And following on that I'll get to the number one bushcraft sin; human waste (as in taking a dump) too close to the trail or even worse, fresh water. I know space may be more limited over there but here the Boy Scouts and most National and or State forestes and parks require yo be at least 100 feet from any trail and 200 feet from fresh water.
As we are sticking to the subject of cutting down trees dont suppose you can guess one of the reasons they are indicating as and in the process of banning camping on Loch Lomond on the West Highland Way?.
Can you guess what it is yet?
does lodgepole pine suffer from red band needle blight? if so it will no doubt be clear felled to stop growth if spotted? tis pretty scary when the RBNB starts affecting the scots pine
yeah i know corsican is bad for it certainly, wasnt sure about lodgepole though. it is certainly devastsating
You have many cases 'round by you?
Lodgepole (not log pole)
Oops, that’s twice I wrote “log pole” instead of lodgepole, I’m going to have to pay more attention to my spell checker in the future ,but thanks for trolling through my post and pointing that out.
The “Caley pines” Pinus sylvestris you are talking about are at Slattadale on the south bank of Loch Maree, their generations date back some 8000 years.
By the way if you ever decide to camp there the trees are very impressive, but take plenty of midge repellent its hell.
I’m nether a Forester nor a Geologist (unless you count gold panning ) so the only thing I know about the north bank of Loch Maree is around Letterewe and Furnace where the oaks were largely clear felled 350 years ago at a rate of 8 hectares a day for charcoal to smelt bog Iron at the Ironworks. Coincidental this was one of the areas where the reintroduction of wolves was proposed and with forest regeneration cited as one of the reasons.
But that’s another story.
ultimate sin, leaving litter. does not matter where you are, nobody has any excuse for leaving any kind of litter.
Quite often folk don't realise what's rubbish though.
Fire and the resultant charcoal can change the soil structure and be persistant in the environment for millenia. Similarly exotic vegatitive and other organic matter can destroy certain fragile soil structures/localised ecosystems. High alpine soils like in the Cairngorms can be badly degraded by something as simple as a banana skin due to the potasium content.
some might say as we're animals it doesn't matter, and that without traces like these archeologists wouldn't know about our forebares. But there's a heck of a lot more of us alive at the moment putting more concentrated pressure on the landscape.
Interesting photos.
Once the ice retreated the forests took over; it is only because of human activity that we de-forested again. I prefer the new landscape, how about you?
I don't get it?! Is what all the straps are for isn't it ?