Forestry in an Egg Shell

Eggs occasionally receive a bad rap. "Cholesterol death bombs" was one headline in the 1970's, and eggs are commonly identified as the source of salmonella poisoning scares even now. However, with the exception of badly prepared meals, eggs are seen as a healthy and sound food source, and certainly of superior value to artificial alternatives. Up until the late 1960's it was not uncommon for suburban households, even in a metropolis like Sydney, to run a few chickens around their backyard - great for dealing with table scraps, providing a regular source of wholesome breakfasts, and serving as the main course in the occasional celebratory dinner. Purchasing eggs in the shops during this time was relatively expensive, and getting a chicken to roast from the butchers was a Christmas or birthday treat. But in the 1970's, the "economies of scale"  were introduced to chicken and egg production. Suddenly, battery farms could produce eggs for market that were cheaper than raising them yourself and chicken -roasted or deep fried - became the mainstay of cheap "fast" food. Backyard coupes, no longer needed, disappeared as houses covered more of the block and our population feasted on cheap chicken and eggs.

I believe plantations are battery forests, the equivalent to the battery farm goal that focuses attention on cheap and intensive production of a good.

It has taken a couple of decades, but the true costs of the transfer to battery farming have come home to roost (sorry - just had to use that pun!). Financial costs, health costs, social costs and moral costs. Battery farming is intensive and uses disproportional quantities of energy, water and nutrients compared to the traditional backyard coop. To control diseases in the crowded conditions, battery producers include "preventative" antibiotics, while mega-doses of vitamins make those saleable orange yolks. No doubt, battery produced eggs are still better for human consumption than many alternative foods, but despite the chemical and drug additions the battery eggs tend to be worse for health than backyard eggs. For example, battery eggs have higher levels of "bad" cholesterol levels compared to those produced by chickens free to forage for insects and grubs on the open ground. Chickens also taught generations of children about life, nurture and death - they were probably the original "birds" in the stories about the birds and the bees! Children learn even as they enjoy being around free range chickens.

The "costs" of the pain and suffering of the caged chickens has more recently come into the equation. More consumers are moving away from cheap battery eggs to demand "free range" and less morally stained eggs produced from chickens free to roam over hectares of land.

So, how does this relate to the forest? Centuries ago, forests were essentially the "back yards" of the human populations. With no intensive management, humans took their daily needs of fuelwood, building material and even foods from the extent of the forest. Children and their parents were linked into the natural world of life and death; birth or regeneration; and the complex interaction of the living things. The forest users were the forest dwellers and they saw how the forest grew, how it responded to damage, how it produced goods and services that could be treasured and safely used. Fast forward to the late 1900's when "battery forests" or industrial plantations were touted to replace the extensively managed "free range" forests. The children moved out of their backyards even as wood became cheap. Are we suffering the same sort of losses as experienced with the loss of the backyard chicken coop?

Like battery farms, battery forests use a disproportionate amount of water, nutrients and energy compared to the older "backyard" or extensively managed alternatives. Plantations have to grow fast to be a commercial success, and that means adding fertiliser and water. Now, legislation and regulations are in place in many states to limit where battery forests can be established and so minimise their use of ground water.

Our urban populations do not interact with these new forests and are increasingly isolated from the old forests so they no longer know how quickly a tree can grow or the conditions trees need to set seed and successfully regenerate. They no longer know which animals use what habitats provided by the trees, or even that these very habits change over time, growing and decaying with the tree. When backyards ceased to house chickens and compost heaps and places for children to learn and grow, these places were re-tasked, built over, or left to grow weeds and "store" junk. Will our forest lands suffer the same as children no longer walk through them or use them? Already the Australian Government's much vaunted "Green Army" is often reduced to cleaning up weeds and litter in the backyard forests that urban populations no longer care about or venture into.

But, don't get confused. The products from these plantations are still vastly superior to artificial alternatives just as any egg is better than junk or snack food. Wood as a building material, even from plantations, consumes far less energy to produce than plastic, steel or brick even while it stores carbon in a long-term pool. Paper produced from a plantation similarly is the result of less energy and pollution than paper produced from agricultural residues or non-biotic (and exhaustible) alternatives. Even fuel produced by plantations (fuelwood, biofuel) causes less damage than non-biotic sources, or sources that release the CO2 that was removed from the earth's carbon cycle millennia ago.

Unlike chickens, trees don't obviously look stressed when forced to grow in battery situations. But trees do suffer stress - growth stress. Eucalytpt trees in particular exhibit stress when grown quickly. This stress is 'released' once they are sawn into structural timber. But the release can be explosive with the boards twisting and bending, and ending up useless as a building material. In contrast, trees grown in the extensive backyard forests produce stronger and more attractive structural materials.

The cost of egg and chicken production has changed dramatically over time. The value of the product has also changed even while the production process cycled from extensive to intensive and back. But there will always now be a mix of the free range backyard and the battery chicken. Will the value of forest products and the process similarly change as management cycles from extensive to intensive plantations, and maybe back again? What is balance between extensively managed forests and battery forests, and how do we get there?

Arboreal habitat

What could be nicer than seeing a pigmy possum or beautiful bird curled up in a nest, high in a hollow in a tree? But, isn't it a good thing trees don't whimper.

How would we enjoy watching all those birds and cute animals snuggled in their tree hollow nests if we also heard the trees crying over their wounds? Trees that stand proud with thick protective bark defending against damage do not provide the hollows for colourful birds. Trees that stand tall with branches still limber enough to defy gravity without breaking do not provide the nests for our cute arboreal mammals. Insects and spiders may shelter in the fissures of bark, but as far as a house for those birds and animals, such healthy and strong trees are worthless.

Hollows for nests are formed when the defensive shield is breached and the inner wood exposed. Trees will fight to seal the breach with kino, gum or resin, but when decay fungi or insects get a breach head established then the rot sets in (literally). Unfortunately, the rot doesn't stop when a cavity big enough for a nest is created - the decay can extend into the very Heartwood of the tree and ultimately lead to its collapse.

A tree that could manage to never suffer the loss of a branch or a wound in its defensive shield of bark might actually live forever. It would look majestic too, at least to the humans it would tower above. But it would not provide a home for many birds and animals. 

Foresters of the 1940's, 50's and 60's thought their job was to grow majestic trees. They cleared away the wounded trees that had lost the fight against rot and damage. They ensured the offsprings of those trees had room to soar without breaking themselves against older neighbouring trees. They kept the fires away or allowed them to burn so cool that the bark barriers were not breached. The trees grew: healthy and undamaged. But increasingly now we realise that they also grew without the hollows. In Victoria, the possum emblem of the State is increasingly homeless as the trees with hollows collapse when their hearts rot away but the new generation stays too solid. 

Do we need now to wound these majestic trees to make the homes for our cutest animals? Should the foresters of the 1900's have been more careless and ensured trees were damaged to help ensure future habitat for birds and animals? Or did they do the right thing and expect only to make future homes for humans out of a half century of healthily growing trees?

Hot ice or Hot air?

In a recent journal opinion piece, I argued that there were 2 substantial groups of people: those who disbelieve or even fear mathematics and those who believed unreservedly in mathematics. The first group use their feelings or instincts when deciding on a plan of action, and according to pioneers in expert systems, no numbers will be able to change a gut conclusion. I argued that former Prime Minister John Howard represents many people in this first group when he told a conference in England earlier this year that there is no reason to act on climate change because "in his gut" he does not believe it will be bad. Australia's current Prime Minister is probably in the same camp and simply disbelieves the mathematics that say climate change will severely affect agriculture and the Australian way of life. Those who 'believe' in mathematics on the other hand cannot questions the results of mathematical models or statistical analyses because it is like questioning your God. These people too cannot be swayed, even if the mathematics is a simplification of reality.

I thought a Forum hosted by the Fenner School for Environment and Society might have been following a similar argument with its title of "Climate Change - Why facts and opinions are both important." I thought the people who "believe" in mathematics would be on the side of facts and the "gut thinkers" would champion opinion. But as I listened to a member of the audience state that she disbelieved the idea of global warming because it was all about CO2 and solid CO2 (hot ice) is really cold, I realised that this Forum had presented a false dichotomy. It is not facts or opinions, or even facts versus opinions. She knew a fact - hot ice is in deed very cold and is made from the material scientists are warning us about. The whole climate change debate reduces itself to opinions about what facts matter.

When talk turns to "what facts matter" or are what facts are important, we enter the realm of the philosophy of science. Most scientists, and in fact many others, are familiar with the great science philosopher Karl Popper. According to Popper, useful facts or observations are those that falsify or disprove a hypothesis or conjecture. Simply concurring with a hypothesis or falling to reject the null hypothesis in a statistical test does not advance science. But there are an infinite number of hypotheses or conjectures that scientists could attempt to falsify and thus advance science - how do scientists choose which ones should be studied? Is it simply a matter of opinion or gut feeling about what to study? Some passionate debaters claim scientists only attempt to study things that bring in money or bring down hard working industries like tobacco and coal.

Another great philosopher - Thomas Kuhn - whose work may have largely been ignored in this debate, has a view on important scientific questions. Simply, Kuhn concluded that what is considered "proven" and what is scientifically important to question is largely constructed from the opinion of scientists who agree as to what is "working" and what isn't. Essentially, the scientific community would ignore potential work on fields of endeavour that they feel are good enough, i.e. where the underpinning models and theories work and do not contain inconsistencies. However, if those theories begin to produce inconsistencies or are incompatible with the knowledge gained through other scientific advances, they may be called into question. If the inconsistencies continue to mount, the theories may be found wanting and it then becomes important to find something better, something without those weaknesses. If there is a sufficient consensus that a new theory is better, then the old  theory is overturned in an event called a paradigm shift - the king is dead, long live the king!

In the climate debate then there are both opinions and 'facts', mathematics and gut feelings. Climate scientists have almost unanimously concluded that the previous theories of stability, homeostasis and lack of human impact have been overturned - that there is a paradigm shift. Others however, believe that the new theory is not adequate and that flaws remain which, in their opinion, are sufficient to deny the new theory being classified as 'true' - the king is dead, long live ...who? And there are those who refuse to accept that those old theories had important flaws in the first place and so didn't require a paradigm shift - the king isn't dead, death to the pretender!

Where does this leave science and climate change? What will convince those who feel in their gut that a paradigm shift is not needed? John Howard believed in his gut that there was no problem, and it appears that so does Tony Abbot. On the other hand, Family First researchers called up the "fact" that crop production was at an all time high at the same time as CO2 concentrations are also at an all time high and therefore, with a touching belief that numbers don't lie, conclude that rising CO2 is good for the world's food and endangered ecosystems - no shift needed.

What can scientists do to convince those who believe in their gut or unquestioningly in their set of numbers that the paradigm has changed? It is too big to be resolved by Popper's approach, although advancing through falsification is still critical to build up the little steps involved in a paradigm shift. It will have to be something dramatic, something beyond tests where p<0.05 to change a gut.

Scientists need to pick better hypotheses to dramatically falsify.

Impossible things that trees do

My city - Canberra - has been celebrating Tree Week in the lead up to National Tree Day on Sunday 27th July, 2014. I am not sure who decides on these national celebration dates, but I am happy that trees have their own day.

As part of Tree Week, I was invited to make a presentation during celebrations at the National Arboretum of Canberra, and thought I would let the trees themselves show off - demonstrating things they do using only the energy from the sunlight that falls on them that humans can only wonder at. I certainly had fun with that presentation, but I may have gone just a little far with my descriptions of the marvels of trees if the newspaper reports are anything to go by - awed gasps and impassioned sermons?! 

One of the examples I provided was about the (theoretical) ability of trees to grow almost as tall as the Black Mountain Tower (an icon in Canberra) while using only sunlight and simultaneously sequestering over 15000 t of CO2. Humans on the other hand needed over 350 t of reinforcing steel, 1930 t of concrete and emitted over 1700 t of CO2 to build their tower (admittedly in a much shorter time than my hypothetical tree!). While these boring numbers might not have generated awed gasps, the accompanying video footage certainly did -  you can feel both the height that the biggest currently standing trees can get to and see the Tower and its role in the city.

So, particularly on National Tree Day, don't just walk past a tree as if it is just a common ordinary sort of thing - it produces material that is stronger than steel, can pump water from 400 feet below the ground or to 400 feet above the ground, maintain hundreds or thousands of other living species in their crowns and roots, and make humans feel safer and healthier just by looking at them. They can do all these things with air, water and sunlight. Yeah trees! 

The value of a plastic tree

"What is the value of a plastic tree?", was believe it or not, the name of a course I completed as part of my PhD studies in Northern America. They had this idea, very foreign to Australian universities, that there should be some philosophy in a Philosophy Doctorate. I was a little disappointed that the course did not cover too much in the way of trees, but we did explore the concept of value in depth. 

What is the value of a duplicate that is indistinguishable from an original? I imagine the artistic community struggles with this question when dealing with really good forgeries. In fact, I understand that some forgeries now may be more valuable that the originals because of the skill of the forger! Does the value of the copy depend on the value of the original; the fame of the person creating the copy; or amount of effort or training required to spot the "fake"?

In Australia, many forests are highly prized for their wilderness and old growth qualities. The recent World Heritage listing in Tasmania revolved around the wilderness, old growth and biodiversity values of the forest. Commentators were ecstatic in their appreciation of these magnificent forests which had been undisturbed by European colonisers and their descendants. These forests should obviously have great value. Now I am very happy to acknowledge that old growth and ancient forests have great value - even greater than the value of the Old Masters. But, the old growth and wilderness forests in this debate are fakes. 

One only has to have a little understanding of forest ecology and the opportunity to visit, before it becomes obvious that these forests had been commercially harvested and otherwise subject to extensive human impact. City-dwellers, who have been known to confuse commercial plantations of Pinus radiata with native forests may not quickly identify the fake, but the presence of stumps cut by axe or chainsaw and historic maps of extensive harvesting patterns, mean that very little effort would be needed to eventually spot the fake. So then, is the value due to the person/making the fake?

Those forests may have been able to "fake" being old growth, wilderness and biodiverse because the Foresters and loggers ensured their impacts resulted in adequate and appropriate regeneration. Not a trivial exercise, especially given the extremely different demands by the eucalypts (pioneer) and rainforest (successional) tree species in Tasmania. Many experts would have difficulty identifying the species and structural mixes caused by good forest silviculture and "natural" disturbance. But unfortunately in modern Australia, few people value the skill of these who can copy wilderness, old growth and biodiversity - enrolment of domestic students in professional Forestry programs continues to decline.

So, is it only the value of the original that counts, and any copy, no matter how poor and how easily distinguishable from the original, is valuable? Plantations then should be considered valuable for their old growth and wilderness contributions even as they have commercial value for the renewable products they produce. Maybe this is true in modern Australia - the National Arboretum of Canberra consists of about 100 "forests" of about 2 ha each, designed so that when standing in the middle of each forest all you can see is that forest. The architects envision that such a design will provide a feeling of peace, connection with nature and possibly even some "wilderness" value despite no natural (valuable) forest in the world ever looking these little 2 ha forests in Canberra. How many of the 1000 visitors / day to the National Arboretum will realise or even care that these forests are very poor mimics of "real" forests? How many will equate these fake forests with "real" forests, and does that result in a relative increase in the value of the fake or a decrease in the value of the original? 

Are any of the "forests" or landscapes in the attendant collage valuable? They are all elaborate fakes developed over 5 - 100 years from land cleared or degraded due to mining and grazing. What makes these fakes valuable ...and which is most valuable?

Why did that philosophy course only train me in asking questions about the value of a fake forest?

A win ...but not as we know it!

What does a scientist do when a popular decision is made but the reasons don't match the science?

Recently, the Australian Commonwealth Government tried to reverse 70,000 ha of the 170,000 ha  "minor boundary modification" in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area. The request was turned down in under 10 minutes to the great joy of "the conservation groups", and political one-liners rang out that the Wilderness had been saved and no more 90 m tall trees would be destroyed by the money-grubbing Government.

But the case wasn't about 90 m tall trees and wilderness areas ...and just as well too as there weren't any in the disputed 70,000 ha. There were good reasons for the original nomination, including the improvement of linkages between other reserve areas and improving the security of the inner zone by restrictions around the periphery. Unfortunately, the original proponents must not have felt totally confident in their argument because it was pursued as a minor boundary modification, which it clearly was not, to reduce the effort and scrutiny of the application. If a more comprehensive assessment and application had been made, the inclusion of plantations and commercially managed forests within the zone could have been justified along scientifically rational grounds of connectivity and structural diversity. Instead, the presence of these types of forest was used as proof of bias, political extremism, poor data capture, or basic stupidity. Those who actually managed the forests knew these logged areas and plantations existed, and they knew that such areas can be vital for good habitat management at scale, but such rational argument was not called for in the minor boundary adjustment claim.

Similarly, a more comprehensive original case would have acknowledged that the "industry" who had the most to loose in the "minor modification" - specialty timbers - was not represented in the self-selected group of "industry and conservationists" promising peace if the addition were made. Political action groups make mileage out of the waste of industries which clear fall forests, but were happy to ignore an important value-adding industry which did not use clear fall. There was a token allowance of some otherwise unwanted land to this non-clear fall industry which did not include the trees of importance in modification proposal, but clearly no discussions were had with the relevant people. Again, rational solutions could be had and the speciality timber industry could have continued to be profitable without clear falling forests, but apparently that was not politically expedient.

And because of that lack of expediency, blogs and commentators are making confused claims about forestry leading to degradation and destruction yet simultaneously being worthy of wilderness classification. In amongst, there are claims that manufacturers of fine furniture and even wooden boats should have their livelihood confiscated because they were only catering to rich elites anyway.

Can you imagine the clamour and public breast beating if the current Government simply lodged a "minor amendment" and changed the boundaries back? They could of course talk to people who are not directly involved in using the area before making such a request.

Ironically I think a comprehensive case could have easily been made for the original World Heritage nomination without hiding behind a fictitious "minor boundary modification" claim. But such a case would have had considered and compromised with the specialty timber users who were ignored by those wanting a quick political solution. It could also have to have spelt out that commercially harvested forests are not destroyed and in fact continue to play vital roles in biodiversity and habitat management.

So, I cannot applaud this current outcome. And I expect political expediency, misinformation and outright lies will continue to dog the whole forestry and world heritage argument for electoral cycles to come.

A no-good experiment

I recently received an email asking me to comment on an ecological thinning experiment proposed for the Red Gum Forests of Victoria. The objective of the experiment is to qualify any ecological benefits of allowing the reallocation of resources (water, sunlight and nutrients) amongst trees by felling some and leaving others. The experiment was proposed after extensive die back of the Red Gum was observed and presumed to be due to over competition for limited water.

The person who sent me the email obviously believed that humans should not be interfering at all and included in their email messages like "serious concerns" for "a disruptive scientific experiment in a national park"; "commercial logging machinery fell[ing] large numbers of trees" and that the "trial could again open this forest, and others in Eastern Australia to logging". They obviously do not want to provide any avenue for commercial activity (or even machinery that could be used in a commercial activity) in the forest, presumably even if the experiment concluded that ecological thinning was beneficial to keeping trees alive and improving biodiversity. Their conclusion that "the trial could impact the forest’s natural ability to respond to variability and climate change", and that this was a bad thing, proved to me that they didn't really want my opinion as a scientist as they would never accept any argument not in favour of keeping manipulative humans out of the forest.

I have researched the "forests's natural ability to respond to variability and climate change". The response tends to be dominated by death and invasion by new species into an area - trees and other species die then something moves in to utilise the resources "freed up". It takes humans to "judge" whether such a response is "good" or "bad" - for example, most humans agree that the widespread deaths in Canada caused by the pine beetle explosion are a "bad outcome". The significant quantities of dead wood left behind the pine beetle may make things even "worse" as far as humans are concerned by increasing the risk of further pathogen or pest attack and large scale wild fire. And any new species coming in in response to the change will invariably be classified as "weeds", which is again a very human centric concept and really just a part of a forest's natural response. Thinning may reduce the build up of beetles by reducing stress on the remaining trees and thus improve those trees' ability to fight off attack. Similarly, thinning and removal of dead wood from the site may reduce the quantity of "food" that is providing a resource for pathogens and insects to exploit.

You might guess that, as a human scientist, I am not opposed to the ecologically thinning experiment in the Red Gum Forests. Provided it is a well designed experiment, I think we can learn some valuable things about the dynamics of the forests in the current stressful and varying environment. I am also not philosophically opposed to humans being involved in active management or intervention in our environment. I do not believe that intervention is automatically bad if there is the potential for it to be at least partially funded by product sales. But as I was thinking about my response to the original email request, I wondered if I was being consistent.

Not too long ago, I was troubled by a Government decision to allow mining exploration in a National Park. Similar to the above anti-experimenter, regardless of the outcome of the exploration I did not want large scale mining to proceed in that national park. Why am I comfortable with denying the creation of knowledge about mineral or energy reserves but uncomfortable with denying forest knowledge creation? The miners could claim that better knowledge of the reserves would allow better management, and maybe even more ecologically sound management if they found reserves that could be mined with less damage than in other areas. Although I doubt "the market" would allow the miners to close down a relatively harmful mine in response to opening a less harmful mine, my objection to mapping all the reserves would remove that remote opportunity altogether. But I think the main difference between these two scenarios is that a new mine in a National Park can, at best, damage the forest a little bit but at worse can damage it a lot, while the thinning experiment may at worse damage a few trees while at best may result in many trees retaining a healthy canopy cover and long term future. The risk of damage must be balanced again the potential gains and the risk that those potential reductions will not eventuate. I have little faith that mining exploration will ever lead to long term ecological benefit.

Finally, I must also admit that I have the (possibly naive) belief that the conclusions from the ecological thinning experiment will be interpreted and used by people who understand Science to lead to an improved environment. All too often though, scientific observations have been taken out of context, ignored or abused in an attempt to justify a preconceived action. While Climate Change denial is the current prime example of such abuse, such abuse does appear in many other places and may have led to general scepticism about politicians and company management. I suppose my anti-experimenter who started my thinking about this post is more honest than many - they don't really care what the science says, and therefore do not need an experiment or need to consider manipulation or abuse of its findings, because they believe it is "good" for man to leave the forest and just let things fall as they do. On the other hand, I think it is natural for humans to be in the forest and be a part of it ...taking and giving.