Japanese Monoculture Forests

[Linus_Cello]

Below is a link on the negative impacts on Japanese Monocultured Forests, and their impacts to golden eagles; interesting read.

I'm hoping that Tom/Botany Boy may comment on it, even though the forest discussed is closer to Tokyo then where he is. I was also curious if improving tree diversity would help the native japanese orchids, or may not help much since my impression is that most terrestrial temperate orchids are early successional.


http://e360.yale.edu/features/for-japans-eagles-hope-lies-in-rewilding-long-tamed-forests

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

The history of Japan's efforts to become a world power, especially given its size, have had bad environmental effects to be sure. One wonders what will come of China in the coming decades considering their ridiculous growth over the last 20 years. That fallout may last for a long time.

Back to Japan. The forests of both Kyushu and Shikoku, the two southernmost main islands, are full of monocultured, same aged conifer plantations. If memory serves, on Kyushu it is something like 56% of the "forested" land. These plantations are like the ones described in the article, over-planted, dark, species poor environments. In the worst of them few plants can actually live on the forest floor, so not surprisingly animal life is limited as well. In the more open stands that have been managed there are are abundant ferns and a handful of woody and herbaceous species that do well. Even a few orchids persist, notably Liparis nervosa, though Cymbidium goeringii, Cephalanthera erecta, and Calanthe discolor can be seen as well.

Ironically, natural stands of both hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) and Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) are quite rare these days, and yet plantations of both cover much of Japan south of Hokkaido. Go figure.

As for the future, unless humanity decides to adopt a different economic model, I don't think things bode well for natural communities. There just isn't any motive in reforestation (plantations are not forest IMO) - not enough profit, too much labor cost, and frankly, rural Japan is in a social crisis. The only folks in the country anymore are "old people" and they won't hang on forever. The upshot is Japan is a severely urbanized population and that trend is growing, which is insane given that this country has been highly urban for decades now.

So, beyond a few heroic efforts here and there, the government has more important things to tackle like how to pay for everything given a shrinking population. The inevitable solution will have to be allowing more immigrants to settle and naturalize, and that isn't going to happen in the countryside.

That is what I see from my little perspective. I'm sure there's a lot going on I don't know about.

 

[Lanmark]

I'd love to go there and settle in the countryside.

 

[NYEric]

Think of damage our Orangutan-in-Chief can do by opening up government lands to private exploitation.

 

[Ray]

The more diverse an ecosystem, the greater the stability and overall rigor. Period.

Eric, please contain your political comments to that forum.

 

[Happypaphy7]

It is sad what's happening. As pointed out and naturally, things won't change for the better it seems. Human population growth really mess up everything else on the planet. I wish it was different.

It is surprising how fast things changed in just 10 years span during my childhood.
Rice fields and streams in the small city were full of frogs and fish. Kids could play in them having fun safely.
You could hear frogs sound and crickets and many other bugs in the summer night. Everything was taken for granted.

Then, one day, I could no longer see or hear frogs. I could not see grasshoppers on the rice fields. All the chemical spraying killed them off.

The streams and little water ways were full of fowl smelling garbage and the water was cloudy with no fish in them.

It all makes me depressed.

And on a larger scale, I see ocrean creatures with plastic parts in their stomach on a documentary. Something is seriously wrong and we are still all about making more profits and development. For what?

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

I realized I didn't adequately answer the question. Will making forest structure more complex so that it mimics natural forest more diverse - sure. Natural forests, even secondary forests that have had to endure repeated cutting and burning, are much more diverse than these "sterile" plantations. It is so dark in some of these that even midday it's gloomy and lifeless in there.

To illustrate, in the local mountains I've seen around 25-30 species of orchid. All but around 7 of these were found in native forest associations. One is found in lawns and human made fields, Spiranthes sinensis. That means that only 6 species can live in these plantations, or about 25% of the species I've seen. The idea of thinning existing plantations will open them up to colonization by ferns, woody and herbaceous plants, and ultimately more orchids. If you add a level to that by allowing some forest to return to a more native state, and also creating openings in a mosaic, then you are definitely going to impact diversity positively.

The situation isn't so different from the American west where fire suppression created overly dense coniferous forest in many places. Selective logging allows for more light, healthy burning regimens, and more wildlife.

Another issue though is degraded secondary forest, a real problem on Honshu in particular. Forest that was allowed to regenerate after cutting often was dominated by a small range of species, in particular oaks. This environment, again, poorly managed, leads to loss of diversity. You see the same problem in much of the eastern US - species poor, degraded forest.

Again though the bigger question is about how humans intend to live on the planet in the future. IMO, business as usual of mining/fighting "nature" is completely unsustainable as an overall model. In some way we have to find a way to integrate humans and nature, and since mega cities are by design unsustainable in and of themselves, we need to consider a different approach. If you are interested in other options, look up permaculture and see what people are already doing on a small scale. I deeply believe that if you want to instill "values" back into society, it is imperative that all people are involved in their own food production. There are no perfect solutions, but we can do a lot better than we are now.