How Modernity Contributes to Forest Fires

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Eat Mutton, Wear Wool, Heat with Wood: Traditional Ways to Stop Wildfires – The European Conservative

The people want more from the government than conveniently scapegoating ‘global warming,’ as Spanish President Pedro Sanchez has done. Locals, forestry experts, farmers, and ecologists are calling not only for more state resources dedicated to forest management, but also for a return of traditional rural activities that had prevented uncontrollable forest fires for centuries, particularly extensive cattle grazing.

In extensive cattle farming, cows, goats, and sheep eat from low to high pastures through the seasons, including in forests, their appetites doing the heavy lifting of ridding the forest floor of excessive vegetation that otherwise dies, dries out, and becomes fuel for fires. It was practised for centuries in Spain.

Back before industrialization, a lot more land was grazed on than today and evergreen forest usually started at 1500 meters (varies by local climate). People used pretty much everything from the forest so there wasn't much of the undergrowth. With industrialization, the evergreen forest, especially the spruce, started replacing deciduous trees as they grow faster and are more useful in industrial application. The manpower intensive underbrush clearing/exploitation ceased as there was no manpower left, as the young left the hard rural work for less hard work in mines and factories. The hill/mountain farmers also couldn't keep up the competition with lowland farms that are more conductive towards industrial farming, so more and more land was abandoned and left to be grown over by the forest.

For illustration, the are of modern day Slovenia, had less than 20% forest coverage at the start of 19th century, now it exceeds 55% and much of it is spruce including the areas below 1500 meters, thanks to doctrine of monoculture forestation, dating back to AustroHungary, while 300 years ago beech and oak dominated. As a forest enjoyer, I don't see a large scale deforestation as the answer, but gradual replacement of lower area spruce and fir with trees that are supposed to be there (multi decade project), de-bureaucratization of certain land use practices and a move to greater national self sufficiency.
 

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