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Thu 16 Mar, 2006 02:52 pm
President plans to grow forest in desert
THE president of Turkmenistan has ordered a forest to be planted to improve his desert nation's climate - the latest of the autocratic leader's elaborate projects that include an artificial lake and an ice palace.
Saparmurat Niyazov said that his new forest would cover an area of 386 square miles.
"The climate will improve considerably if we do that," the president told a televised cabinet meeting yesterday. "The archa, a kind of cypress tree, lives 1,000 years. This will be a millennial forest."
He said that each ministry would have an allocated area where it would have to plant a certain number of trees within three years. The 12-mile wide and 31-mile long forest outside the capital Ashgabat must grow by 2015, Mr Niyazov said.
Desert covers 80 per cent of Turkmenistan, where summer temperatures reach 50C.
This was a concept that was popular in the US in the 19th century. The idea was that if people moved on to the Great Plains, and planted trees, the climate would change and the plains would become more productive. It was a savanna the and it is a savanna now so it seems the idea did not work.
Every winter the Icelandic government buys thousands of potted Xmas tress that were "excess" to farms that grow them here in teh U.S. and have them flown to Iceland for planting in their "National Forest".
When I was up there in 1993 the National Forest was some 800 acres in size and they were planting some 10,000 trees a year - 99% of which promptly died. There aren't many trees that can survive in that sort of environment.
This is an interesting exercise in the intentional use of natural selection in a goal directed effort The 1% that do survive will presumably reproduce, pass their survival ability on to the next generation and eventually Iceland will have a species of pine tree that can survive in their climate.
I don't think there is to much reproduction going on. They've been doing this since the 1960s and their 800 acre forest is still bare. There wasn't a tree over 10' tall in there. Trees just can't take the low temps, consant ice storms and high winds (a 35mph wind is a "calm" day within 10 or 15 miles of the southern and eastern coastlines. 70 mph winds are a weekly thing. They hit a high of 124 mph (sustained) while I was up there.).
Any seed or pollen is swept out to sea very quickly and taller trees get uprooted. Like the deserts, they have little or no topsoil for trees to root in because of the winds and, in their case, the island's volcanic and glacial history.
we need a rope, some strong guys and someone who can read a ,map. Well tow this island to a more temperate area
I always get a kick out of humans who think they can do better than nature.
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