Frans Vera PhD

Rewilding the trees

Let there be no forest Photo Ted Green

Open grown Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) Photo Ted Green

Open grown Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) Photo Frans Vera

However, we seem to consider trees only as part of the forest Photo Frans Vera

However, we seem to consider trees only as part of the forest Photo Frans Vera

Why do we seem to consider trees only as part the forest? l  Because, where trees can grow the forest is

commonly considered as the natural state of the vegetation and therefore of the trees;

l  Why do we consider the forest as the natural state of the vegetation?

l  Because of the shifting baseline syndrome (Daniel Pauly, 1995);

l  What is the shifting baseline syndrome? l  It is the gradual change in the perception of

what is the natural state of our environment.

What caused the shifting baseline

syndrome?

Aurochs in 1627 Tarpan in 1887

The guild of true grazers

Low numbers of other species

because of hunting and poaching

All what was left, were agrarian landscapes.

Because of that we suffer from the shifting baseline syndrome.

The “Shifting Baseline Syndrome” occurs when: l  People do not know of how nature originally

was;

l  Each new generation redefines “nature” and “natural” according to their own

experience;

l  Changes in the unnatural environment happen slow and are therefore hard-to-notice.

The “Shifting Baseline Syndrome” brings on that:

l  Each new generation views the environment with wildlife they remember from their youth as natural;

l  A continuing lowering of the standard for

nature takes place;

l  A degraded state of nature is accepted as the normal thing.

The consequences of the “Shifting Baseline Syndrome” for biodiversity are:

l  The community becomes very tolerant for the creeping loss of biodiversity;

l  A large educational and psychological hurdle in efforts to reset expectations and

targets for nature conservation;

l  The hurdle is how we reconstructed the natural vegetation.

Mankind disturbed nature.

The German forester von Cotta in 1816: “If mankind would leave Germany, after 100 years it

would be totally covered with forest”.

The succession theory of Clements (1916): if man stops disturbing nature, nature will rebound

spontaneously to her original state.

Photo Frans Vera

Potential Natural Vegetation

All European indigenous large herbivores became forest animals.

Photo Frans Vera

The natural density is the density that does not prevent the regeneration of the forest, because the

forest is the natural vegetation.

However, forest is constructed by excluding the influence of wild, indigenous, large herbivores

Circular reasoning

Landnam-theory

The forest becomes a large educational and psychological hurdle for discussing the role of large herbivores in nature and for discussing targets for nature conservation. Why?

Heinz Ellenberg (1986): “Central Europe would have been a monotonous wooded landscape, if mankind had not created the colourful mosaic of fields, heaths, hay lands and pastures.”

Part of agriculture was the wood-pasture system

Everywhere in Europe there were wood-pastures

The experience: cattle prevent the rejuvenation of trees in the forest;

Cattle do not belong in nature, because the species is introduced by man;

Threfore:

Wood pastures changed into closed canopy forests Photo Frans Vera

Photo Frans Vera

Diameter distribution National Park Dalby Söderskog

In 40 years 50% of all vascular plant species were lost

Why was cattle removed from wood-pastures?

Because of the shifting baseline syndrome

The Auerochs

and the Shifting baseline syndrome

The Aurochs became extinct in 1627

l  Only in 1827 the Aurochs is scientifically described and recognized as a species, however living in the Pleistocene;

l  Only in 1887 it became known from historical texts that the Aurochs lived in Europe up till historic times;

l  Only in 1927 the Aurochs was recognized as the wild ancestor of domestic cattle;

l  By then in science the baseline for domestic cattle had been shifted to cattle being a non-indigenous species, introduced by man that has to be removed if natural conditions are to be restored.

The Aurochs became extinct in 1627

Photo Frans Vera

Domestication

In the wood pasture cattle was the indigenous functional equivalent if his extinct ancestor.

Cattle in wood pastures are indigenous species. Photo Frans Vera

Sloe in grazed grassland Photo Frans Vera

Oak in sloe scrub

Photo Frans Vera

Spiny hawthorn protecting oak Photo Frans Vera

The Jay

Photo Jos Korenromp

Sloe scrub protecting hazel shrub

Photo Frans Vera

Nuthatch

Mantle and fringe vegetation Photo Frans Vera

Trees growing up in mantle

Photo Frans Vera

A grove is formed

Photo Frans Vera

A grove surrounded by a spiny mantle and fringe vegetation

Photo Frans Vera

Retrogressive succession

Photo Frans Vera

Spiny shrubs appear again

Photo Frans Vera

Spiny hawthorn protecting oak Photo Frans Vera

Spiny juniper protecting scots pine Photo Ted Green

Photo Frans Vera

Trees regenerate very well in wood pastures with wild living cattle,

horses and deer

Photo Frans Vera

We should not focus on forest, but on trees

So, for the sake of the trees and biodiversity, free the trees from the jacket of the forest and let

them rewild in the wood pasture.

Photo Ted Green Photo Ted Green

Photo Ted Green

My suggestion: do not plea for the return of the Caledonian forest, but for the return of the

Caledonian tree.

Photo Ted Green