Comment by Arodex
10 hours ago
And you think the peatlands were natural? In France, in 1857, a stone's throw from Bordeaux?
It was already a huge product of human activity: the forest there was cut for firewood, great colds killed the rest in the XVIIe century and grazing sheeps kept it treeless. Pine was chosen because it is endemic and one of the few species able to grow on such poor soils, washed out by rain and sea salt.
You have to love all the people on this website giving advice on Europeans and Canadians on forest management, and that they should abandon any economic use of forests, while they see no problem with the rest of their economic choices fuelling global warming.
> And you think the peatlands were natural? In France, in 1857, a stone's throw from Bordeaux?
If it is indeed a question between "artificially forest" or "artificially peat", then pick what's most useful to humans at the moment: how much lumber is needed? Is resin tapping still important? How much more utility is that compared to having to deal with wildfires that seem to regularly rip through the area over the decades:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Landes_forest_fire
Does 100% of what is now forest 'have' to stay that way? Or 80%? 50?
> You have to love all the people on this website giving advice on Europeans and Canadians on forest management
1. I am Canadian.
2. The French themselves have considered doing something else besides the forest that is currently there:
* https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/08/16/mps-sho...
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02648...