Re: Forests and wildlands in Heortland, Sartar, Tarsh

Peter Metcalfe

> You originally claimed that the burning was necessary to the
> fertility of Aldryami forests.

I did myself the disservice to check this (82 messages on this list), and no, David did not claim this.

Rob Helm reminisced from his playing in David's Umathela campaign.

David gave one example of a tree that uses serotiny.

Nobody claimed that burning down an entire forest is required for fertility.

> If the Orlanthi are not burning
> down Aldraymi forests on a regular basis, then how is it
> necessary?

Who requires Orlanthi to burn down Aldryami forests on a regular basis? David explicitely doesn't.

> The examples you keep pointing out to us
> are that a fire creates a hole in the canopy and the tree
> senses this through the smoke and drops its seeds. But
> if the fire's miles away then there's no holes being created
> in the canopy and the smoke's not thick enough to trigger
> seed-dropping.

Did you read up Serotiny?

>>There may be other ways to clear, but proper slash & burn is >>not hard on the forest if you look at it as a system:

> If I were an Aldryami, I would not care how hard or easy slash-
> and-burn is.

You would listen to the song of your forest. That would make you share both in the grief of/for the burnt specimen in a limited area, and in the vigorous life reconquering that area.

> What I would be concerned about is the widespread
> use of fire and command my pet humans to stop doing it.

Forbid axes, while you're at it, and saws and knives.

It was suggested that humans practicing a forest-related agriculture would be a good first defense line or at least a good buffer versus Fonritian aggression towards the thick aldryami forest. Limiting their use of fire to swidden methods (keeping a fair number of trees unharmed) and enforcing strict fallow periods, along with a strong presence of colonizing tree species and fire-resistant or even serotinous ones does paint a reasonable picture.

Peter's position could be summed up as "Aldryami aren't reasonable about fire."

Personally, I see more potential in some species of aldryami being reasonable about limited use of fire while others taking Peter's stance.             Received on Mon 11 Jun 2007 - 04:14:54 EEST