General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How to erase 100 years of carbon emissions? Plant trees--lots of them. [View all]GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)The pine tree swindle pulled from South Carolina to east Texas may become a great asset.
Swindle? For the past 50 year tons of landowners were convinced to plant pines on their land as sure money. And they did by the millions of acres. But the predictable happened. They are now not really worth the price of harvesting. What with the digital age and recycling there is no demand for them. Sucks for the landowners. But might be good for us. It not worth plowing the down and planting row crops because the price of the crops does not pay for the effort on most of the land, which is marginal for row crops anyway. Which is why pines were planted in the first place.
But given time those pines start to give way to the hardwood forest evolution dictated. I already see this happening where I deer hunt in Arkansas. Forest that were all pine when I was a kid 45 years ago are turning into hardwood forests.
Sure, there is still harvesting going on. But not at a level that will use all or even most of the forest.
And over time these families come to like their new woods. My right wing uncle sure does.
Florida has an innovative program where families can basically sell the development rights to the land. They keep it with greatly reduced tax assessments. But cant develop it.
We have been reforesting this country for the past 50 years. My dad remembers a South with no deer that looked like the Great Plains. One small farm or sharecropper after another.
Sorry for carrying on. But this is a subject that gets me going. My goal is that someday our grandchildren can see the great forest of the Eastern US that died over the past 3 centuries. I sure wont.