
Iceland's attempts to replant its forests - farseer
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/20/climate/iceland-trees-reforestation.html
======
avar
For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland.

Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something
that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much
anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need
to fence them in.

Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying
forests. Iceland's native crooked birch hasn't developed resistance to grazing
animals as mainland trees had to do, the sheep love to nibble at them and eat
the seedlings.

The native trees and other native vegetation are generally much hardier than
the foreign plants. But since the forestry service has lost the battle with
the farming lobby they're desperately trying to introduce some trees that the
sheep won't eat.

Reforesting the country is largely being done through subsidies to farmers,
who aren't concerned with topsoil preservation beyond maintaining the desolate
landscape they inherited, but they are interested in the eventual promise of a
commercial forest on their land.

Which is something to keep in mind when reading articles like these and
wondering "why don't they...", usually the answer is that they're planting in
a field that's going to be full of grazing animals, and there's no way the
forestry service is going to win that battle anytime soon, or that they're not
really aiming to restore the topsoil per-se, but to do that as a side-effect
of commercial logging.

This page has some more details: [http://www.skogur.is/english/forestry-in-a-
treeless-land/](http://www.skogur.is/english/forestry-in-a-treeless-land/)

~~~
ckinnan
There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer
are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no
predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood
saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard
wood trees, they don't survive the deer.

~~~
riot504
It appears a simple solution of allowing hunting to occur would solve the
problem. Why is hunting restricted?

~~~
Kluny
I don't know what the case is in NE US, but in my town in British Columbia,
the deer population is out of control in the metropolitan area, and every time
a cull is mentioned, animal rights activists put a stop to it through loud and
effective lobbying. It's quite irritating.

~~~
NegativeLatency
I suppose wolves wouldn't be popular in a suburban environment either.

~~~
irrational
There are tons of coyotes in suburban environments though. I live smack dab in
the middle of the suburbs and we have see coyotes all the time.

~~~
bmurphy1976
They live in NYC and Chicago:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/nyregion/that-howling-
jus...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/nyregion/that-howling-just-new-
yorks-neighborhood-coyotes.html)

[http://abc7chicago.com/archive/7945162/](http://abc7chicago.com/archive/7945162/)

------
jameshart
When I was in Iceland, my tourguide told me the joke:

\- What do you do if you are lost in an Icelandic forest? \- Stand up.

~~~
SeanDav
Judging by the photo of those tiny 13 year-old pine trees planted in 2004 -
that is not a joke, but a statement of fact.

------
b1gnasty
I spent years working in the forestry industry in Canada planting trees. The
first picture says a lot in respect to why the process might be going slowly
for them. It is an athletic endeavour that takes efficient tools and the
mindset to endure a lot of suffering. It says they are planting 3 million
trees a year; that is a tiny amount. I've worked with many planters who have
planted over a million trees themselves. Here's a link to a picture of what an
effective treeplanter looks like:
[https://i0.wp.com/hardcoretreeplanters.com/wp/wp-
content/upl...](https://i0.wp.com/hardcoretreeplanters.com/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/www-replant-ca_2015_alberta_011.jpg?resize=700%2C467)

~~~
CanSpice
If you haven't read it already, you may be interested in Eating Dirt, a book
about planting trees in BC:
[http://charlottegill.com/?page_id=10](http://charlottegill.com/?page_id=10)

~~~
b1gnasty
Yep, I have read it and I have lived that life. A fairly accurate portrayal. I
have many, many stories from those years that will be fun to entertain the
grandkids with.

------
SiempreZeus
What drives me crazy is how they make 3 million trees sound like a lot. I am a
Forester and we typically plant over 600 trees per acre so 3 million is only
about 5,000 acres. Which is not a particularly large forest. Hell I have 5
times that in a moderately size metropolitan area.

A decent crew of 5 people can plant that in a few months.

I'm sure their prices are extremely high but we pay less than 10 cents a
seedling and that is for high end seedlings.

Planting doesn't cost much more than that either.

Once again I am sure it is different in a place that doesn't have a forestry
industry, but if it is a national priority they could make it happen.

~~~
therealdrag0
> They are now grown as saplings at greenhouses in Iceland, because importing
> live trees is prohibited.

I wonder why they can't import live trees and if they could accelerate the
process if they could.

------
amorphid
> As a result, Iceland is a case study in desertification, with little or no
> vegetation, though the problem is not heat or drought. About 40 percent of
> the country is desert, Dr. Halldorsson said. “But there’s plenty of rainfall
> — we call it ‘wet desert.’”

At first I thought it was an error to call an area that gets plenty of rain a
desert. I thought desert was strictly defined by the amount of rainfall. But
maybe that's not correct. The wikipedia article on desert states...

"Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the
temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their
geographical location." [1]

I wonder if there's a stricter definition used in a specific scientific
context.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert)

~~~
will_brown
There is a very famous race series for runners called the 4 Deserts. One race,
called the Last Desert, takes place in Antarctica. It may surprise you, like
it did me - in fact blew my mind - to learn Antarctica is the largest desert
in the World.

~~~
cromulent
Antarctica also has the McMurdo dry valleys with no snow or ice.

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mcmurdo-dry-
valleys](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mcmurdo-dry-valleys)

------
SeanDav
OT:

Now that is an example of an article's photos done right! Not at all
intrusive, like those horrible scrolling photos that are so popular on various
sites and some great effects of zooming and pull-back, plus a convenient
slide-show (With Captions) by clicking on a photo - Well Done NYT!

...and here is an example of how not to do it:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-
sh/sold_for_a_song](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-
sh/sold_for_a_song)

------
interfixus
Possibly worth remembering: Iceland (and Greenland, where the vikings hung on
until the fourteen hundreds) had significantly warmer climate a milennium ago.

~~~
zeristor
Indeed the little ice age of the middle ages is what made Greenland
uninhabitable.

Birch is a pioneer species, they produce millions of seeds a year, they chased
the retreating ice cap as melted northwards in Europe.

It would appear they need to be planted out, perhaps they need soil to take.
Otherwhise it should be a fairly simple case of just broadcasting billions of
birch seeds over Iceland.

~~~
avar
Greenland didn't become uninhabitable during the little ice age, there's
people living now in Greenland descended from people who survived that
supposedly uninhabitable country.

The Norse colony got wiped out, but it's unknown whether that was because of
war, famine or some other reason. We just know life would have been hardier in
those years.

What little we do know suggests that they were unwilling to learn the
traditional lifestyle from the natives, and the country became uninhabitable
for anyone insisting on only using Norse farming methods.

~~~
interfixus
Perhaps worth noting that the natives got wiped out too. Modern Greenlanders
are descended from people arriving on the scene well _after_ the Scandinavians
did.

~~~
avar
What I meant was that at the time the Norse disappeared there were other
people in Greenland living in far harsher conditions, as the map accompanying
this article shows:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_cultural_periods)

I think you're thinking about Dorset culture which arrived in the south of
Greenland after the Norse disappeared, but as the map shows when the Norse
disappeared the Thule culture coexisted with them in Greenland far in the
north where conditions were worse.

Which shows you that the problem was not that the area was uninhabitable, but
that the Norse didn't have the knowledge or desire to survive there.

~~~
interfixus
Hanging on for 400 years hardly constitutes not having _knowledge or desire
how to survive there_.

~~~
avar
They arrived in a period where the weather was particularly good, and
proceeded to just practice the same sort of farming that they were used to in
Scandinavia and Iceland.

But there's no indication that they were actively contacting the native
population to learn their hunting techniques, such as how to build kayaks and
hunt marine mammals, or venture under the ice to gather mussels[1] etc.

Which, to bring this thread around to the original point being made, doesn't
suggest that "Greenland [was] uninhabitable", just that a population of people
had arrived that didn't know how to make use of it.

You might be able to transport a tribe from the middle of the Amazon to
northern Greenland today and them not being able to survive, or the other way
around. That doesn't mean that either place is uninhabitable.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA)

------
terda12
Just wanted to say, props to NYT for the beautifully designed article.

~~~
eatonphil
This is one of the coolest articles I've ever seen. The subtle high-res videos
are a really great complement to the content.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
And they lagged like nobodies business when they were loading despite having
11Mbps down all to myself.

~~~
krallja
11Mbps is less than half the FCC's definition of broadband: 25Mbps down.

~~~
peeters
IIRC Netflix's absolute highest bitrate is 15.6 Mbps (for 4k). This is ~5
seconds of much less than 4k.

~~~
the8472
> 15.6 Mbps (for 4k)

That must be laughable quality. 1080p blurays easily clock in at more than
22Mbit/s for grainy content, the spec allows 40Mbit/s. And that's not even
including the audio. UHD discs must deliver at least 82Mbit/s.

And a lot of content is not even using the things that UHD standards allow to
deliver (4:4:4 chroma instead of 4:2:0, higher framerates). So even if they're
delivering in HEVC is suspect that the compression is not source-transparent.

~~~
peeters
Netflix has pretty good compression but yeah this is why I canceled my 4k
subscription when they announced they were raising prices. I think 4k is
currently $4/mo more and I have a gigabit connection. If they are going to
charge 30% more for the privilege they shouldn't compress it to the point
where it's not appreciably different from upscaling 1080p.

Streaming services really frustrate me for that reason. I get that bandwidth
costs money but when e.g. Play Movies advertises a movie rental for $5 but
when that actually means $5 for SD (who the hell even uses SD) but $10 for UHD
when it's compressed to shit, what service are you actually providing me?

------
akeck
Maybe take an page from the Easter Islander playbook: Build vast networks of
rock wall closed cells. Wind blowing over these will tend to deposit some of
its soil. Bonus points if the walls are high enough to keep out sheep. ;-)

~~~
zackmorris
Many islands are deserts because they don't have high enough elevation to
catch moisture. In Hawaii a guy planted trees along a ridge line to pull
moisture from the clouds and converted the climate. I can't remember his name
or which island it was, this might be it:

[http://www.visitmauiblog.com/blog/pine-trees-
lanai/](http://www.visitmauiblog.com/blog/pine-trees-lanai/)

~~~
ransom1538
The island was lanai, HI. The ferry from maui to lanai during sunset is life
changing.

Trees: [https://everything-everywhere.com/the-pine-trees-of-
lanai/](https://everything-everywhere.com/the-pine-trees-of-lanai/)

------
chimen
In Romania we're losing 150 acres/day (or 60 ha) to illegal cutting done by
some german and austrian corporations.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/21/holzindu...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/21/holzindustrie-
schweighofer-austrian-timber-firm-accused-of-illegal-logging)

~~~
farseer
I think regrowing forests in Romania would be an easier task than Iceland,
nevertheless its worth preserving what you have.

------
OldSchoolJohnny
Jesus, I read that and realized no one there understands how forest succession
works. You can't go from nothing to giant trees, there's a whole host of
stages in between.

~~~
spraak
Yeah, or if they do the article didn't convey that. I left the article feeling
angry about that - no mention of canopy etc.

~~~
rando444
While maybe not understood by the general public, these facts are well
understood by the individuals that work in this sector.

------
btilly
[https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-
Rev...](https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-
Revised/dp/0143117009) by Jared Diamond goes into substantially more detail
about why Iceland was so environmentally sensitive and what the damage was. It
is well worth reading.

------
xhedley
I took a holiday trip to Norway recently and parts looked like Scotland ...
but with trees. I was told this was due to Norwegians no longer keeping goats
since the 1950s. The before and after landscape photographs are striking.
[http://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blog/reforestation-in-
nor...](http://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blog/reforestation-in-norway-
showing-what%E2%80%99s-possible-in-scotland-and-beyond)

------
vitro
I've seen a write up of a test where tons of orange peels have been dumped and
spread over big area [1]. After 16 years, ecologists returned only to find
abundant flora at the areas covered with peels. Maybe to try this approach?

[1] [http://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-
peels-...](http://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-
national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now)

~~~
mark-r
Great idea! Only problem is the need for large quantities of bio-waste that
can be economically transported to the site.

This also seems like a zero-sum problem, since the soil where the orange peels
were grown is probably declining in proportion to the gains it produced
elsewhere.

~~~
vitro
Of course, it makes sense only if peels or another organic material would rot
in some dump area where it rots without any benefit.

------
mythz
The most interesting part of this article is its amazing photography.

~~~
lucaspiller
Yeah this is one place where the autoplay videos are well done. Still, it
would be nice to have a way to turn it off, if you are on a limited data
connection.

~~~
mitchtbaum
I can only think how to disable it using uMatrix. Sadly, that's not a setting
to apply anywhere in a browser, like Webpage Media Size Limits or something.
Perhaps uMatrix developers could help by adding a feature in its Options next
to Privacy tab for Media.

------
partycoder
Once the trees are removed, erosion happens, followed by lost of topsoil.
Topsoil is an ecosystem in its own, with microorganisms and small animals.
Just replanting a tree will not regenerate that. Agriculture faces a similar
problem.

Then, forests are much more than just trees. There are all sort of plants,
insects, fungi, etc.

------
EGreg
If more countries took reforestation seriously, then maybe our carbon
footprint would diminish. And also, we should put this much effort into
combating desertification. Make vertical farms instead of chopping trees down
and wringing every last bit out of the soil.

------
rootbear
I was in Iceland recently and was told that if you see a tree over 3m tall, it
was planted. And we heard this Icelandic joke: "If you are lost in a forest in
Iceland, don't forget to stand up."

------
zeristor
So is this a case of terraforming Iceland?

~~~
ainiriand
I find quite interesting how we plan on terraform and colonize Mars when we
can't even grow trees on Iceland.

~~~
skj
The farm lobby isn't standing in the way of terraforming Mars.

~~~
gerbilly
Well maybe by the time we get there it will.

The thing about mars is that we can't just export the parts of society we like
and leave out the rest.

When humans colonize a new 'utopia', we tend to bring all the normal human
problems with us too.

~~~
zaroth
I think at least some basic tenants may be broken once you get to inhabiting a
second _planet_!

~~~
skj
(tenets!)

~~~
zaroth
Both even

------
Alex3917
Maybe there should be some sort of global chaga tax to fund birch
reforestation. If a few bucks was added to every Amazon order or whatever then
that would at least help out a bit.

~~~
mitchtbaum
That rewards those who can creatively find a way to shop at Amazon despite
taxes more so than it rewards those who can creatively plant trees despite
every other hurdle to do so.

~~~
Alex3917
I was proposing a chaga tax, not an Amazon tax. I was just using Amazon as an
example of a retailer since they sell it.

~~~
mitchtbaum
I thought chaga was a typo. Do you mean "chaga" the mushroom?

Anyway, I meant my point about a key problem in general with trying to use
taxes to fund important development projects.

~~~
Alex3917
> Do you mean "chaga" the mushroom?

Yes, because it only grows on birch trees, but harvesting the mushroom can
damage the trees. That was sort of the point. :-)

~~~
mitchtbaum
Ah. So, who on Iceland cultivates chaga mushrooms? What ongoing efforts might
they have that overlap with the birch foresters? (connecting the dots)

~~~
Alex3917
It can't be cultivated, it just grows wherever there are birch trees. So
planting more birch would just mitigate any effects of over harvesting
elsewhere, while increasing the global supply.

------
Myrmornis
It's strange to me that tourists and the film industry find the landscape
beautiful because of its lack of trees.

------
setsquared
This will be an interesting experement and I wonder what wildlife it will
bring back and any damage it will reverse

------
Companion
Good for them, I think this is a great way to help the fight against climate
change and regenerate their ecosystem. Who doesn’t like trees?

------
ccozan
Is this a case where robots could do almost all work?

Define an area, load the saplings and send the robot to bore holes, put the
sapling, fill, repeat.

~~~
ccozan
I don't understand the downvotes. Can someone explain?

Is a valid question, looking for an answer from a person with more knowledge.

~~~
arnarbi
Because it isn't a problem with planting. That's very easy, and people
volunteer to do it. When I was a kid (I'm Icelandic) we'd go on field trips
and plant hundreds.

The problem is keeping the growth alive.

~~~
mar77i
You sound like you doubt the viability of automated and distributed tree
planting which may be more statistically significant? I get your point that
hundreds may not do, what about hundreds of thousands, then?

Let's agree that we can't know as long as nobody tried. And you're right, we
don't have the numbers on how the survivorship ratio in larger magnitudes
would behave, it might just shrink to ridiculously small. But then again the
soil would be slightly "improved" by a dead sapling, maybe even increasing the
chances for another try?

~~~
arnarbi
> You sound like you doubt the viability of automated and distributed tree
> planting which may be more statistically significant? I get your point that
> hundreds may not do, what about hundreds of thousands, then?

No, my point was that if the solution is increased numbers, it's already cheap
and viable to get humans to do it rather than deploying expensive tech.

(By hundreds, I meant hundreds for each group of 3 school kids in one
afternoon.)

> Let's agree that we can't know as long as nobody tried.

I don't even know that nobody tried. I'm sure the actual experts (as opposed
to us armchair ones) thought of it.

------
Pica_soO
I guess planting poisonous bushes to protect tree seedlings is out of the
question?

------
Robotbeat
I wonder if massive temporary greenhouses over sections of the land would help
get trees established. It'd protect areas from wind (erosion), sheep, and cold
temperatures until the soil was remediated and the trees were high enough to
avoid hungry sheep. They already grow saplings in greenhouses.

~~~
TheCowboy
There are lots of solutions if scarcity of resources is not a problem.
Building massive temporary greenhouses is likely limited by the economics:
importing any materials, constructing them to be able to survive strong winds,
irrigation, limiting life cycle CO2 emissions, and other issues unique to
greenhouses.

Since they grow saplings in greenhouses and take those out into the world,
greenhouse space is likely economically constrained. It seems optimal to start
a bunch of trees, and send them on their way, and keep the process going.

They currently have a ban on imports of live trees, and lack restrictions on
sheep grazing (learned per other comments on this post). These things alone
might be less costly than constructing lots of temporary structures.

------
kingkawn
Loss of symbiotic soil bacterial cultures?

~~~
mitchtbaum
Loss of grass, afaict. They can't grow it back quickly enough to support the
trees, because (1) native species grow slowly in arctic climates and state
blocks potentially useful imports (2) loose sheep eat up young plants.

------
zeveb
As an aside, all the images are blurry with NoScript. Any idea how to get
around this without enabling JavaScript (and bringing in all of its issues)?

~~~
robin_reala
If you’re OK with pixellated then add to your user CSS:

    
    
      .image img.g-lazy { filter: none !important; }
    

If you want the originals and can run user JS then something like:

    
    
      window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',() => {
        document.querySelectorAll('.media-viewer-candidate').forEach(el => {
          el.src = el.dataset['mediaviewer-src']
        })
      })

------
mitchtbaum
<tldr>

> When Iceland was first settled at the end of the ninth century, much of the
> land on or near the coast was covered in birch woodlands.

> The settlers slashed and burned the forests to grow hay and barley, and to
> create grazing land. They used the timber for building and for charcoal for
> their forges. By most accounts, the island was largely deforested within
> three centuries.

> The lack of trees, coupled with the ash and larger pieces of volcanic rock
> spewed by eruptions, has led to severe soil erosion.

> The [recovery] process usually begins with lyme grass, which grows quickly
> and can stabilize the soil. Lupine, with its spiky purple flowers, is often
> next. The trees come later.

> Mr. Jonsson and his volunteers then plant the appropriate species for the
> plot — birch, Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine, Russian larch or other species.
> “We’d love to plant aspen,” he said. “But sheep really love aspen.”

> With vegetation unable to gain much of a foothold, farming and grazing have
> been next to impossible in many parts of the country. And the loose soil,
> combined with Iceland’s strong winds, has led to sandstorms that can further
> damage the land — and even blast the paint off cars.

> No one expects that one-quarter of Iceland will ever be covered in forests
> again. But given slow growth rates and the enormity of the task, even more
> modest gains will take a long time, Mr. Thorvaldsson said.

> “The aim now is that in the next 50 years we might go up to 5 percent,” he
> said. “But at the speed we’re at now, it would take 150 years to do that.”

------
diego_moita
For someone that lived in tropical places it is very awkward to see those
videos on Iceland Air flights promoting tourism to Iceland and advertising its
"rugged beauty", with lots of glaciers, geysers, volcanoes and ugly cold
beaches with black sand.

Sorry Icelanders, you seem to be lovely people but your country looks very
ugly, barren, dead, sad and desolate. I can't see natural beauty without life.

~~~
rconti
Upvoted because you're welcome to your opinion and I'm a bit sad to see this
buried.

You should visit. That doesn't mean you'll like it, but it's the most amazing
place I've ever been. On the final approach to KEF, I looked out the window
and all I could say was "no way". It's like nothing else. I found it
absolutely stunningly gorgeous, and loved the place. It's at the top of my
list of places to go back to -- over and over. There's life everywhere. The
people are wonderful, there are animals everywhere, there are grasses and
mosses and all kinds of life. So some of your statements are opinions, and
others are merely factually wrong.

I've only been a few tropical places, but frankly, I don't like them. Humidity
is like hell on earth. I get as much enjoyment out of a cold black sand beach
as a warm white sand one -- it bores the piss out of me to lay on a beach and
do nothing, so I'm no more likely to spend time on a "nice" beach than on an
"ugly" one. In fact I'd more happily spend an hour on a black sand beach
photographing ice formations and looking for puffins than sitting in a beach
chair sipping a pina colada.

