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