Forest cover of New Zealand circa 1840
Present day forest cover of New Zealand
Posted on 12/16/2010 8:45:15 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Charcoal recovered from lakebed sediment cores has shown that just a few large fires within 200 years of initial colonization destroyed much of the South Island's lowland forest.
Dave McWethy and Cathy Whitlock from Montana State University led the international team that carried out the study.
Previous research by co-authors Matt McGlone and Janet Wilmshurst at Landcare Research in New Zealand showed that closed forests covered 85-90 percent of New Zealand prior to the arrival of Polynesians (Maori ) 700-800 years ago, but by the time Europeans settled in the mid 19th century, grass and shrubs had replaced over 40 percent of the South Island's forests...
Wilmshurst said archaeological evidence has suggested that successful cultivation of introduced food crops, such as kumara and taro, was only possible in warmer northern coastal areas and the starch-rich rhizomes of bracken fern, which replaced the burnt forests, provided an essential part of Maori diets in colder regions.
Newly derived records of past climate enabled the team to disprove the hypothesis that unusual climate conditions encouraged fire at around the time of Maori settlement.
(Excerpt) Read more at sify.com ...
Forest cover of New Zealand circa 1840
Present day forest cover of New Zealand
Soil profile showing dark charcoal horizon from the time of forest clearance
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The noble savage eco terrorist. Liberal heads exploding.
That looks like a very thin carbon band, looks like someone burning their fields and not burning a forest.
If this was a forest, there should be buried roots and all kinds of debris under the burn line. Plus there would be lots of decomposition below the burn line from previous decomposition as part of the forest.
If this picture is related to this study, I think they are blowing smoke up our skirts.
Another story of the evil white men.
Evil white man = Maori?
It’s strange to see an academic doing actual science.
Settlers, Maori were the natives, no?
1840 - Few white settlers/colonialists from England/Europe...and mostly in the Auckland area (North Island)
1800 - 200 years ago...there were no white settlers yet...
did this author do any type of research ???
Who is he blaming ???
My English ancestors who arrived in the South Island in Dec 1850
or the Maoris who arrived about 1,000 AD
Maybe I am miss-reading it, but thought what I am reading was that they both attacked the forests.
Still looks questionable in the picture.
I was on a dig when I was in school and we looked at where the forest was burned in Ohio when settlers came there and we also compared where there were fields. They don’t look the same.
This one looks like a field burn. Maybe the type of trees there cause it to look a lot different than North America, so maybe there is another reason. Looks suspicious to me.
Maori are more of a chocolate brown color.
Every body no matter what their color has always used fire to clear land for agriculture because that is the most efficient way to do it and it releases the nutrients that were tied up in the vegetation.
What gets the enviros all tied up in a knot is that they hate civilization. They want to undo the industrial revolution, the iron age, the bronze age, the agricultural revolution and any other advancement that has made human life better.
They want us to live as the animals they believe we are (well not them of course being the elite overlords they are, just everyone else).
Natives as in first to get there which was fairly recently by the way.
Did you read the article, or even the excerpt?
...closed forests covered 85-90 percent of New Zealand prior to the arrival of Polynesians (Maori ) 700-800 years ago, but by the time Europeans settled in the mid 19th century, grass and shrubs had replaced over 40 percent...
Evidence Of Tunguska-Type Impacts Over The Pacific Basin Around The Year 1178 AD
"In year 1178 A.D., as related by Clube and Napier in their book The Cosmic Serpent, a strange event was observed to affect the Moon, which may be explained by a large impact on the hidden face, originating the Giordano Bruno crater.
A number of observations suggest that catastrophic cometary or meteoritic impacts around the same time also affected the Pacific basin: Maori legends of great fires destroying forests and the moa bird, to be associated to the recently found Tapanui craters; dynastic changes and migrations throughout Polynesia; very intense El Niño activity with flooding of the coastal Peruvian regions; demise of the local Moche civilizations, and the birth of the Incas civilization higher in the Andes; the emigration of the Aztects from the Pacific coast to the interior in the most well protected area from tsunams; unusually intense typhoon activity in the Chinese-Japanese see; unusually strong floods in Northern China with diversion of the course of the Huang Ho; unusually cold wheather in the Mongolian plateau, probably a main reason for the Mongolians invading nearby areas; a great sign in the sky seen by the boy Gengis Khan forecasting his future of world master; the number of comets seen in the sky as recorded by Chinese astronomers was unusually higher."
Ooh, good thinkin’! Thanks blam!
Shame losing a Kiwi forest. I love the stuff.
If mixed with another fruit (and as juice) I like it okay, but weird aftertaste. :’) That’s a cool pic, looks almost like a vinyard.
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