open fires, fireboxes, hobo stoves and environmental responsibility?

[jojo]

Maintaining Fire's Natural Role

Fire, like rain and sunshine, has been an important part of our environment for millions of years, shaping the very nature of life on earth. Around the world, fires are behaving differently now than they have throughout history, primarily as a result of human actions. Changes in how and where fires burn threaten our economy and safety, and can undo decades of progress in conservation and sustainable development.

More than half of the terrestrial world, including almost all of North America, depends on the existence of fire to maintain healthy plants and animals and natural resources upon which people depend, such as clean water. The damage caused by altered fire dynamics can be irreversible. By acting now, we can work to restore the natural role of fire in our landscapes and conserve the rich diversity of life on earth now and for future generations.

What The Nature Conservancy is Doing

The Nature Conservancy works to maintain fire’s role where it benefits people and nature, and keep fire out of places where it is destructive.

I copied this article on the Nature Conservancy website

I think too often we see fire as a destructive force, and indeed it can be. But, it is also a creative force. The Australian Aboriginal People have used fire for thousands of years to alter their habitat. Some tree seeds can only germinate when they have been though fire, and so on.

I don't believe for one minute that the very small fires we use occasionally cause untold damage. Environmentally, the petrochemical industry is far more destructive and poisonous. What about the damage caused by putting a foot path through a woodland? Building a road and putting cars on it?

People think fires is only ever dangerous and destructive because they don't know how to use them anymore; it's been made socially unacceptable to use fire. I think people are scarred of fire per se, same as now people only see knives as "dangerous" weapons, then show then a knife and they run screaming. Show some a fire and they also run screaming.

 

[mace242]

I think that often those who specialise in specifiv areas can be over concerned with the effects on that one area. You may find that the effects of one thing (fires) are perhaps damaging to one area (insects that eat dead wood) but they may perhaps be good for a type of plant that loves the ash and supports different insects. And so on...

I think that often some people can forget that we, us humans, are a part of the ecology of the world and we will have an impact upon it. Do we complain when a predator eats said wood loving insect? No - we view it as part of the natural world. Who is to say that the use of a small fire isn't the natural part that humans have to play.

Not saying we shouldn't take it for granted - but we are here to use it as much as the insect is...

Just some rambling thoughts...

 

[Glen]

Now there is a question.

My guess is that woodland size in itself may be a minor consideration for most species.

Graham

I phased that rather amibiguoisly, rather than the bigger question I really meant what is the smallest diameter twig.

My thinking is they need it to be big enough to burrow into plus it tends to be rotten or rotting wood they use. That leads to there must be a minimum diameter twig ( probably insect and tree species dependent ) beyond which it doesn't really effect them if a bushcrafter uses it.

If we can get a rough estimate of that, we can use wood burners more responsibly than we may have thought we were.

 

[xylaria]

Does anyone here burn large amounts of wood that have laid on the forest floor long enough to get insects in them? Because generally I find that type of wood too damp to burn. I have started fires with punk wood, but then it is crumbled so the insect life escapes. Mostly we burn roll palettes and dry unoccupied wood.

Ecosystems need to have the behaviour of every part them studied to draw conclusions about the consquences of a given action.

 

[myotis]

I phased that rather amibiguoisly, rather than the bigger question I really meant what is the smallest diameter twig.

My thinking is they need it to be big enough to burrow into plus it tends to be rotten or rotting wood they use. That leads to there must be a minimum diameter twig ( probably insect and tree species dependent ) beyond which it doesn't really effect them if a bushcrafter uses it.

If we can get a rough estimate of that, we can use wood burners more responsibly than we may have thought we were.

An interesting and thoughtful idea, but I am fairly confident that given some of these beasties can only be seen with a microscope that they will have adapted to exploit all sizes of wood.

However, its an interesting idea and I would be surprised if someone hasn't done some work on it. If not, it has given me an idea for a project I could try and get one of my students to do. looking at how insect diversity and biomass per kg of wood varies when the kg is made up of a single piece of wood or several smaller pieces of wood.

Graham

 

[myotis]

Does anyone here burn large amounts of wood that have laid on the forest floor long enough to get insects in them? Because generally I find that type of wood too damp to burn. I have started fires with punk wood, but then it is crumbled so the insect life escapes. Mostly we burn roll palettes and dry unoccupied wood.

Ecosystems need to have the behaviour of every part them studied to draw conclusions about the consquences of a given action.

I'm not sure how and when the wood becomes occupied but I assume the argument is that you are removing wood that would have become available.

Graham

 

[stevec038]

Hello to All,
Great debate. Interesting question. Well thought out answers and comments. But in this one I have to agree with Shakespeare "Much Ado About Nothing."
It was fun.
Stevec038

 

[xylaria]

I'm not sure how and when the wood becomes occupied but I assume the argument is that you are removing wood that would have become available.

Graham

Generally the bark is removed to reduce smoke and then it is pretty visable. I don't live like a Jain and sweep every insect out of my path, it is just that dead wood with a good boidiversity doesn't burn well.

Is more wood removed by a small percentage of the population burning wood for fuel or by bad forestry techneques keeping a wood tidy?

Forestry has improved a lot, but it is not like we are removing entire fallen trees. I still feel that burning either a waste product or wood is far better for the global ecology than burning a petrol chem block, or manufactured fuel.

 

[Glen]

An interesting and thoughtful idea, but I am fairly confident that given some of these beasties can only be seen with a microscope that they will have adapted to exploit all sizes of wood.

However, its an interesting idea and I would be surprised if someone hasn't done some work on it. If not, it has given me an idea for a project I could try and get one of my students to do. looking at how insect diversity and biomass per kg of wood varies when the kg is made up of a single piece of wood or several smaller pieces of wood.

Graham

My thinking is that as they burrow in as protection from predators and enviroment, there's going to be a certain limit beyond which it wouldn't provide that protection.

Another experiment it might be worth looking at in conjunction with that is does rotting wood provide better heat insulation.
I'm guessing, as there's bioactivity going on during the rotting process, that it actually generates a little of it's own heat too and that this would significanly effect the enviriomental protection it offered. hence even though some may be microscopic the minimum size is likely to not be linearly corelated to the insects size.

 

[myotis]

I still feel that burning either a waste product or wood is far better for the global ecology than burning a petrol chem block, or manufactured fuel.[/QUOTEm

So do I.

Graham

 

[HillBill]

It seems to me like one of those issues that will never be resolved by debate because there really is no answer on how to eliminate impact to the environment. From the sounds of it, when you burn wood you kill/displace a small amount of life but give the wood a little boost elsewhere so there is a balance. That is what nature is about and how it works. You will not wipe a species out by burning a bit of wood. In fact the insect life of a wood could be classed as a sustainable resource as wood, in a wood is also. It will grow back to fill the void left because we have not dealt them a fatal blow.

When an area floods, people are driven out and hurt. In the context of the human species this would be a similar occurance. But as we know when the waters recede people move back on to the land, which has been fertilised by the water and things in it.

 

[xylaria]

An interesting and thoughtful idea, but I am fairly confident that given some of these beasties can only be seen with a microscope that they will have adapted to exploit all sizes of wood.

However, its an interesting idea and I would be surprised if someone hasn't done some work on it. If not, it has given me an idea for a project I could try and get one of my students to do. looking at how insect diversity and biomass per kg of wood varies when the kg is made up of a single piece of wood or several smaller pieces of wood.

Graham

You could try looking at the biodiversity of fire sites while your at it. The not cleaned up fire scars in my local country park are very good for differant species of fungi. There is quite few differant minibeasts there as well, but I don't know what i am look at with them. The gorse gets burned regulary enough (and lives) that daldinia vernicosa is pretty common.

 

[myotis]

My thinking is that as they burrow in as protection from predators and enviroment, there's going to be a certain limit beyond which it wouldn't provide that protection.

Another experiment it might be worth looking at in conjunction with that is does rotting wood provide better heat insulation.
I'm guessing, as there's bioactivity going on during the rotting process, that it actually generates a little of it's own heat too and that this would significanly effect the enviriomental protection it offered. hence even though some may be microscopic the minimum size is likely to not be linearly corelated to the insects size.

Except, that while protection will be a part of it, the insects are actually eating the wood, and I suspect not all will be living in the wood but living in the soil.

Graham

 

[Glen]

Except, that while protection will be a part of it, the insects are actually eating the wood, and I suspect not all will be living in the wood but living in the soil.

Graham

Your probably right, when I think of it like that at least.

The proposed experiment would have a lot of interesting varibales that it might be worth exploring in one go.

Even lumps of X Kg could be done with differing surface areas,
eg sphere, cube, larger drilled cube, long rectangular "veneer", long rectanglar veneer rolled in both tight and loose spirals. Preferable all from the same actual tree in case the insect life has preferences that we don't know about.

The reason I'd suggest those is, the surface area may determine the amount and speed of rotting and a bundle of twigs will have differing properties across it's cross section ( outer and inner wood ) It'd probably also be worth comparing a bundle of twigs with a bundle of dowling made from a single lump.

My thinking being that you can explore several different variables, to see which one's have the most effect, with little more effort.

 

[myotis]

hillbill and xylaria

Most of these sorts of questions have no answer, because most of the time we don't really know what the question is, or what we should be trying to acheive.

As Xylaria points out, a perturbance such as fire, small or big, can increase biodiversity. Increased biodiversity is good so we could argue that fires are good for biodiversity.

BUT many rare species need very specific conditions, often in circumstances with poor diversity. Increasing the biodiversity can result in rare species becoming extinct.

If we exist, we can't avoid an impact on the environment, but we can make some decisions on how we manage those impacts, both as individuals and as a society.

While I don't really believe that the small amount of wood we are likely to burn will have any significant effect, equally, I think that the general principle of minimising resource use and environmental damage should be in the back of our mind when making decisions. I don't however, think you should become obsessive about it.

Graham

 

[myotis]

My thinking being that you can explore several different variables, to see which one's have the most effect, with little more effort.

I am certainly going to give it some thought, but bear in mind that every time you add a variable, the rule of thumb is that you need to add another ten samples. So a small experiment can very quickly become a massive one.

Graham

 

[myotis]

But in this one I have to agree with Shakespeare "Much Ado About Nothing."

I hope you are right.

Graham

 

[Glen]

I am certainly going to give it some thought, but bear in mind that every time you add a variable, the rule of thumb is that you need to add another ten samples. So a small experiment can very quickly become a massive one.

Graham

True, I was thinking of avoiding the variable of time into season, which'll have different temp and weather conditions. Though I guess a single block and a bundle of twigs, from the same actual tree, ( times 10 trees ) would give possibly the extreme ends of any scale and point to if it's worth exploring further.

While comptemplating this it has occured to me that, as wild polinating bees choose specific sized holes, when work is done on woodland and the timber left for wildlife, a few well chosen drill holes of the right size could possibly have quite an effect for the ammount of extra effort involved by the ( human ) workers.

Stll that's going slightly further of the course from your original post, hope I haven't taken it too far off course already.

 

[myotis]

True, I was thinking of avoiding the variable of time into season, which'll have different temp and weather conditions. Though I guess a single block and a bundle of twigs, from the same actual tree, ( times 10 trees ) would give possibly the extreme ends of any scale and point to if it's worth exploring further.

While comptemplating this it has occured to me that, as wild polinating bees choose specific sized holes, when work is done on woodland and the timber left for wildlife, a few well chosen drill holes of the right size could possibly have quite an effect for the ammount of extra effort involved by the ( human ) workers.

Stll that's going slightly further of the course from your original post, hope I haven't taken it too far off course already.

All sound possibilities, but until I get some expert advice of saproxylic insect ecology, I can't really start thinking about the experimental design.

Graham

 

[Husky]

A man walks along a beach which is strewn with seastars washed up by the waves.
He comes across a ragged fellow who is busy throwing seastars back into the water.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I am helping them back into the water." the ragged guy replies.
The man looks along the beach and says "But there are thousands and thousands. You putting a few back won´t make any difference!"
The ragged fellow tosses a purple seastar back into the waves an replies "It makes a difference for that one!"

Myotis
Could you ask your friend exactly which species she is worried about?
Your link http:// http://www.ukbap.org.uk/UKPlans.aspx?ID=341, is all about species that need mature or ancient wood or hollows. In my job we consider wood, oak for instance, of 10 cm or thicker to be of insect value. Of course it is different for example hazel but I don´t know of any insectspecies that use twigs and are threatened by habitat loss.

But as many posts have shown, it can be a lot about how you wiew things.
Fireing a hobo may not cause species extinction but it will have an impact on something.
If minimising that impact gives you peace of mind then all the better!