Post #4111639

I think it is time that we talk about coniferous forests in Western Europe, like the Netherlands, Belgium, and most of France. Because about 200 years ago, these forests didn't exist over here, but civilization planted all those pine trees to get rid of other landscapes with unwanted properties, like heath or sand dunes. All of the original forestation in this part of the continent was deciduous forest. However, pine trees grow quick, don't mind the lack of water, their wood is very much appreciated as construction material that was very much needed during the industrialization, and we love to put smaller pine trees as Christmas tree in our houses. But pine trees make the soil very acidic which affects much of the indigenous scrubs. Pine trees can do with little water, but because of that are also very prone to fires as we currently see in France. And lastly some of those forests are now very old, but that wasn't never supposed to be because when the trees were planted they had a commercial objective, that disappeared because of deindustrialisation and the introduction of other construction materials like plastic. So maybe it is time to rethink our western European forests?