I always feel gross when I notice abrupt high branches on the fringe of a forest. Some of us, at least, notice.
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Sorry, what do you mean by that?
The periphery of a forest has the luxury and burden of maintaining all of its branches on one side. Light reaches the entirety of a trees breadth and height there, so leaves and needles and branches do not cease to grow, unless their light is blocked out by something taller. So it follows that if you see an area on the exterior of a forest where the branches sit only at great height, that indicates logging and deforestation. Human tampering.
No longer is the wind broken, and no longer can animals flit and hide amongst the infinite branches encircling the place. It is effectively forever disturbed. A biome fundamentally altered. The howling forests of the modern era are a largely human invention. And not one that I like.
Healthy and full
Human tampering. (Or possibly disease in this case)
Took me a second to notice the plastic bag.
At first I read thw labels as 2020, 2050 2080 ... Ome can dream 😭
Ah yes, the majestic free spirit of the bag.
That movie might have really fucked with us.
Just a quick reminder; this is not true for western central europe. Deforestation in the area of Germany had already 2000 years ago been a problem. Germany currently has much more forest area than it had for example 500 years ago.
A large percentage of those forests are monocultures grown for the paper, pulp, timber and cellulose industry. According to Global Forest Watch, in 2020 9% of land cover on Germany was natural forests but 15% was non-natural. It's basically not very different from planting a field of corn.
Sadly a bunch of trees does not a forest make, especially if they're not native. Most of the local wildlife will not be able to benefit from those trees for food, and there needs to be diversity in types of plants beyond just trees.
Yeah, just like a lawn isn't nature. It's a bit better (e. g. against floods?) than concrete but not good.
Forests are not necessarily the most diverse and natural ecosystem in certain regions. When you go back time with a similar climate to today and no humans, you would have had straight tusk elephants, some of the largest the world has ever seen in what is today Germany. Add to that Irish elk, which 4.5m from bottom to the top of the antlers tall and European forms of lions, leopards and rhinos.
These species would have kept Germany a much more open landscape, with some forested areas, but still open grassland. That is why a lot of native species require open grassland to survive. For example the bustard does not live in forests, but so do many insects. They often survived thanks to pastures keeping land somewhat open.
That is also true for many other parts of the world. Although Europe is hit worse then other places, you used to have elephant species basically everywhere, were humans live today for example.
Forest is not the same as tree plantations.
Yes, but Germany now has more actual forest than it did 200 years ago, too. Or 20 years ago. Or 20000 years ago (^u^)
Baggins!
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