5 million Scottish trees felled for wind farms

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/5-million-scottish-trees-felled-for-wind-farms-1-3253041

The Scotsman
5 million Scottish trees felled for wind farms
by ILONA AMOS
Published on the 02 January
2014

ONLY a fraction of Scottish forests felled to make way for wind farms have been replanted, figures show, sparking calls for a ban on new developments.

Forestry Commission statistics reveal that about five million trees – almost one for every person in Scotland – have been cut down to clear space for turbines in the past six years but less than a third of them have been replaced.

Of the 2,510 hectares stripped of woodland to make way for turbines since 2007, just 792 hectares were reforested after construction was completed...

...MSP Murdo Fraser, energy spokesman for the party, said: “The SNP is so blindly obsessed with renewable energy that it doesn’t mind destroying another important environmental attribute to make way for it....

[NYC_SKP]

1. 31,400 hectares of new forestry was planted around the country in the same six-year period.

That part, 31,400 new acres, seems to be a significant detail in the story.

It looks the the conservative party is hazing a sad.

[kristopher]

2. Felt compelled to share Conservative, antirenewable propaganda did you?

Things you decided to leave out of your excerpt:

The government has hit back at the claims, saying the figures do not represent the full picture.

Environment and climate change minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “We have replanted nearly 800 hectares and have restored significant areas of important open habitat where this is best for the environment. The result is that, of the area felled for wind farms, only 315 hectares of land suitable for another rotation of trees has not been replanted.”

He also pointed out that 31,400 hectares of new forestry was planted around the country in the same six-year period. “That’s a staggering 62 million trees in the ground across Scotland,” he said.

“Scotland is also shouldering the vast majority of tree-planting in Britain, with nearly two and a half times more in Scotland compared to south of the Border.”

[Neoma]

3. I thought the thing with planting new trees is that only 10% of the species that lived there return.

[Iterate]

5. "only 315 hectares of land suitable for another rotation of trees"

I assume that phrase refers to another planting, as in a managed forest planting rotation. That would be the case for almost all European forests, because even though they may look wild, they've been managed for many centuries. Those ecosystems are fairly stable in that state, and have not been invaded by exurban dwellers as in the US.

Even that economic relationship has stayed stable -as the right to cut wood(forest), gather firewood(downed wood, saplings, etc.), run hogs, hunt, catch fish, are all separate property rights that are frequently sold or leased. Rights of way as well, for that matter. Different system.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. This was not the original, untouched forest

There is practically no such forest in Britain. The BBC did a programme about it, and the experts concluded that probably the only woodland in Britain that hadn't been altered by humans was on islands in the middle of a Scottish loch or two that had never been inhabited, and for which there was no evidence anyone had ever bothered going there to harvest the timber.

In any case, this is about the commercial forest, managed by the Forestry Commission, which is a highly artificial environment anyway:

"With careful planning of the development of wind farms on the National Forest Estate, we have re-planted nearly 800 hectares, and restored significant areas of important open habitat where this is best for the environment.

"The result is that of the area felled for wind farms, only 315 hectares of land suitable for another rotation of trees has not been re-planted."
...
A spokesman for Forestry Commission Scotland said the statistics related to areas of commercial forestry, rather than areas of historic woodland.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/5m-trees-felled-for-wind-farms.23074351

[NV Whino]

4. I didn't know Scotland had 5 million trees.

There goes Burnham Wood.

[miyazaki]

7. Well, considering wood is one of our best renewable resources.