
There are more trees in the U.S. than there were 100 years ago - uladzislau
http://www.mnn.com//earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true
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davidw
> The average age of forests in the United States is younger than it was
> before European settlement. The greatest diversity is found in the oldest
> forests, so there may be more forest now, but because it is so young, it is
> home for fewer animals, plants, insects and other organisms than a fully
> developed, mature forest ecosystem. It also means that protecting old growth
> forests is imperative.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oregon,+USA/@43.8637703,-1...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oregon,+USA/@43.8637703,-122.4869927,1579m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x54936e7c9b9f6a55:0x7d4c65db7a0bb876)
\- you can see that there are more trees in the more recently clear cut
sections, and fewer in the older growth. Also, replanted sections tend to be a
monoculture of whatever commercially viable species is favored in an area.

It's easy to see land ownership from the satellite images:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oregon,+USA/@43.7673552,-1...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oregon,+USA/@43.7673552,-122.8719264,50616m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x54936e7c9b9f6a55:0x7d4c65db7a0bb876)

Forest service land to the east has been logged, but not quite as extensively
as the mixed private and BLM land to the west. The checkerboard pattern is
created by that mix of BLM and private land:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_%28land%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_%28land%29)

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iwwr
Wood was mostly used for fuel back then. The turn of the 20th century also
marked the end of the sailship era and the end of wood as a major element in
ship construction. Other uses for wood were sleepers for railways and whole
logs for utility poles. Incidentally, US aircraft carriers had wooden decks in
WW2 and wood was still an element in airplane construction.

In the last few decades chipboard furniture and managed tree farms further
reduced deforestation.

Keep in mind that the conditions US colonists found in the US: a massive,
dense, virgin forest were not natural. The massive depopulation of native
peoples allowed forests to grow thick and create the illusion of an
uninhabited land. Normally people manage the land, usually unintentionally
from just living on it.

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startswithaj
This is suprising but now compare this to rainforest devastation in the Amazon
and the rest of the world and I doubt we're in the positive overall which is
what logically counts.

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dalke
> "The greatest gains have been seen on the East Coast (with average volumes
> of wood per acre almost doubling since the '50s) which was the area most
> heavily logged by European settlers beginning in the 1600s, soon after their
> arrival."

I believe another reason is that the introduction of the railway shifted food
production to the plains and California. New England used to be farmland for
much of the US.

See [http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/31/new-england-
sees...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/31/new-england-sees-return-
forests-and-wildlife/lJRxacvGcHeQDmtZt09WvN/story.html) :

> Today, 80 percent of New England is covered by forest or thick woods. That
> is a far cry from the mere 30 to 40 percent that remained forested in most
> parts of the region in the mid-1800s, after early waves of settlers got done
> with their vast logging, farming, and leveling operations.

> Some of the revival can be credited to aggressive environmental efforts ...
> But the return of forests has mostly been a matter of economics: As New
> England became more citified and industrial, and food from western states
> became cheaper, there was less reason to maintain open land — much less
> blast every wild critter that might nibble a crop or gobble a goose.

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Retric
The number of trees increased, but the volume of wood decreased. Also of note,
older trees take up more space so land area is a better measure than tree
count.

~~~
claystu
At the same time, turning young trees into old trees isn't a very difficult
problem. Once the decision is made either by economics--farming is no longer
viable--or aesthetics to let the trees grow back, it's only a matter of time.

~~~
protomyth
"farming is no longer viable"

In the plain states, large rows of tree were planted for farming (e.g. shelter
belts). Many places trees exist today did not have trees pre-farming. This was
the great plains, not a forest region.

If farming is no longer viable then humans are no longer viable.

~~~
claystu
I wasn't saying that farming is no longer viable anywhere as a business. I was
saying that there are places, like my home state, that have seen a resurgence
of forest as farms have disappeared due to competition from elsewhere.

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megaman22
A vastly larger proportion of land was utilized a hundred years ago for
agriculture. I've seen photographs from the 1910s of my hometown which are
unrecognizable, except for the buildings, because most of the portions of the
hillsides and river intervale pieces were cleared and used for growing either
corn or grazing sheep and cattle. Now all of that area has grown up into
forest.

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claystu
North Carolina--East Coast state in USA--is basically contiguous forest once
you leave the downtown area of our few big cities. Farms and neighborhoods
still punctuate the landscape, but any land that isn't routinely maintained by
farming and mowing begins to revert back to woods very quickly.

~~~
bane
My guess also, looking at the number of farms-turned-to-subdivisions, parks
and green areas along the East Coast, is that better logistics and transport
has further improved the efficiency of distributing goods from megafarms in
the midwest, making the need for smaller and less efficient traditional
colonial-era farms obsolete.

At the same time, the midwest, especially the great plains area, were always
tree sparse.

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flohofwoe
This is also true in Germany and probably most other European countries, use
of timber for energy production and for mining and building purposes led to
devastated areas in Central Europe during the 16th to 18th centuries, this was
only reversed during the 19th century when coal and steel took over, and the
introduction of sustainable foresting. Since then forests are growing again,
with a few dips like after WW2.

Details (Selected Results of the 3rd National Forest Inventory):
[http://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/Publications/Fore...](http://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/Publications/ForestsInGermany-
BWI.pdf?__blob=publicationFile)

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kailuowang
There are 2.8* times more people in U.S. than 100 years ago.

* [http://www.mnforsustain.org/united_states_population_growth_...](http://www.mnforsustain.org/united_states_population_growth_graph.htm)

~~~
adventured
Which makes the vast tree recovery even more impressive.

