Month: January 2019

I never see a forest that does not bear a mark or a sign of history.

Anselm Kiefer

• Toronto’s Unique Ravine System Under Threat (the Guardian)
• From Tree to Ski (the New York Times)
• Log Cabins? No, These Wooden Buildings Are High-Rises (the New York Times)
• Dakota Access pipeline developer misses year-end deadline to plant trees (the Guardian)
• U.S. Accuses Peru of Violating Agreement to Protect Rain Forest (the New York Times)
• The U.S. Should Get Tough on Timber With Peru (the New York Times)
• Joshua Tree national park announces closure after trees destroyed amid shutdown (the Guardian)
• Joshua Tree National Park’s Signature Trees Are Among Shutdown Victims (the New York Times)
• Do the Western national forests need to be liabilities? (Washington Examiner)
• Kate’s forest bathing, Harry’s meditating – wellness is a right royal fad (The Guardian)

From Wikipedia:

Yggdrasil (pronounced [ˈyɡːˌdrasilː]) is an immense mythical tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse cosmology.

Yggdrasil is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources … is an immense ash tree that is center to the cosmos and considered very holy. The gods go to Yggdrasil daily to assemble at their things, traditional governing assemblies. The branches of Yggdrasil extend far into the heavens, and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations … Creatures live within Yggdrasil, including the dragon Níðhöggr, an unnamed eagle, and the stags Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór.

The generally accepted meaning of Old Norse Yggdrasill is “Odin’s horse”, meaning “gallows”. …Odin sacrificed himself by hanging from a tree, making this tree Odin’s gallows. This tree may have been Yggdrasil.

For further reading: Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North

Fittingly, see: Yggdrasil: An Optimized System for Training Deep Decision Trees at Scale (pdf)

From Archdaily:

The Vertical Forest is an architectural concept which replaces traditional materials on urban surfaces using the changing polychromy of leaves for its walls. The biological architect relies on a screen of vegetation, needing to create a suitable microclimate and filter sunlight, and rejecting the narrow technological and mechanical approach to environmental sustainability.

From The New York Times:

The Vertical Forest buildings of the architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri make the most of the often overlooked and profound contributions of a single tree.

The Vertical Forest prototype was first constructed four years ago in Milan, Italy, where a pair of apartment buildings also housed 21,000 plants and 20 species of birds.

From Science Trends:

Because forests managed in some capacity may hold less carbon than some of their “natural,” unmanaged counterparts and are harvested periodically, it’s logical to assume their carbon benefits are greatly diminished. However, the carbon forests hold at any point in time is only one of many factors affecting what the atmosphere sees, and those other factors tend to favor managed forests.

From NASA Earth Observatory:

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired these natural-color images on August 14 and July 11, 2018. The images highlight how much smoke the fires have produced compared to a clear day.

From the FAO:

Poplars and willows, sustaining livelihoods in urban and peri-urban forests in China. [PDF]

The poplar plantations have also significantly improved people’s livelihoods. The value of the poplar stands, including both environmental and productive functions, has been estimated to be about USD 360 million. Furthermore, especially in the agroforestry lands and peri-urban areas, the wood-processing value chain has become a pillar for the development of the local economy, bringing huge economic and social benefits to the entire county.

At present, poplar wood processing involves 720 small and medium-sized enterprises which provide employment to about 60 000 people, both rural and urban. The annual processing capacity of these enterprises exceeds 1.5 million cubic metres, and the total processing value is over USD 475 million. The products are exported to more than 30 countries, including New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and the United States of America.

From bioRxiv: (pdf)

In the late 1980s, a genetic individual of the fungus Armillaria gallica that extended over at least 37 hectares of forest floor and encompassed hundreds of tree root systems was discovered on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Based on observed growth rates, the individual was estimated to be at least 1500 years old with a mass of more than 10⁵ kg.

From phys.org:

Using current research and analytic techniques, Anderson took additional samples in between 2015 and 2017 and can say with confidence that the mushroom is at least 2,500 years old, weighs 400,000 kilograms and covers about 70 hectares.

From the Atlantic:

But there is another thing Anderson told me he wishes he could do that he knows he never will. For all the estimates of how big Armillaria can grow, no one has really seen it in full. “I wish all of the substrate”—the soil and matter the fungus grows in—“would be transparent for five minutes, so I could see where it is and what it’s doing. We would learn so much from a five-minute glimpse.”

From the BBC:

In 1998 a team from the US Forest Service set out to investigate the cause of large tree die-offs in the Malheur National Forest in east Oregon. They identified affected areas in aerial photographs and collected root samples from 112 dead and dying trees, mostly firs.

Tests showed all but four of the trees had been infected with the honey fungus Armillaria solidipes…they found that 61 of the trees had been struck down by the same clonal colony – individuals with identical genetic make-up that all originated from one organism. The most widely-spaced were 2.4 miles (3.8 km) apart. The team calculated that the A. solidipes covered an area of 3.7 sq miles (9.6 sq km), and was somewhere between 1,900 and 8,650 years old.

From the Daily Overview:

Decades worth of extensive logging in Madagascar’s rainforests and coastal mangroves has lead to widespread erosion, causing bright red soil to wash into the river and out to sea.

From The New York Times:

A few months later, on the Feast of the Ascension, a group of woodsmen walk more than 12 miles to the Montepiano forest to cut down an oak to portray the groom, or the maggio, which is then secured to pairs of oxen and walked back to the village. “It has to be the highest and the straightest in the forest,” Mr. De Bartolo said.

On Pentecost Sunday, another group goes to the Gallipoli Cognato forest to cut down a treetop for the cima, or bride. The cima is carried by foot to the village, while locals dance, sing and play music. “It has to be the most beautiful and the most leafy to be considered the treetop,” Mr. De Bartolo said.