open fires, fireboxes, hobo stoves and environmental responsibility?

[myotis]

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!

I like the quote, but on the other point her remarks weren't specific, it was the principle of not doing things that could potentially make things worse for a group of species now considered to under considerable threat.

I suspect there is a big difference between the role of standng wood and the general availability of wood (sticks or otherwise) on the forest floor for insects and other decomposers to break down. Certainly the link suggests that hollow standing trees/stumps are the most important and its difficult to see how burning a few twigs is likely to have any effect on those particular species.

I'll see if I can find out anything useful.

Graham

 

[Wink]

This kind of micro-concern with the environment is not particularly helpful. You can make these sorts of arguments about all sorts of other activities too. For instance, when we purify wild water we destroy millions of organisms and change the balance of their micro-ecosystem, but does that mean we should not do so?

To pretend that we do anything but harm to the ecosystem - to a greater or lesser extent - by being in the woods - is foolhardy.

Sorry Red, don't agree. We are part of the ecosystem. Like other participants, we use resources and change things, but is that actually harm? I don't think so. Is an anteater causing harm when it eats insects? No, it's natural! Are the insects causing harm to trees that they are destroying? Again, no, it's what they do, and the ecosystem can cope with these variations. We certainly cannot avoid having an effect on the wilderness, just by being there, but in my opinion this is a legitimate part of our long established place within the natural order.

Clearly, if an excessive amount of wood were to be removed for burning, this may have a significant effect, and so we should exercise common sense. In fact, some woodlands have notices to specifically request that dead timber is left to promote insect populations and the animals that feed on (harm?) them.

Common sense and extreme views like the ones that prompted this thread are sadly not often good bedfellows!

Good thread though! Someone could get a PHD out of it...

 

[xylaria]

This kind of micro-concern with the environment is not particularly helpful. You can make these sorts of arguments about all sorts of other activities too. For instance, when we purify wild water we destroy millions of organisms and change the balance of their micro-ecosystem, but does that mean we should not do so?



Sorry Red, don't agree. We are part of the ecosystem. Like other participants, we use resources and change things, but is that actually harm? I don't think so. Is an anteater causing harm when it eats insects? No, it's natural! Are the insects causing harm to trees that they are destroying? Again, no, it's what they do, and the ecosystem can cope with these variations. We certainly cannot avoid having an effect on the wilderness, just by being there, but in my opinion this is a legitimate part of our long established place within the natural order.

Clearly, if an excessive amount of wood were to be removed for burning, this may have a significant effect, and so we should exercise common sense. In fact, some woodlands have notices to specifically request that dead timber is left to promote insect populations and the animals that feed on (harm?) them.

Common sense and extreme views like the ones that prompted this thread are sadly not often good bedfellows!

Good thread though! Someone could get a PHD out of it...

Common sense!!!!! I thought it was declared extinct by WWF in 2003. Common sense requires an delicate ecosystem of people that can look at the real world in balanced manner.

Seriously i couldn't agree more, Nature is what lies in the balance of creation and destruction. Life is pernicious, if there is a niche there will be something living it. To me quite a bit of this arguement is irrational, detrivore numbers have been reduced in the last 50 years by poor forestry tidying up woodlands not by a tiny minority (us) that burn local wood, and have one of the lowest carbon footprint hobbies going. We camp off grid, quite few hunt or gather thier own food, and we dilberatly buy food that is low in packaging. We know excatly what we are doing to an ecosystem, we can see it. Packaged sprayed food, and gas cylinders removes the environmental responsibliy to somewhere out of sight of the user.

 

[Wayland]

I think there can be a difference between impact and harm.

Inevitably we are going to impact upon the environment we live, work and play in.

Sometimes that impact will damage the environment and other times it can be positive.

I think the trick is to try and be balanced about it. Trying to reduce my impact in some ways makes it a little easier to balance the rest of my life, which living here in the West is pretty damaging I suppose.

For example, I drive a lot in my work and my leisure, I could reduce my leisure driving by not going anywhere but my work mileage , visiting schools, generally means that the schools do not have to take the kids out on outings involving coaches and the like.

Yes I do have a large carbon footprint but it is smaller than what would happen if I wasn't doing what I do.

In the same way, I feel that by using a few sticks or pine cones in my hobo stove I am making less impact than the industry surrounding most other fuels, but only if I'm being sensible about it.

On the other hand, a recycled log gives me 2-3 hours of warm cheery fire to sit around, compare that to the amount of firewood I would need to gather from the local area for the same result.

If I was being really hardcore about it I would have to say stay at home and don't make that impact at all, because it isn't neccessary, but if I was at home there would still be an impact from the heating, lighting and whatever I was doing to pass the time.

At the end of the day the only thing I can really do is try to do more good than harm.

 

[myotis]

To me quite a bit of this arguement is irrational, detrivore numbers have been reduced in the last 50 years by poor forestry tidying up woodlands not by a tiny minority (us) that burn local wood, and have one of the lowest carbon footprint hobbies going.

While agreeing about the low impacts from bushcrafting the problems come when ecosystems are put under pressure from the sorts of large scale impacts you describe, this can then make previously insignificant impacts significant, especially at a local level.

That is the only rationale behind the don't burn wood argument presented here, given that some of these saproxylic insects are down to being recorded in only a single location. That doesn't mean they don't exsit elsewhere, but if they do, they will almost certainly be in low numbers and surviving as a fragile population, potentially sensitive to even minor perturbations.

Personally, even then I struggle to believe that the level of wood burning associated with bushcraft is likely to be important, but we do have a UK Government Policy on following the Precautionary Principle, and if there is some doubt about the impacts from a specific action then we shouldn't do it. This was the thrust of my colleagues argument.

However, the point of raising the issue had nothing to do with their being any concrete rational thinking about it, just a concern that it could easily develop into an irrational public concern that could give bush crafting fires grief along the lines of the knife laws.

When I first posted this, I thought the idea was a far fetched but as the ebay knife thing has progressed and as we now seem to have a ban on kissing in railway stations (maybe its just one station), I am more willing to believe that anything might happen !!!

Graham

 

[pheasant plucker]

The majority of sign of insects in wood that I've seen has nearly always been standing dead wood and not the small pieces on the forest floor, but some of the bigger pieces ie fallen trunks have insect sign. There was one site I've been too that was completely bare of dead wood on the floor (not even a twig) and it did make me think that it would harm the ecosystem there, not only for homes for insects but also no nutrients being returned to the soil from rotting wood. I try and keep fires as small as possible because I don't like waste but also camp fires sterilise the soil!
PP

 

[myotis]

Sometimes that impact will damage the environment and other times it can be positive.

I think the trick is to try and be balanced about it.

I have used the word "balance" a few times in this thread so obviously I agree with your comments here.

Overall, I think the important thing is to have thought about what you are doing, and based on your personal values pick the "best" path for your circumstances.

I am assuming that for Bushcrafters those values will include an awareness of the environment.

Graham

 

[xylaria]

That is the only rationale behind the don't burn wood argument presented here, given that some of these saproxylic insects are down to being recorded in only a single location. That doesn't mean they don't exsit elsewhere, but if they do, they will almost certainly be in low numbers and surviving as a fragile population, potentially sensitive to even minor perturbations.



Graham

It is the rarerity of a given insect or the rarety of entomogists that know what they are looking at, and can report thier findings. I spend a reasonable quantity of my spare time looking at decaying wood and the fungi growing on them. I can count the amount of times i have seen stag beetles in that situation on the palm of my hand, however I have seen 15!!! in one day on the pavements on the hornsey road N7 in islington. There hasn't been a wood there for hundreds of years, i even found a stag beetle in my bed when I was seven. As far as I know there are not domestic, and if an entomologist was go looking for them they would look in a woodland, not islington houses. My nearest SSSI has some really rare grasshoppers, i have sat there having picknick with freind who had a tiny grasshopper land on her so she promptly squashed it as a creepy crawly . What I am getting at is whole sectons of life are complete mysteries to the vast majority of people. The little grasshoppers stopped an open cast mine, but if wasn't for that I don't think anyone would notice thier exsistance.

I get irrated that I can't buy good field guides on grasses and insects from bookshops, they aren't the type thing I want to buy without looking so on line isn't good enough considering they cost £15-20.

 

[Wayland]

Snip>
I get irrated that I can't buy good field guides on grasses and insects from bookshops, they aren't the type thing I want to buy without looking so on line isn't good enough considering they cost £15-20.

Keep your eyes open in second hand book shops, I get most of my guides from them and the usually go for just a couple of quid.

 

[Broch]

I think we are all in general agreement!

We are relatively few in number.
We have the conservation of ecosystem and environment in mind in our activities.
There are a lot worse things we could be doing with our time

The one thing that bothers me is the growth of the movement though. When I was a lad I would backpack into the hills and see no-one. Then some time in the 70's it became popular to 'hillwalk' with a load of technical gear and near fluorescent garb and I came off the big hills and ventured into lonelier places - now it's become popular to 'bushcraft' with a load of tech..........

Seriously though we could become our own worst enemy with big meets.

 

[Husky]

Have you thought about deep sea diving?

 

[myotis]

It is the rarerity of a given insect or the rarety of entomogists that know what they are looking at, and can report thier findings.

Invertebrates are notorious for being under recorded, for the very reasons you suggest. However, I am told that the saproxylic beetles listed in the BAP have sufficent people making efforts to find them to suggest they probably do only occur in the places they are recorded from.

I personally would be very surprised if they don't occur elsewhere, but based on the best information we have at this time they still have to considered as extremely rare.

Your point about the Stag beetle is a good one. As a mammal ecologist I long ago abandoned the idea of only surveying places "known" to be good for bats, or only surveying places "known" to be good for otters, etc as I regularly found them in places that "everyone" knew was unsuitable habitat, and a waste of time and money surveying.

Graham

 

[VirusKiller]

Seriously though we could become our own worst enemy with big meets.

One obvious environmental impact of big meets is ground compaction.

 

[myotis]

I think we are all in general agreement!

We are relatively few in number.
We have the conservation of ecosystem and environment in mind in our activities.
There are a lot worse things we could be doing with our time

The one thing that bothers me is the growth of the movement though. When I was a lad I would backpack into the hills and see no-one. Then some time in the 70's it became popular to 'hillwalk' with a load of technical gear and near fluorescent garb and I came off the big hills and ventured into lonelier places - now it's become popular to 'bushcraft' with a load of tech..........

Seriously though we could become our own worst enemy with big meets.

I think we are in general agreement, and the increase in popularity was one of the concerns I raised.

As regards the big meets I thnk that depends on where they are and how they are run. However, you do wonder about what might happen if the whole thing becomes more popular, more commercial, and more people see meets and, indeed buschcraft training courses simply as a "good business opportunity".

How depressing is that, but I did say in my first post I was feeling irritated and grumpy

Graham

 

[Wayland]

Quite a few of the meet ups happen on Scout sites and we are certainly not the greatest threat to the environment in those places.

Even so, I tend to take my own fuel supplies to such meets even if it does raise to odd comment about wheeling stuff in on trolleys.

Wherever you get a concentration of people you are going to get an increased impact, it's inevitable.

 

[Broch]

Even so, I tend to take my own fuel supplies to such meets ....

How the Viking ways have changed

 

[Tengu]

But we must find out more about wood as its globabbly a very important fuel...

 

[Wallenstein]

How the Viking ways have changed

I think Scout sites in particluar frown upon burning local Christians, regardless of the satisfying crackling sound they make on the fire.

 

[myotis]

I think Scout sites in particluar frown upon burning local Christians, regardless of the satisfying crackling sound they make on the fire.

Unless Wayland "the Viking" was born before AD 1030, he could well be a Christian

Graham

 

[Wayland]

Personally, I think that all the gods are dead but that's all I'll say on the matter.