OT: forests and such

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris Gray) wrote:
>forests. Fire is also a big factor, although man has messed that up
>quite a bit. Trees typically die after a fire, but grass has a large,
>deep root system, and will spring right up after being burnt away. The
>burning is apparently good for the grass, since it burns off a lot of
>the detritus, and after a fire the grasses grow higher and greener.

You know, I think all these discussions are getting terribly
messy. Why?  Because we live in different parts of the world with
different climate, species, geology, and talk about very different
ecological situations...  I'm living on a small (by US standards) farm
up in the mountains (or hillside) in the middle of Norway and get some
insight into forest management this way (we handle the forest, execept
for the cutting).

I realize that compared to you american/canadian guys I will
neccessarily have a different perspective.  Western civilization has
been present here for maybe over a thousand years. Grave mounds,
stonebridge, coal-pots (or whatever those places where they burn wood
to get coal are called), stone table (or altar), the king's road,
remains after old buildings and animal traps are all reachable in a
ten minutes walk. If one wants to drive then old churches, a stone
with runes (I guess it says something along the lines of "Ola wrote
this" *grin*).  So I am living just as much in a culture landscape as
a nature landscape.  Lots of small farms here, so they used to take
their animals up in the mountains in the summer, this had a major
impact on the vegetation of course.  The trees seems to be climing
back up the hill sides, but I'm not sure if this is due to the climate
or less agressive grassing.

Anyway, maybe it would be better to include human culture in a
evolution mechanism (if possible). I think that would add depth to the
overall experience.  I get a distinct feeling of presence when I walk
around here, the presence of previous generations' lives.  That's a
pretty magnificient feeling.  I believe Tolkien captures some of this.
Everyone should be able to sense this in Pantheon or Colloseum in
Rome.  I suspect that knowing something about their lives adds to this
feeling.  I don't feel this presence as much in old buildings in
museums, I guess the knowledge that the remains of the past is where
they were left by the people at the time is important to the
sensation.  I'm not after realism myself, but I think it would be
interesting to play a mud in which you walked in a reproduction of an
actual cultural landscape. And I'm not talking Rome or any other big
and wellknown place. I'm thinking of more remote and typical areas for
that time.

Go to Yellowstone if you wanna see what happens after a forestfire! I
was there this summer, and all the gray trunks with the green
inbetween were both beautiful, poetic, optimistic and sad.  If I was
to make a mud with 3D graphics and forests then I for sure would add
forestfire. Think of the excitement.  Only to be executed twice a year
or something.  Think about how it adds to the sensation when you log
onto your mud and the landscape has changed radically. Wow, what has
happend here??

Of course, indians have created a cultural landscape as well. I
believe some tribes put the prairie on fire regularly to have a
controlled fire instead of an uncontrolled fire that would wipe out
everything. Very impressive, if this is true.

>The dustbowls of the '30's were caused mostly by poor farming practices -
>that kind of drought isn't normally hard on the grasses, as Michael says.

One important thing here for realism freaks, paths up in mountains
lasts longer than those down in the valley. Vegetation is more
sensitive, less nutrition, less oxygen, shorter summer.

>It would be interesting to know what would happen to the prairies if man
>died out. We've planted a lot of trees that wouldn't normally be there -
>I wonder if they would survive and spread in the shadow of the decaying
>buildings? My city of Edmonton looks a lot like a forest with buildings,
>from an angle.

I guess this is the part where I should justify my off-topic
post. *grin* (Actually I think esthetics ought to be pretty much on
topic, as I believe the sensing, atmosphere, estethics and subtleness
are (no, will become) important concepts in online enviroments)

What really wakes me up in this thread is the amount of posts on the
topic forest.  This suggests to me that forests are something that
many people have reflected on.  Maybe because we experience a strange
room and space when we walk in the forest.  Maybe because we can view
the tree as an individual and the forest as a nation.  I don't think
it was for nothing that Tolkien made some of his trees alive.  Maybe
one could do with trees as THE concept in a 3D graphical MUD?  Could
be interesting.

Ola.  
(even got a forest mag in the mailbox the other day, lots of neat info
on forests and CO2. Another good reason to go to Yellowstone is the
sound of the dragonbreath geisyr. Quite moody late at night.)