I’ve seen forest sprout up in abandoned dead areas without any human assistance. It takes about 2 decades of being left alone to get enough young growth to start being called a forest, but not really more than that. And it would take generations more to be called an old “real” forest, but it has to start somewhere. To rehabilitate long dead soil it might take what you describe, but turning an old meadow into a wild area that will eventually turn into a forest, does not need human intervention. It just requires to be left alone. In my climate that is. Claiming that forests can’t grow without human assistance is absolute nonsense, forests grew just fine before humans came along.
A bunch of twigs does not a forest make.
In a pre-industrial Europe, sure, forests are everywhere and foresting alone like crazy. But we’re in a post-industrial one. Most land in Europe is altered in some ways, was farmed on at some point, or had something else going on. Everything is littered with plants that we selectively bred or mutated, a wild very aggressive weed are everywhere and will be everywhere. Soil composition is wild and weird. The air is unfit to breathe the food is unfit to eat I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore, you get the point.
It’s not that it can’t grow without human assistance, the human assistance is needed to keep it from human interference, because we changed the land and continue doing so.
But obviously, sometimes a forest just grows, when it wants to. But you can’t guarantee this process, that was my point.
I’ve seen forest sprout up in abandoned dead areas without any human assistance. It takes about 2 decades of being left alone to get enough young growth to start being called a forest, but not really more than that. And it would take generations more to be called an old “real” forest, but it has to start somewhere. To rehabilitate long dead soil it might take what you describe, but turning an old meadow into a wild area that will eventually turn into a forest, does not need human intervention. It just requires to be left alone. In my climate that is. Claiming that forests can’t grow without human assistance is absolute nonsense, forests grew just fine before humans came along.
And as further proof that I don’t live in fantasialand with my belief that forests can grow without human intervention, here’s 2 links with examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_rewilding https://www.rewildingmag.com/passive-rewilding-natural-reforestation/
A bunch of twigs does not a forest make.
In a pre-industrial Europe, sure, forests are everywhere and foresting alone like crazy. But we’re in a post-industrial one. Most land in Europe is altered in some ways, was farmed on at some point, or had something else going on. Everything is littered with plants that we selectively bred or mutated, a wild very aggressive weed are everywhere and will be everywhere. Soil composition is wild and weird. The air
is unfit to breathe the food is unfit to eat I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore, you get the point.It’s not that it can’t grow without human assistance, the human assistance is needed to keep it from human interference, because we changed the land and continue doing so.
But obviously, sometimes a forest just grows, when it wants to. But you can’t guarantee this process, that was my point.