森林浴
October 14, 2024 4:11 PM Subscribe
When it comes to biological superlatives, we typically focus on individuals: The largest tree in a forest, the oldest organism on the planet. After visiting the Hoh Rainforest, however, I began to wonder about superlative communities. What are the oldest existing ecosystems on Earth, and what can we learn from them? [nautilis] (previously)
Large Parts of Antarctica.
Difficulty: lack of humans.
posted by Comstar at 6:30 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
Difficulty: lack of humans.
posted by Comstar at 6:30 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
The feeling of walking into any old growth has a gravity that dilates time about you, falling into the deep end of ecological complexity. The Hoh or Carmanah Walbran evoke it, the Hoh was a site of pilgrimage growing up. Now “old growth” is a search term planning every trip.
I’ve yet to make it to the seagrass beds mentioned, but there are seas of tallgrass prairie in the American Great Plains that have never been tilled. If you get on your hands and knees you’ll find micro-flaura and fauna there exceeding any forest, bison lumbering like galleons across them. Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer brought old growth moss to my attention. Kayaking Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, brought a different young sense of old ecosystems to me: if Mt St Helens and other volcanos are snapshots of life returning to a place, GBNP is a time series with the oldest (still young) successional forests near the bay mouth, giving way to willows and berries, before the scant edges of life hanging on near glacier faces (gulls, bugs, fry, pupping seals and nesting montane birds, ground willows and moss) before the desolation of the glacier were a few tenacious individuals survive. Robert MacFarlane also evokes sensations of wonderment in old things. One of my favorite snapshots of a place is to spend 30 minutes walking, picking and arranging a bouquet of grasses, odds and ends, sticks and weeds, old barb wire or rusty cans, to recall a place (as long as you aren’t over-picking a place, and it’s being done ethically and legally).
posted by rubatan at 7:49 PM on October 14 [6 favorites]
I’ve yet to make it to the seagrass beds mentioned, but there are seas of tallgrass prairie in the American Great Plains that have never been tilled. If you get on your hands and knees you’ll find micro-flaura and fauna there exceeding any forest, bison lumbering like galleons across them. Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer brought old growth moss to my attention. Kayaking Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, brought a different young sense of old ecosystems to me: if Mt St Helens and other volcanos are snapshots of life returning to a place, GBNP is a time series with the oldest (still young) successional forests near the bay mouth, giving way to willows and berries, before the scant edges of life hanging on near glacier faces (gulls, bugs, fry, pupping seals and nesting montane birds, ground willows and moss) before the desolation of the glacier were a few tenacious individuals survive. Robert MacFarlane also evokes sensations of wonderment in old things. One of my favorite snapshots of a place is to spend 30 minutes walking, picking and arranging a bouquet of grasses, odds and ends, sticks and weeds, old barb wire or rusty cans, to recall a place (as long as you aren’t over-picking a place, and it’s being done ethically and legally).
posted by rubatan at 7:49 PM on October 14 [6 favorites]
My partner and I have often wondered why you’re allowed to own a tree. There are protections for things that move across space: you can’t kill wildlife (without a permit) if it can move to someone else’s land, or contaminate your land if it leeches over to someone else’s, water rights, etc. Yet you can cut down a tree that will live to be 1000, long after you or your family will own it. We need protections for time.
posted by rubatan at 7:52 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
posted by rubatan at 7:52 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
In DC you're not allowed to cut down a healthy tree with a circumference greater than 99.9" at all, and cutting down a tree between 44" and 99.9" circumference requires a special tree removal permit. You're also required to consult an arborist before doing anything to an unhealthy tree on private property or pruning any tree in public space. In both cases (damaging a large, healthy tree on private property or improperly pruning a tree in public space) you can be fined if you do work that wasn't approved.
(As usual, the cynical "it's legal for a fee" interpretation of the law seems to apply, but the worst example I can think of off the top of my head was actually in Maryland and not the District).
posted by fedward at 1:24 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
(As usual, the cynical "it's legal for a fee" interpretation of the law seems to apply, but the worst example I can think of off the top of my head was actually in Maryland and not the District).
posted by fedward at 1:24 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Pando is an old-timer. It's a single organism, so technically it doesn't belong here, I guess, but we experience it as a forest, not just one tree. Originally it was estimated as being 80,000 years old, but now the estimate is 'only' 16,000. Aspens are one of my favorite trees, and if I'm sitting quietly in the shade, I'm pretty sure the leaves are whispering to me.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:48 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 7:48 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
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posted by potrzebie at 5:58 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]