Tree Thinning

Tree Thinning
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a common scene along creeks and irrigation ditches, trees tightly packed together to be cut later. Since my folks raise saw timber anything having to do with silviculture is kinda interesting to me, and growing saplings certainly counts.

I am still figuring out silvicuture in Afghanistan. There does not seem to be an industry of growing wood here but it does seem to be available and possible to grow. I see “lumber yards” all over the place in Kabul selling firewood and I do wonder were it all comes from. I think a wee bit of my question was answered yesterday while talking to a person who has an office in the Afghan Red Crescent (Islamic version of Red Cross) compound. She was telling me about how a person on a backhoe had come through to “remove all the dead trees” (but as she pointed out, it is still winter here so no trees have so much as a bud on them yet). The conclusion was that someone was probably just collecting all the trees to sell for a small (afghan) fortune, criminal at best considering how few trees there are around and this compound is/was like an oasis of sorts. So, the tendency seems to be cutting the trees wherever one can first and them and when nothing else is left start planting… at times Afghanistan is vaguely reminiscent of Easter Island.

This photo though was taken out in a rural province (Wardak) where I got the impression that people relied more on dried cow patties and grass for fire fuel so these saplings were almost certainly for construction (Poop and grass just doesn’t support ceilings/roofs very well).

The first thing I thought of was “Geeze they need to thin (prune) these saplings a bit”. I am no forestry expert but in growing trees in the southeast USA one normally starts off growing trees fairly close (though we measure the distance between planted saplings in feet not inches like here) but after a few years we go in and cut a few saplings out to allow others to grow more effectively etc. Here it seems that there might be a wee bit of informal thinning (“Oh, I need a shovel handle, time to go cut a tree!”) but no organized/intentional thinning efforts. Since people depend on trees for trusses across windows, doorways, small bridges, and ceiling/roof beams I would think it would be in their interest to grow some slightly better trees, that said however arable land is *much* more scare here than where I am from so maybe it works out (as centuries of practice does sometimes) as a more efficient use of water/land to grow many half-ass trees rather than fewer good trees, I just don’t know.