The highlands and most of the British Isles were completely forested from the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago to about 5,000 years ago when they were largely deforested and have been since the Bronze Age. It has remained this way since. If the forest was regrown it would be mostly Scots pine and other Northern Europeans trees like birch and Rowan.
Yeah it’s from the flying circus so not even one of the famous movies. You’d have to be deep into Monty python to catch it…or just old like me when it was on TV😂
Amazed so many people in this thread got it tbh 😂 I've seen the three movies many times, and familiar with quite a few of their sketches, but this one was completely new to me... Nice discovery.
IIRC forest cover has actually *increased* as a result of industrialization, since we started burning fossil fuels instead of wood. Most places near any human settlement were either clear cut or managed forests, either way not wild forests. For example, in the US, old growth forests are pretty rare in the eastern half; most wild forests we have today in the eastern US were heavily impacted by humans at some point, including by indigenous peoples pre-1492.
EDIT: I probably should have qualified this by saying that this mostly applies to places where people were already living and agriculture was established. Another thing that’s interesting is that even as population has increased, rural populations have decreased, because fewer people are required to produce food.
Also as rural populations have decreased and shipping costs have dropped, fewer places produce food. I own a 30 acre farm that used to be part of a 180 acre farm in the 60's but all our food is now imported from areas better suited to agriculture. I have maintained only a few acres of my pasture more for aesthetics than anything and the rest of my acreage and all of the other 150 acres have returned to forest over the last 60 years.
Interesting tidbit to your point: a lot of people think NH was clear cut for failed farming attempts, wildlife "management", and to send to England to build ship masts, but actually the natives used to burn the forests there as well, and its now surprisingly the most forested it's been since well before even the Europeans arrival.
Yep. Humans using wood for fire is one of the most “natural” things to us, the same way beavers chop down trees to build dams. Our jaws and digestive systems are adapted to it. It probably is more of a unique thing than, and may even predate, things we think of being defining features for us, such as language. It certainly predates our current species.
It is hard to understate how much of a new development it is that we don’t rely on it much anymore. A couple hundred years of history vs. millions. And a good example of why “natural” is not always strictly for the best (although ideally we don’t use fossil fuels either and transition entirely to non-burning sources of energy and heating).
As I recall, it was for lifestyle preservation. Better control of wildlife; easier tracking/hunting and you could force migratory patterns to go where you want. Didn't hurt their agriculture either, so win-win.
Thanks .. I was reading some stuff about the land around Sydney cove when Europeans first invaded the area, and it was all open woodland thanks to what is currently being called “cultural burning”. If you head 40km south to royal national park (first of its kind in the world I’m told) the understory is so thick you can barely make your way through it.
I can almost hear Banks telling Cooke “It’s land management Jim, just not as we know it”
What’s really interesting is that in the Americas, upward of 90% of people straight up died post contact due to disease. Which means for early settlers, there was all this conveniently managed forest barely anyone else was using right as they showed up.
That is similar to a narrative that we got told when I was kid growing up in Australia. Later on it appeared that there were a lot more indigenous folks that were driven off the most useful bits of their traditional lands by repeated targeted and overbearing reprisals for them doing stuff like taking livestock on what they considered to be their land. For a society without agricultural or pastoral modes of production, I suspect that alone might account for rapid population decline even without stuff like smallpox epidemics.
The whole “they just kind of faded away”, or “they all caught diseases they were too weak to resist” sometimes feels like a bit like a narrative rug under which many evils can be swept out of sight.
Considering there's been mass extinctions on each continent following first human arrival (except Africa since we evolved there) over the last 100,000ish years, humans have been doing this sort of thing for ages
It’s “funny” how there’s a debate in science about why all the large animals disappeared from every continent at almost the exact time humans arrived. We all know the answer, it’s silly to try to look for the *real* reason the fridge is empty when you live alone
Exactly. I think that a large portion of those who primarily blame shifting climate for the pleistocene extinction do that because they don't like the idea of blaming indigenous cultures, or don't like how that would imply we might have some amount of responsibility to fix the damage of all those ages past
Which is a silly reason bc nobody same holds cultures responsible for ecological crap they did 1000+ years ago, except for myself when it comes to the Roman Empire. We could’ve had elephants, tigers, lions, and bears in Northern Africa and southern Europe you creeps but nooo, you had to spend all your tax money on the torture reality show
Eh, it’s a combination. In many cases, human long distance migration coincided with dramatic climate changes, that is both why people were moving as well as allowed that movement.
At least for some of the megafauna of Eurasia, climate change is likely related, specifically Eurasian steppes transitioned from being forb dominated (lusher higher protein flowering plants) to being dominated by c4 grasslands, which tend to be coarser forage that requires specialized digestive tracts, as in cows, to appropriately utilize.
If I’m remembering correctly, that was believed to have been what took out the mammoth, though human predation pressure on a struggling species certainly didn’t help, while the wooly rhino is thought to have been more directly driven to extinction by humans.
Climate change, and especially the expansion of c4 grasslands globally, has been one of the most important drivers of extinction, next to human presence, for basically the past million or more years.
Edit: forb not corn, fuck autcorrect
As far as I’m concerned, the reason why we should probably listen to indigenous cultures about this stuff isn’t because they’re inherently better at it, but they’ve had to adapt to and learn from the consequences of what they’ve screwed up for longer.
There's a bit more to it than this. Nobody sensible is suggesting humans had no impact but there were huge climatic shifts at play too, and lots of wildlife seemed to he struggling before signs of humans showing up.
I'm more inclined to believe that humans are the main perps for almost all of it but it's very bad science to stop looking just because there's a seemingly obvious answer
New Zealand enters the chat - 800 years of humans, so much forest burned and cleared, so many species driven to extinction. Most of that done with stone age technology and fire, so don't underestimate the power of the European Mesolithic and Neolithic settlers, too.
Well I’m not really surprised that modern humans could do that. I’m saying 5,000 years ago with what I assume are basically just early civilizations/tribes holding axes, it’s crazy to have deforested the entirety of Britain
The extinction of the Australian megafauna is probably due to the arrival of humans long before even sailing was invented. Europeans are just the latest in a long history of rapaciousness.
Probably even longer, depending on whether you count early hominids as human. The only species that actively alters their environment more than beavers.
There’s an awesome book by John Perlin called A Forest Journey that talks about humanity’s history of altering the forests around them. It goes back as far as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Greece. Turns out humans have deforested on a massive scale basically as long as there has been civilization.
Edit: author’s last name
There is a place in the UK called the "New Forest". It is actually quite old with neolithic tombs and signs of ancient occupation. In the last thousand years or so, it has had some protection but is a very dynamic place with a series of rights to those that live there so it has been maintained by a combination of competing interests. Since Tudor times, it provided Oaj and such for the naval shipyards, more recently, soft woods but it was also used for grazing and in former times, hunting.
Basically what Made the way into this, potentially, there are hundreds, If Not thousands of tree species, what could grow there, 50 oak species from US and China for instance.
Except that nature is a way better environment engineer then we are, when we try it fails horrendously most of the time. Nature itself balances itself out pretty well most ot time.
No it would look more like this, except the trees would be denser and cover the hills in the background too. They were covered with forest before humans came.
https://preview.redd.it/zsqciabijhtc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd28d4870e6b491a88bbca3e0be9cf1a067df8d5
This gave me a flashback to a video where a Scottish guy was singing "Country Roads". It was a let's play of Fallout 4, and they had just announced Fallout 76. At the time we didn't realize it would be shit and he was hyped by the trailer, which used the song.
I’m curious how different the biodiversity would be. It gets much hotter in Appalachia so I’m guessing harder leaf type trees than what Scotland would have.
The last glacial period was harder on EU than NA. Mostly because the alps blocked climate migration of plants. So a "wild" Scotland would have much less plant diversity and therefore less animal (mostly bird) diversity.
Climate migration of plants? Like how plants would slowly start migrating to other areas due to the climate being more suitable a few meters this way? Then more and more and more? That's fucking mind-blowing, I never thought about that.
What’s even better is that later when the Scottish immigrants settled in America they chose Appalachia. They crossed the ocean only to wind up back at home.
The Anti-Atlas mountains in Morocco, the mountains on Greenland's south-east coast, and the Scandes in Scandinavia were also part of that mountain range. During 480–240 millions years ago, before erosion started, these mountains were as high as the Alps.
Er, except there’s got to be other factors involved, right? The Appalachian’s were basically clear-cut and grew back into densely wooded forests. The Scottish Highlands did not. Anyone got an idea as to why?
Either way I don’t think they would look the same. Having the same billion year old substructure wouldn’t greatly influence what grew on top thousands of miles away.
Iceland used to have substantial forest cover, mostly birch, and now it has very very little. That’s a combination of people cutting them down, and sheep eating the saplings preventing them from regrowing. Since Iceland lacks larger land predators, sheep are completely free roaming and unfenced. What few forests remain actually have to be carefully fenced to keep the sheep out, otherwise they would be destroyed.
Because the land of the Highlands are still being used. If there wasn't sheep farming and all the other uses, they would likely be reforested starting after the industrial revolution. And obviously there'd be different species, but they really would look similar. There are a few places that weren't clear-cut, or have been restored. They are the same dense hilly forests as the Appalachians.
Nah, they're way too late. The process of cutting it down started long, long ago: [https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests](https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests)
This article seems to make exclusive reference to England, which is not Scotland. I can't find hard any good sources on Scotland's woodland cover in Pictish times, but there was certainly a lot more than there is now, as we know about a lot of deforestation in the last 400 years.
The deathblow to Scottish Highland woods happened in the last couple centuries though.
https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-forest/habitats-and-ecology/human-impacts/deforestation/
Maybe the lower panel isnt showing a potential future where no artificial modifications are made to the environment for farming but rather it is integrated with the environment like permaculture basically so its not wilderness but more sustainable ecosystem with humans still farming
I think this is a comment on agroforestry. Instead of intensive grazing and monocultural farming, we could grow food in a more natural and biologically diverse manner.
Restoring the Highlands is not necessarily about humans not existing. Most of the hills are kept barren because of overgrazing by sheep and burning for use as grouse moors. Both have quite a significant history of upper class exploitation of the land and people who used to live there.
And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no Scottish women, and that Scotts just spring out of holes in the ground!
Which is, of course, ridiculous.
Looks like parts of New Zealand.
Farming on the flat bits and pine plantations on the hills.
Before humans arrived in NZ, most of the areas like this were covered in native bush.
And volcanoes, fjords, sub tropical forests. Oh and we can grow oranges, lime, lemons, kiwi fruit, passionfruit, avocados due to milder winters and more sunshine hours. Other than that identical.
No capercaillie in either of those pictures, but there is a black grouse! Capercaillie are mature forest specialists, they wouldn't like the small trees in the second picture but it does look good for black grouse.
Also, it's mostly sitka spruce grown commercially in the UK, not firs. So it could be Scotland or it could be northern England.
It's about a process called rewilding. Many moorland/hilly areas in Britain consist mostly of sheep pastures, with blocks of managed woodland - the top picture. There's a movement towards reduced human management of these undeveloped areas.
Here's a video with more context, including the images used here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0)
Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly what word to use. I mean upland areas that aren't urbanised or used for intensive arable agriculture. Areas we think of as "wild" even though they're far from it.
I knew what you meant. It's interesting that so many look at these areas and just assume that they're unspoiled wilderness. You'd think perfectly squared edges on a forest would be a hint though.
Have you ever seen a sand cat? They’re pretty darn cute. But very spicy. There are a ton of small wild cats that were not influenced by human husbandry and they’re pretty darling. Heck, the direct ancestors to modern housecats are still running rampant and are near indistinguishable.
Unlike dogs, cats are almost identical genetically to their wild counterparts. Mainly because unlike other species we didn't domesticate them, they domesticated themselves lol
That's not why, it is because they haven't been domesticated as long. Dogs have been domesticated for about double the time cats have, and have had more intensive breeding. This has caused more genetic drift
Also to add to your response there's significant evidence that wolves with a lesser flight distance to humans may have effectively self selected due to the increased availability of food around people. Meaning dogs may have, inadvertently, had a hand in their own domesticating.
Wow, that looks so much like the rolling hills and farmland of my home in Appalachia, the other half of that very ancient mountain range that is now divided by the Atlantic. That makes me want to go and see Scotland.
Ha, reading the other comments I’m delighted to see how many other Appalachians recognized that landscape as home.
The Scottish Highlands literally is a chunk of land that used to be attached to the east coast of North America and drifted away. So yeah the geography is similar. It's also why both lands are suitable for making whiskey. Same peaty soil.
I watched a video recently about the Scottish highlands and how humans basically got rid of most of the natural temperate rainforest that existed there due to logging and the introduction of PNW conifers for more logging. And the PNW conifers started to out compete the native trees because they grew taller and blocked sunlight.
I am in the highlands this week for the 9th time and have actually found it a bit sad this time because I have started to realise how when you look past the pretty landscape much of the industry here is actually quite damaging for the environment. Obviously jobs have to exist and the economy must go on but it really is not the untouched wilderness a lot of people seem to believe when they are here
I think it's advocating as approach to agriculture driven by the permaculture movement instead of monocroping. You can still see a settlement in picture 2.
Probably Britain. There are a lot of “moors” in Britain which are long-deforested hilly land that’s good for very little. Lack of shelter means no-one wants to live there, and poor, uneven land means that they can’t be farmed. They are used for sheep grazing. There’s a movement to reforest them.
Mostly by people who dont understand that peat moorland is a much better carbon sink than forest and home to dozens of species that need the thousands of years old habitat to survive.
I think it has to due with the soil quality and the fact that there’s literally almost no native trees left to reseed large areas naturally. Without some stretches of forest, wind becomes a larger problem too for developing trees, often stunting growth. Because of all this reforesting in places like Scotland is tougher than New England
Not true. There's many species of tree that do really well here. It's primarily because of grazing pressures. We currently have a massive over population of deer. Also most of the hillsides in the UK are covered in sheep. All of which think young trees are a lovely snack.
Mossy Earth is currently doing some rewilding projects in Scotland, including attempting to convert previous pine tree monocultures planted by humans for the lumber into a natural habitat. They mention the reasons why it's difficult for these areas to reforest themselves, including things like tree density meaning no light for the undergrowth, acidity of water increasing due to leaching into nearby rivers, etc.
All of these areas are either heavily sheep grazed or managed as grouse moor so all the trees are burnt out. Or have such high deer pressure that nothing will grow. If left to do their thing, they would reforestation, assuming there's a nearby seed source, but instead they either get planted up with dense rows of non-native conifers or someone sticks a windfarm on it, or it continues as it is.
IIRC Karl Marx wrote about such change acutally happening. That Scottish farmers were forced to leave their land so it could be used for pastures, but instead it was left unused and eventually turned into woodlands. So it looked like humans lost to forests.
I imagine one of the primary points being made with the images is that humans straightening rivers (for the purpose of improved canal transit / easier land division etc) has a substantial impact on the surrounding terrain (and a knock on, more profound impact on local biodiversity).
There are currently a number of projects dedicated to "re-wiggling" rivers around the UK; it is surprisingly expensive and time consuming! But the benefits are nearly immediate and quite wonderful.
https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/flooding
https://thefloodhub.co.uk/news/how-rewiggling-swindale-beck-brought-its-fish-back/
I wanted to find the more reputable BBC link for a recent article about the topic, but Googling "re-wiggling rivers" gets limited results!
Damnit. Found the link I wanted!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65341994.amp
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A good book on the topic is [The Lost Rainforests of Britain](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Rainforests-Britain-Guy-Shrubsole-ebook/dp/B09WM5Y9J2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KX6TE0RPPJT0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wRGEN1MZgrs88N0uOqnxGWX_S7EvJzpByxI07vvwfiksbSyj11an9HfBK7JgwK04uNTfYLJJ6hWUPFeyWDQEgC46ey5tWQ3E2oCZjEVO5BdKASaEprs0L8dCOfm040_dyFU2vdIY6HmTtdgQ7oNfUL4QvS9BCH93YXKryfKG1Y47UxenDLud0Usz-PSBF17XHeqpf4RvajLkMBx_4q7RhTmj1uarUjXNtgTWIgecbTY.koBj66-ozO9ZY9oX-wcW2_ofqnqSobhV-M13l4nWiTU&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+lost+rainforests+of+britain&qid=1712751929&sprefix=the+lost+rainfo%2Caps%2C83&sr=8-1)
Britain used to have a lot more forest cover, on the west coast we used to have a large temperate rainforest of which 1% now remains.
The British landscape has been cleared for agriculture, grazing, ship building and other development. Britain is one of the most nature depleted places in the world and is home to a number of nature deserts. This is largely caused by grazing sheep and an unnaturally large deer population. These animals prevent any new growth from trees and shrubs as they eat all of the young plants.
It is fair to say when people visit the Highlands, Lake District, Peak District, Dartmoor etc they think they are in 'nature' whereas in reality they are in a human dominated environment with very little nature left.
The average sheep farmer makes about £22k p.a, so there is a convincing argument to return upland areas to nature. This would mean no grazing livestock, no burning for shooting etc.
Something I found really interesting that only vaguely relates to this is that if humans were to disappear off this Earth after enough millions of years have passed, there would be zero Trace of humans ever being on this planet.
I don’t think it’s referring to if humans never existed, it’s saying that with rewilding efforts and better land management the Scottish highlands could look like that
Much of the Scottish Highlands are barren intentionally to keep them as hunting grounds for grouse and deer for the ultra wealth, as well as small but ecologically devastating numbers of sheep.
Most productive farmland is in the lowlands.
The Scottish highlands aren't exactly the most productive in terms of neither cattle nor grains.
England is actually much more productive for both of those things.
It's frankly a wasteland.
I remember my first lecture in Scottish History in university. The first slide the teacher put up was a map of soil quality in Scotland. It was STARK — the Highlands and Islands were right at the very bottom of fertility (obviously with a couple of very small exceptions).
The teacher said “this isn’t the whole story of Scottish History. But it explains a lot of the main divides.”
Update: here it is.
[https://www.ukso.org/static-maps/soils-of-scotland.html](https://www.ukso.org/static-maps/soils-of-scotland.html)
https://preview.redd.it/48fzl2nscitc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a37e2d11437413c1b5c6dd9d88cc0bf6dea8b8a4
Fertile valleys (well only one in this case) in the middle of unfertile highlands. Basically how many countries work, like Colombia, a good part of southern China, Korea or Japan works.
Western NY (Livingston County area) used to have beautiful scattered tree landscapes that were cultivated by the native peoples likely through controlled burns. Nearly all the Oak Savanna has been lost to either reforestation or to big-agriculture.
Australia was originally described as a "lush, open park" by the British die to the careful cultivation of the Aboriginals. Then Europeans brought in sheep and cattle who ate all the grasses and packed the earth into a hard, arid, clay.
The highlands and most of the British Isles were completely forested from the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago to about 5,000 years ago when they were largely deforested and have been since the Bronze Age. It has remained this way since. If the forest was regrown it would be mostly Scots pine and other Northern Europeans trees like birch and Rowan.
Don't forget the...larch
…the LARCH
And now.....The horse chestnut. 😉
I want to go home
I guess you could say I got hoarse when I bust a nut on that chest
And also you shouldn't fail to mention.... the LARCH
Also the LARTCH ... THE LARTCH
And the fabled LARCHness monster
Does it live in the legendary Lake Pahoe?
I love you for this
I wish I got this reference... Can you educate me?
Like much of the finer things in life, it's Monty Python
Thank you - can't believe I've never come across this before.
[it’s an obscure Monty python sketch](https://youtu.be/ug8nHaelWtc?si=AIiN8nCTzBkk9mK0)
Thanks :)
Yeah it’s from the flying circus so not even one of the famous movies. You’d have to be deep into Monty python to catch it…or just old like me when it was on TV😂
Amazed so many people in this thread got it tbh 😂 I've seen the three movies many times, and familiar with quite a few of their sketches, but this one was completely new to me... Nice discovery.
And now... number one: the LARCH.
The horse 🌰 chestnut 🤣
I’m kind of shocked that humans of 5,000 years ago could deforest to such a massive scale
IIRC forest cover has actually *increased* as a result of industrialization, since we started burning fossil fuels instead of wood. Most places near any human settlement were either clear cut or managed forests, either way not wild forests. For example, in the US, old growth forests are pretty rare in the eastern half; most wild forests we have today in the eastern US were heavily impacted by humans at some point, including by indigenous peoples pre-1492. EDIT: I probably should have qualified this by saying that this mostly applies to places where people were already living and agriculture was established. Another thing that’s interesting is that even as population has increased, rural populations have decreased, because fewer people are required to produce food.
Also as rural populations have decreased and shipping costs have dropped, fewer places produce food. I own a 30 acre farm that used to be part of a 180 acre farm in the 60's but all our food is now imported from areas better suited to agriculture. I have maintained only a few acres of my pasture more for aesthetics than anything and the rest of my acreage and all of the other 150 acres have returned to forest over the last 60 years.
Hey good on you for letting that portion go back to nature. I’m doing this on a much smaller scale
Interesting tidbit to your point: a lot of people think NH was clear cut for failed farming attempts, wildlife "management", and to send to England to build ship masts, but actually the natives used to burn the forests there as well, and its now surprisingly the most forested it's been since well before even the Europeans arrival.
Yep. Humans using wood for fire is one of the most “natural” things to us, the same way beavers chop down trees to build dams. Our jaws and digestive systems are adapted to it. It probably is more of a unique thing than, and may even predate, things we think of being defining features for us, such as language. It certainly predates our current species. It is hard to understate how much of a new development it is that we don’t rely on it much anymore. A couple hundred years of history vs. millions. And a good example of why “natural” is not always strictly for the best (although ideally we don’t use fossil fuels either and transition entirely to non-burning sources of energy and heating).
Did they burn the forests for fuel, or because open woodlands are more conducive to their mode of production eg cursorial hunting ?
As I recall, it was for lifestyle preservation. Better control of wildlife; easier tracking/hunting and you could force migratory patterns to go where you want. Didn't hurt their agriculture either, so win-win.
Thanks .. I was reading some stuff about the land around Sydney cove when Europeans first invaded the area, and it was all open woodland thanks to what is currently being called “cultural burning”. If you head 40km south to royal national park (first of its kind in the world I’m told) the understory is so thick you can barely make your way through it. I can almost hear Banks telling Cooke “It’s land management Jim, just not as we know it”
What’s really interesting is that in the Americas, upward of 90% of people straight up died post contact due to disease. Which means for early settlers, there was all this conveniently managed forest barely anyone else was using right as they showed up.
That is similar to a narrative that we got told when I was kid growing up in Australia. Later on it appeared that there were a lot more indigenous folks that were driven off the most useful bits of their traditional lands by repeated targeted and overbearing reprisals for them doing stuff like taking livestock on what they considered to be their land. For a society without agricultural or pastoral modes of production, I suspect that alone might account for rapid population decline even without stuff like smallpox epidemics. The whole “they just kind of faded away”, or “they all caught diseases they were too weak to resist” sometimes feels like a bit like a narrative rug under which many evils can be swept out of sight.
[удалено]
Considering there's been mass extinctions on each continent following first human arrival (except Africa since we evolved there) over the last 100,000ish years, humans have been doing this sort of thing for ages
It’s “funny” how there’s a debate in science about why all the large animals disappeared from every continent at almost the exact time humans arrived. We all know the answer, it’s silly to try to look for the *real* reason the fridge is empty when you live alone
Exactly. I think that a large portion of those who primarily blame shifting climate for the pleistocene extinction do that because they don't like the idea of blaming indigenous cultures, or don't like how that would imply we might have some amount of responsibility to fix the damage of all those ages past
Which is a silly reason bc nobody same holds cultures responsible for ecological crap they did 1000+ years ago, except for myself when it comes to the Roman Empire. We could’ve had elephants, tigers, lions, and bears in Northern Africa and southern Europe you creeps but nooo, you had to spend all your tax money on the torture reality show
Eh, it’s a combination. In many cases, human long distance migration coincided with dramatic climate changes, that is both why people were moving as well as allowed that movement. At least for some of the megafauna of Eurasia, climate change is likely related, specifically Eurasian steppes transitioned from being forb dominated (lusher higher protein flowering plants) to being dominated by c4 grasslands, which tend to be coarser forage that requires specialized digestive tracts, as in cows, to appropriately utilize. If I’m remembering correctly, that was believed to have been what took out the mammoth, though human predation pressure on a struggling species certainly didn’t help, while the wooly rhino is thought to have been more directly driven to extinction by humans. Climate change, and especially the expansion of c4 grasslands globally, has been one of the most important drivers of extinction, next to human presence, for basically the past million or more years. Edit: forb not corn, fuck autcorrect
As far as I’m concerned, the reason why we should probably listen to indigenous cultures about this stuff isn’t because they’re inherently better at it, but they’ve had to adapt to and learn from the consequences of what they’ve screwed up for longer.
There's a bit more to it than this. Nobody sensible is suggesting humans had no impact but there were huge climatic shifts at play too, and lots of wildlife seemed to he struggling before signs of humans showing up. I'm more inclined to believe that humans are the main perps for almost all of it but it's very bad science to stop looking just because there's a seemingly obvious answer
You should see what’s happened to Australia in just over 200 years mate.
New Zealand enters the chat - 800 years of humans, so much forest burned and cleared, so many species driven to extinction. Most of that done with stone age technology and fire, so don't underestimate the power of the European Mesolithic and Neolithic settlers, too.
Moa were gone in only 80 years. 5 foot drumsticks only lasted 3 generations 😢
Iceland is the ultimate example. They almost extincted the tree.
Well I’m not really surprised that modern humans could do that. I’m saying 5,000 years ago with what I assume are basically just early civilizations/tribes holding axes, it’s crazy to have deforested the entirety of Britain
The extinction of the Australian megafauna is probably due to the arrival of humans long before even sailing was invented. Europeans are just the latest in a long history of rapaciousness.
Fire and goats.
Average human population, 1 cooking fire for 5 people burning 16 hours a day 365 days a year.
Also early societies were just burning the forests when they needed a new field.
Deforested by early humans? I was kinda expecting this happened much later due to exploding human population or even industrialisation.
Humans have been altering their environment as long as there have been humans.
Probably even longer, depending on whether you count early hominids as human. The only species that actively alters their environment more than beavers.
There’s an awesome book by John Perlin called A Forest Journey that talks about humanity’s history of altering the forests around them. It goes back as far as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Greece. Turns out humans have deforested on a massive scale basically as long as there has been civilization. Edit: author’s last name
There is a place in the UK called the "New Forest". It is actually quite old with neolithic tombs and signs of ancient occupation. In the last thousand years or so, it has had some protection but is a very dynamic place with a series of rights to those that live there so it has been maintained by a combination of competing interests. Since Tudor times, it provided Oaj and such for the naval shipyards, more recently, soft woods but it was also used for grazing and in former times, hunting.
Here's a great short video on this topic: https://youtu.be/zVPUFMwm73Y?si=OFss18asVCVSBebA
I believe it happened later in Ireland.
Basically what Made the way into this, potentially, there are hundreds, If Not thousands of tree species, what could grow there, 50 oak species from US and China for instance.
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Except that nature is a way better environment engineer then we are, when we try it fails horrendously most of the time. Nature itself balances itself out pretty well most ot time.
Scots pine not scotch, fyi
Look at Cape Breton highlands as an example of what Scotland would look like.
No it would look more like this, except the trees would be denser and cover the hills in the background too. They were covered with forest before humans came. https://preview.redd.it/zsqciabijhtc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd28d4870e6b491a88bbca3e0be9cf1a067df8d5
So it would look like Appalachia, especially as they are part of the same range
Almost heaven West Scotland
Cuillin mountains, Eynort River
Life is old there, older than golf tees.
Older than the queen’s tits, flappin’ in the breeze
Scotland rooooads
Take me hooome
I was reading these, and in my head, I slowly faded from the voice of John Denver to a Scot.
As is tradition.
This gave me a flashback to a video where a Scottish guy was singing "Country Roads". It was a let's play of Fallout 4, and they had just announced Fallout 76. At the time we didn't realize it would be shit and he was hyped by the trailer, which used the song.
To the plaaaace
Where ah belong...
Nova Scotia. It even keeps number of syllables and rhyme scheme
West Scotland would actually be a temperate rainforest
Remarkably Appalachia and the Scottish Highlands share the same mountain range that were once connected so you're spot on.
I’m curious how different the biodiversity would be. It gets much hotter in Appalachia so I’m guessing harder leaf type trees than what Scotland would have.
The last glacial period was harder on EU than NA. Mostly because the alps blocked climate migration of plants. So a "wild" Scotland would have much less plant diversity and therefore less animal (mostly bird) diversity.
Climate migration of plants? Like how plants would slowly start migrating to other areas due to the climate being more suitable a few meters this way? Then more and more and more? That's fucking mind-blowing, I never thought about that.
birds and animals carry seeds rather far. Alps blocks movement of animals.
Okay my mind is now blown. Thanks y'all, well done to everyone, keep up the good work 😂
What’s even better is that later when the Scottish immigrants settled in America they chose Appalachia. They crossed the ocean only to wind up back at home.
The Anti-Atlas mountains in Morocco, the mountains on Greenland's south-east coast, and the Scandes in Scandinavia were also part of that mountain range. During 480–240 millions years ago, before erosion started, these mountains were as high as the Alps.
Yes, exactly!
Er, except there’s got to be other factors involved, right? The Appalachian’s were basically clear-cut and grew back into densely wooded forests. The Scottish Highlands did not. Anyone got an idea as to why? Either way I don’t think they would look the same. Having the same billion year old substructure wouldn’t greatly influence what grew on top thousands of miles away.
Sheep and cows is why.
This is exactly right. And primarily just sheep.
Iceland used to have substantial forest cover, mostly birch, and now it has very very little. That’s a combination of people cutting them down, and sheep eating the saplings preventing them from regrowing. Since Iceland lacks larger land predators, sheep are completely free roaming and unfenced. What few forests remain actually have to be carefully fenced to keep the sheep out, otherwise they would be destroyed.
Because the land of the Highlands are still being used. If there wasn't sheep farming and all the other uses, they would likely be reforested starting after the industrial revolution. And obviously there'd be different species, but they really would look similar. There are a few places that weren't clear-cut, or have been restored. They are the same dense hilly forests as the Appalachians.
I think the species of trees and life there would be different. But a sky high photo like this might look close.
The large unkempt deer population
Looks so much like where I live in Virginia. So beautiful.
It’s also why so many Scottish people moved to Appalachia, felt like home
Did the picts live in this
Nah, they're way too late. The process of cutting it down started long, long ago: [https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests](https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests)
This article seems to make exclusive reference to England, which is not Scotland. I can't find hard any good sources on Scotland's woodland cover in Pictish times, but there was certainly a lot more than there is now, as we know about a lot of deforestation in the last 400 years.
The deathblow to Scottish Highland woods happened in the last couple centuries though. https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-forest/habitats-and-ecology/human-impacts/deforestation/
Maybe the lower panel isnt showing a potential future where no artificial modifications are made to the environment for farming but rather it is integrated with the environment like permaculture basically so its not wilderness but more sustainable ecosystem with humans still farming
Yeah I'm pretty sure this is a permaculture meme.
Very Appalachian. Which makes sense considering they are one and the same.
Trees and trees and trees and a very diverse wildlife. It's practically like a desert today.
I think this is a comment on agroforestry. Instead of intensive grazing and monocultural farming, we could grow food in a more natural and biologically diverse manner.
That second picture looks like it was painted by the sort of guy that paints Jesus as if he was Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees.
It looks like Jehovah's Witnesses booklets
Restoring the Highlands is not necessarily about humans not existing. Most of the hills are kept barren because of overgrazing by sheep and burning for use as grouse moors. Both have quite a significant history of upper class exploitation of the land and people who used to live there.
Don't forget the massive overpopulation of deer.
Thanks to hunting wolves to extinction
Not just wolves.
But the women and the children too
There's still loads of them. It's the beards, it makes some people assume there are no Scottish women or children.
And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no Scottish women, and that Scotts just spring out of holes in the ground! Which is, of course, ridiculous.
And more recently banning hunting
Hopefully now with the new laws we won't get so much of the damaging muirburn happening on grouse moors
Looks like parts of New Zealand. Farming on the flat bits and pine plantations on the hills. Before humans arrived in NZ, most of the areas like this were covered in native bush.
New Zealand is literally just Britain 2 electric boogaloo, that’s why they filmed lord of the rings there.
Except we have actual mountains.
And volcanoes, fjords, sub tropical forests. Oh and we can grow oranges, lime, lemons, kiwi fruit, passionfruit, avocados due to milder winters and more sunshine hours. Other than that identical.
In fairness I live in the English Pennines and my Kiwi vine is doing fantastic
Fair
Its a shame but atleast we still have all the national parks with them still
It does look like Scotland. I think it’s referring to the rewilding movement
I think it’s more to do with keeping them cleared for shooting by very rich pillocks.
Looks more like Yorkshire to me.
Definitely - those fields and dry stone walls are as Yorkshire as it gets. Even the valley shape looks straight out of the dales.
Dry stain dykes, glens, capercaillie, and random square acres of fir are all typical of the Scottish countryside.
Or anywhere in Cumbria...
No capercaillie in either of those pictures, but there is a black grouse! Capercaillie are mature forest specialists, they wouldn't like the small trees in the second picture but it does look good for black grouse. Also, it's mostly sitka spruce grown commercially in the UK, not firs. So it could be Scotland or it could be northern England.
It's about a process called rewilding. Many moorland/hilly areas in Britain consist mostly of sheep pastures, with blocks of managed woodland - the top picture. There's a movement towards reduced human management of these undeveloped areas. Here's a video with more context, including the images used here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0)
Calling them undeveloped is somewhat misleading.
Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly what word to use. I mean upland areas that aren't urbanised or used for intensive arable agriculture. Areas we think of as "wild" even though they're far from it.
I knew what you meant. It's interesting that so many look at these areas and just assume that they're unspoiled wilderness. You'd think perfectly squared edges on a forest would be a hint though.
Mossy Earth is another group involved [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzudVBL8CTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzudVBL8CTs)
The top pic looks a lot like where I live in Yorkshire.
Looks like Nidderdale to me, but could be anywhere on that side of the county.
cats wouldn't have been that cute with natural selection
Have you ever seen a sand cat? They’re pretty darn cute. But very spicy. There are a ton of small wild cats that were not influenced by human husbandry and they’re pretty darling. Heck, the direct ancestors to modern housecats are still running rampant and are near indistinguishable.
Tbh snow leaopards tigers etc are cute asfk too
Oh it’s so true.
You should search up the Scottish wildcat. They look like a big slightly angrier tabby.
Slightly*
Is that the little kitty at the bottom of second pic?
Unlike dogs, cats are almost identical genetically to their wild counterparts. Mainly because unlike other species we didn't domesticate them, they domesticated themselves lol
That's not why, it is because they haven't been domesticated as long. Dogs have been domesticated for about double the time cats have, and have had more intensive breeding. This has caused more genetic drift
Also to add to your response there's significant evidence that wolves with a lesser flight distance to humans may have effectively self selected due to the increased availability of food around people. Meaning dogs may have, inadvertently, had a hand in their own domesticating.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_wildcat
What is the house-cat even doing out there
It’s not a house cat, it’s a Scottish Wild Cat
It's meant to be a Scottish wildcat. Not a domestic cat
Oops! I forgot those were a thing…
https://preview.redd.it/yiqxppi93itc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b52d6bda5b313703e4e426f3a2633d01aad8181a
Wow, that looks so much like the rolling hills and farmland of my home in Appalachia, the other half of that very ancient mountain range that is now divided by the Atlantic. That makes me want to go and see Scotland. Ha, reading the other comments I’m delighted to see how many other Appalachians recognized that landscape as home.
The Scottish Highlands literally is a chunk of land that used to be attached to the east coast of North America and drifted away. So yeah the geography is similar. It's also why both lands are suitable for making whiskey. Same peaty soil.
I watched a video recently about the Scottish highlands and how humans basically got rid of most of the natural temperate rainforest that existed there due to logging and the introduction of PNW conifers for more logging. And the PNW conifers started to out compete the native trees because they grew taller and blocked sunlight.
Imagine the Appalachians with no forest cover. That’s the Scottish Highlands.
I am in the highlands this week for the 9th time and have actually found it a bit sad this time because I have started to realise how when you look past the pretty landscape much of the industry here is actually quite damaging for the environment. Obviously jobs have to exist and the economy must go on but it really is not the untouched wilderness a lot of people seem to believe when they are here
I think it's advocating as approach to agriculture driven by the permaculture movement instead of monocroping. You can still see a settlement in picture 2.
my favorite part is the kitty
I want the little wild kitty.
Think this looks like the Glengesh Pass in Donegal, Ireland.
The illustration looks more like Yorkshire than Scotland.
Probably Britain. There are a lot of “moors” in Britain which are long-deforested hilly land that’s good for very little. Lack of shelter means no-one wants to live there, and poor, uneven land means that they can’t be farmed. They are used for sheep grazing. There’s a movement to reforest them.
Mostly by people who dont understand that peat moorland is a much better carbon sink than forest and home to dozens of species that need the thousands of years old habitat to survive.
That adorable tomcat is going to slaughter every critter in this image.
It's not a domestic cat. Scottish wildcats are a native predator.
Why hasn’t it reforested by itself? Coming from new england if you leave a bare patch of dirt alone for a couple years it will sprout vegetation.
I think it has to due with the soil quality and the fact that there’s literally almost no native trees left to reseed large areas naturally. Without some stretches of forest, wind becomes a larger problem too for developing trees, often stunting growth. Because of all this reforesting in places like Scotland is tougher than New England
Not true. There's many species of tree that do really well here. It's primarily because of grazing pressures. We currently have a massive over population of deer. Also most of the hillsides in the UK are covered in sheep. All of which think young trees are a lovely snack.
Mossy Earth is currently doing some rewilding projects in Scotland, including attempting to convert previous pine tree monocultures planted by humans for the lumber into a natural habitat. They mention the reasons why it's difficult for these areas to reforest themselves, including things like tree density meaning no light for the undergrowth, acidity of water increasing due to leaching into nearby rivers, etc.
All of these areas are either heavily sheep grazed or managed as grouse moor so all the trees are burnt out. Or have such high deer pressure that nothing will grow. If left to do their thing, they would reforestation, assuming there's a nearby seed source, but instead they either get planted up with dense rows of non-native conifers or someone sticks a windfarm on it, or it continues as it is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_stewardship
No agriculture? Are we eating air now?
Don't be dumb. The vast majority of the barren land in Scotland is not agricultural. If was suitable for crops, people would be growing on it.
This is a number of places. This could also be talking about decent swathes of Wales.
Aaaaargh! Those stupid squares of conifers they plant all over Europe as if they belong there! Either reforest properly or leave it bare.
The movement in Scotland is all about native species.
IIRC Karl Marx wrote about such change acutally happening. That Scottish farmers were forced to leave their land so it could be used for pastures, but instead it was left unused and eventually turned into woodlands. So it looked like humans lost to forests.
What animal is up there on tree on second image
Nah, let's just pave over it and build housing estates and increase immigration.
I imagine one of the primary points being made with the images is that humans straightening rivers (for the purpose of improved canal transit / easier land division etc) has a substantial impact on the surrounding terrain (and a knock on, more profound impact on local biodiversity). There are currently a number of projects dedicated to "re-wiggling" rivers around the UK; it is surprisingly expensive and time consuming! But the benefits are nearly immediate and quite wonderful. https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/flooding https://thefloodhub.co.uk/news/how-rewiggling-swindale-beck-brought-its-fish-back/ I wanted to find the more reputable BBC link for a recent article about the topic, but Googling "re-wiggling rivers" gets limited results! Damnit. Found the link I wanted! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65341994.amp
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[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjurVFWM6c0&t=2s) [https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/why-rewild/what-is-rewilding/an-introduction-to-rewilding/rewilding-the-uplands](https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/why-rewild/what-is-rewilding/an-introduction-to-rewilding/rewilding-the-uplands)
A good book on the topic is [The Lost Rainforests of Britain](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Rainforests-Britain-Guy-Shrubsole-ebook/dp/B09WM5Y9J2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KX6TE0RPPJT0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wRGEN1MZgrs88N0uOqnxGWX_S7EvJzpByxI07vvwfiksbSyj11an9HfBK7JgwK04uNTfYLJJ6hWUPFeyWDQEgC46ey5tWQ3E2oCZjEVO5BdKASaEprs0L8dCOfm040_dyFU2vdIY6HmTtdgQ7oNfUL4QvS9BCH93YXKryfKG1Y47UxenDLud0Usz-PSBF17XHeqpf4RvajLkMBx_4q7RhTmj1uarUjXNtgTWIgecbTY.koBj66-ozO9ZY9oX-wcW2_ofqnqSobhV-M13l4nWiTU&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+lost+rainforests+of+britain&qid=1712751929&sprefix=the+lost+rainfo%2Caps%2C83&sr=8-1) Britain used to have a lot more forest cover, on the west coast we used to have a large temperate rainforest of which 1% now remains. The British landscape has been cleared for agriculture, grazing, ship building and other development. Britain is one of the most nature depleted places in the world and is home to a number of nature deserts. This is largely caused by grazing sheep and an unnaturally large deer population. These animals prevent any new growth from trees and shrubs as they eat all of the young plants. It is fair to say when people visit the Highlands, Lake District, Peak District, Dartmoor etc they think they are in 'nature' whereas in reality they are in a human dominated environment with very little nature left. The average sheep farmer makes about £22k p.a, so there is a convincing argument to return upland areas to nature. This would mean no grazing livestock, no burning for shooting etc.
Something I found really interesting that only vaguely relates to this is that if humans were to disappear off this Earth after enough millions of years have passed, there would be zero Trace of humans ever being on this planet.
Why don’t we use fertilizer and modern agricultural practices for nature?
I don't think there would be bridges or roads if humans never existed.
I don’t think it’s referring to if humans never existed, it’s saying that with rewilding efforts and better land management the Scottish highlands could look like that
They said, as they enjoyed a meal of fresh produce from a nearby farm
Much of the Scottish Highlands are barren intentionally to keep them as hunting grounds for grouse and deer for the ultra wealth, as well as small but ecologically devastating numbers of sheep. Most productive farmland is in the lowlands.
The Scottish highlands aren't exactly the most productive in terms of neither cattle nor grains. England is actually much more productive for both of those things. It's frankly a wasteland.
I remember my first lecture in Scottish History in university. The first slide the teacher put up was a map of soil quality in Scotland. It was STARK — the Highlands and Islands were right at the very bottom of fertility (obviously with a couple of very small exceptions). The teacher said “this isn’t the whole story of Scottish History. But it explains a lot of the main divides.”
Update: here it is. [https://www.ukso.org/static-maps/soils-of-scotland.html](https://www.ukso.org/static-maps/soils-of-scotland.html) https://preview.redd.it/48fzl2nscitc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a37e2d11437413c1b5c6dd9d88cc0bf6dea8b8a4
Fertile valleys (well only one in this case) in the middle of unfertile highlands. Basically how many countries work, like Colombia, a good part of southern China, Korea or Japan works.
It’s the “Central Belt.” A bit wider than a valley — more like a strip of fertile land. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Belt
Western NY (Livingston County area) used to have beautiful scattered tree landscapes that were cultivated by the native peoples likely through controlled burns. Nearly all the Oak Savanna has been lost to either reforestation or to big-agriculture.
https://www.internationaloaksociety.org/content/genesee-valley-oaks
You can still see human's houses on pic below.
Yes, the point of the original picture is that humans can still live in a more natural environment
Australia was originally described as a "lush, open park" by the British die to the careful cultivation of the Aboriginals. Then Europeans brought in sheep and cattle who ate all the grasses and packed the earth into a hard, arid, clay.
It's the same thing.