the Pleistocene; Only in 1887 it became known from historical texts that the Aurochs lived in Europe up till historic times; Only in 1927 the Aurochs was recognized as the wild ancestor of domestic cattle; By then in science the baseline for domestic cattle had been shifted to cattle being a nonindigenous species, introduced by man that has to be removed if natural conditions are to be restored.

33 Photo Frans Vera

34 In the wood pasture cattle was the indigenous functional equivalent if his extinct ancestor. Domestication

35 Cattle in wood pastures are indigenous species. Photo Frans Vera

36 Sloe in grazed grassland Photo Frans Vera

37 Oak in sloe scrub Photo Frans Vera

38 Spiny hawthorn protecting oak Photo Frans Vera

39 The Jay Photo Jos Korenromp

40 Sloe scrub protecting hazel shrub Photo Frans Vera

41 Nuthatch

42 Mantle and fringe vegetation Photo Frans Vera

43 Trees growing up in mantle Photo Frans Vera

44 A grove is formed Photo Frans Vera

45 A grove surrounded by a spiny mantle and fringe vegetation Photo Frans Vera

46 Retrogressive succession Photo Frans Vera

47 Spiny shrubs appear again Photo Frans Vera

48 Spiny hawthorn protecting oak Photo Frans Vera

49 Spiny juniper protecting scots pine Photo Ted Green

50 Trees regenerate very well in wood pastures with wild living cattle, horses and deer Photo Frans Vera

51 We should not focus on forest, but on trees Photo Frans Vera

52 Photo Ted Green Photo Ted Green So, for the sake of the trees and biodiversity, free the trees from the jacket of the forest and let them rewild in the wood pasture.

53 Photo Ted Green Photo Ted Green My suggestion: do not plea for the return of the Caledonian forest, but for the return of the Caledonian tree.