Charcoal and coppicing

A recent post by James Thomas on biochar list


He points out that selection of tree and shrub species adapted to coppicing can increase biodiversity.


James wrote
Reply re: Mesquite, prosopsis and Ron Larson comments

With the statement of desertification related to charcoal making and 
loss of Acacia related to goats eating the seeds, some questions come to 
mind. My question is: in the British Isles, Bodgers coppiced and made 
charcoal for many years and it created biodiversity, the coppice with 
standards forestry we have probably heard of, at least if you read my 
previous postings.

In my area, Black Locust trees /, Robinia pseudoacacia /will 
successfully coppice and regrow. However Siberian Pea Shrub,/ Caragana 
arborescens/ can successfully withstand some pruning , in fact it tends 
to thrive with proper pruning if performed during the dormant season; 
however, it appears much easier to kill the Pea Shrub/tree with 
excessive cutting or grazing. In my experience, all of my domestic 
grazing and browsing animals, goat, cow sheep horse, go crazy over 
Siberian Pea Shrub; both eating it and horning the bush. Usually it 
grows back, but often it dies from excessive vegetation damage and must 
be replanted. Fortunately it is a prolific producer of pea like seeds 
which sprout readily. I am wondering if it isn't so much the grazing , 
but the timing and degree of grazing that determines whether the 
tree/shrub survives. Therefore, I am wondering if the charcoal harvest 
contributing to desertification is because of the degree and frequency 
of harvesting? Similarly with the goats contributing to the loss of 
acacia, is it the degree and frequency of harvesting contributing to the 
loss of the trees? Admittedly, Ethiopia is not the cool, rain-drenched 
British Isles but more like what Alan Savory refers to as: "Brittle 
Environment". Still the concept of adequate rest for regrowth after 
harvest, whether coppicing for charcoal or grazing/browsing should apply.

As an example: in America it is my understanding that Osage Orange, 
/Maclura pomifera, /our most used living fence plant in times past, was 
successfully coppiced for fence posts, firewood, archery bows and other 
uses. After harvest, the unused, pruned, thorny limbs were piled over 
the cut stumps to protect them from animals until the new growth from 
the stump was well established. In this way a very dense living fence 
that was horse high, bull strong and hog tight was established.

I am of the opinion, as I have postulated before in this forum, that 
probably when using primitive tools, coppicing was a method used by the 
Brazilian Natives. I am very curious with regard to why the same methods 
do not seem to work in Ethiopia, but instead contribute to 
desertification. Excluding the Brittle environment effect, is it just 
because the demand for every scrap of potential fuel wood is so high 
that no limbs are left behind to protect stumps so regrowth can occur 
and the number of goats and charcoal makers is so high that insufficient 
opportunity for regrowth occurs?

A similarity to what is suggested in the Spanish language narrative I 
just struggled through in this posting about sustainable pasturing of 
cows in Argentina through rotational grazing occurs to me. (I understood 
the Spanish better than the English translation.) Could the 
desertification and loss of Acacia in Ethiopia be slowed or reversed by 
a change in management?

Specifically, some management suggestions might be: rotating goat 
browsing and charcoal harvest to occur only when the trees have regrown 
sufficiently to withstand another harvest without damage and to 
complement this with saving some of the charcoal for soil application. 
Perhaps leaving some of the cut limbs as protection for the stumps or 
figuring out some other means of protecting the stumps until the new 
growth is able to withstand browsing pressure from wild ungulates might 
also help.

I realize, however, that we are speaking about a mental paradigm shift 
from just thinking about survival for today to prosperity in the future 
as a result of practicing conservation. Making a society adopt such a 
mental paradigm shift is not easy to do anywhere in the world in my 
experience. I have been attempting to do so for ten years here in my 
work and have not been entirely successful, although the degree of 
conservation is improving.

I notice it seems quite common in the environmental community (present 
company excepted of course) to outright condemn such practices as 
cutting wood for charcoal production (Note the recent National 
Geographic article about protecting Gorillas wherein one may view the 
rather disturbing picture of an armed Ranger seemingly arresting a woman 
engaged in the charcoal trade within a park where gorillas were to be 
protected. It seems rather pathetic to me to depict a poor woman trying 
to survive as an evil destroyer of the environment because she is making 
and selling charcoal; even if it is in a park to protect gorillas.)

So what we may be up against is a world view that charcoal production in 
a tropic or even a temperate environment is environmentally destructive, 
but in contrast we in the group view "sustainable charcoal production" 
as desirable because of the hope it represents for: restoring exhausted 
soils, a response to peak oil, addressing climate change and halting 
water pollution that results in undesired eutrophication, stopping 
deforestation, and the list of benefits goes on.( If you have been on 
the Biochar list for any length of time you know the benefits so, I'll 
stop citing them here.)

The point of this narrative is that as we move forward in researching 
and advocating the use of biochar for soils that we not lose sight of, 
and in fact actively promote, all forms of sustainability, from managed 
grazing, to cropping, to charcoal harvesting via coppicing or 
pollarding, to using biogas, to sustainable aquaculture, to energy 
production from vegetable oils, but to the especially important concept, 
controlling soil erosion; without which we will all starve.
/jmt.