This is barely recognizable as a conifer forest, but as recently as fifteen years ago, when the trees were healthy, it was a much darker place, carpeted in needles and ground pine. Quite a few fast-growing poplars have sprung up, and there are many hundreds of oak, maple, and hickory saplings in the undergrowth.

https://youtu.be/wnmuIgnpEhY

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Put it on another forum 

I don't think "Ground pine" has the same meaning here as in the US. And hickory is not native to UK. It makes it difficult when you're trying to talk about UK cave conservation using concepts that aren't applicable here.

Given enough time without distubance everything  recovers. To a natural state. It may not be the same natural state.

cavemanmike said:

This is a caving forum.
Put it on another forum 

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[gmod]This Forum Section is called "Idle Chat" and can be for any discussions (provided Forum Rules are nor contravened).[/gmod]

That isn't a normal succession.

It's highly unusual in a natural succession for *all* the pioneer growth to die off at once. The only time I've seen anything like that was acid rain. And saline inundation due to earthquake subsidence in Alaska....which I suspect isn't relevant here.

corax - I mostly agree with you, but that's not really the important point. We cannot permanently destroy anything, but we can disrupt healthy natural process. We have all but demolished the health of our lands, and are denying that our own health is/will ever be impacted. Foolishness!

Kay - Ground pine is perhaps a local usage, I think the stuff is actually some sort of club moss. Whatever the case, differences in species are completely unimportant to the idea that both of our histories of land use are ruinous.

I filmed the wood to show evidence of conifers as a relatively short-term part of secondary succession, not as "climax" species (you will have noticed that there are no young pines at all). I forget now how that ever came to be a disputed possibility... but it got me out of the house.

It certainly does seem abrupt to me too. I can't figure acid rain would effect a single species in a narrow setting. These trees are approaching the end of their expected lifespan, and are all roughly the same age, so perhaps this is just the way it's going to happen here.

You have used the term "pioneer species" many times, and I don't reckon I understand. I thought that those were the species involved in primary succession, which this woods is obviously not an example of.

??

Kenilworth said:

Kay - Ground pine is perhaps a local usage, I think the stuff is actually some sort of club moss. Whatever the case, differences in species are completely unimportant to the idea that both of our histories of land use are ruinous.

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In another thread you have based your arguments on the identity of species, so to say the identity of species is unimportant to your argument is a bit of a back-track.  Both in these posts and your posts on cave conservation, you use your US experience to argue what you think should be done in the UK. It would help your argument if you were to show evidence of understanding the situation in the UK (or even evidence of wishing to understand).

In another thread you have based your arguments on the identity of species

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I have? Droid and I argued species a bit I guess but that was an aside...
I haven't made any statement about what should be done about UK agriculture and forestry, and I've admitted that my caving experience has limited application elsewhere (even within the US. Caves in the American southwest, for example fall under a completely different set of circumstances that I do not understand well and cannot comment on).

This isn't a matter of species or of specifics, but of basic logical principles. If we have a history of mistreating our land, and if we are divorced from our diminished lands by overpopulation, industrial agriculture, urbanization, specialization, commercialism, and consumerism, how can we make ourselves qualified to care for caves?

The situation in the UK, as I understand it, is that there exist a large number of cavers on a small parcel of land. Considering the raw numbers involved, cave damage such as vandalism seems to be relatively uncommon. Many UK cavers believe that there is no need for improved conservation standards, a few believe that there is a conservation crisis. As long as caver numbers and attitude are what they are, I can't imagine what more could be done.

But, the goal of the BCA thread was to explore the effects of organizational oversight on hobbyist numbers and motivation. If overpopulation and the loss of connection to one's place is the cause of land abuse, could it also contribute to cave abuse? If so, how could populations be reduced, and connections be restored? These are human problems, not national ones, and community is a universal idea that is as valuable in the UK as anywhere.

paul said:

cavemanmike said:

This is a caving forum.
Put it on another forum 

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This Forum Section is called "Idle Chat" and can be for any discussions (provided Forum Rules are nor contravened).

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point taken paul