Proposal talk:Boundary=forestry( compartment) relations/Review of second vote results

From OpenStreetMap Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Content displaced

The 95% rule

Cool, you looked up where the Vomper Loch is! My contribution may be shortened, not by much! (the second item):

The community at large either does not care or is not up to the task, to tell apart woods, that are used for extraction (i.e. managed in the common sense) and woods that are not. In some regions in Tyrol e.g. it is wrong about half the times; if it cared, that is; which is very much doubtful. Instead, the most likely reason is, that, if they cared, they followed a rule that says, "If in doubt, its managed"; which only holds in some regions though, and not in others, and if they did not care, the rule was, "This is how areas covered with trees are to be tagged."

I recently looked at statistics from Switzerland, and alone the overall numbers do not bode well for such ability of the community there neither. --Hungerburg (talk) 22:23, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Anecdotally, not even the foresters can decide, I have seen a wood cut, some rainy days later, perhaps the same year, half the hillside came down on the road. The protector built afterwards cost more than the wood earns in a thousand years. Before, its been stable for tens of years. --Hungerburg (talk) 20:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Dual use

In Styria, quite some private woods that are used for extraction of timber also are used for harvesting mushrooms, with high penalties on poaching (or what ever the correct term is for collecting mushrooms without allowance), and at the same time are free for the public to go there for recreation. Hard to map with boundaries or landuse, just the same. The law knows of "recreational woods", main difference, cycling is allowed on forestry roads. That lends itself to boundaries more than landuse. This just being a bit nervous about having managed=reason* on landuse, because woods have been mapped quite early in the OSM history and tend to be large features, think of multipolygons with many outers and inners, and if those will be split, quite some damage expected to come out if it. --Hungerburg (talk) 22:48, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Some additional thoughts and interpretations about "Possibly relevant opinions, ideas and comments"

  • Hauke-stieler: She offered the idea "Adjusting the documentation of landuse=forest and natural=wood, so that it's absolutely clear what to use when in any situation, might be enough for most cases. " could avoid some future use of one of the 6 existing practices. I agree with this point of view, a simple decision chart based on an elimination process could make it more clear if landuse=forest and natural=wood should be deprecated or redefined to fill in some gaps we might have after introduction of the new forestry relations. I believe this idea should be incorporated in a new version, to support any deprecation and to express better all the different opinions and use practices, clean up the mess and convince people that this proposal really improves the current situation.
  • "Many third world populations... Is that management?" + "Some people confuse forestry and wood extraction" up to "Hungerberg"
The comments expressed and examples given to me clearly indicate that we should NOT use management of wooded land to tag wood covered areas. Not used by humans, or not (anymore) to be clearly observed on the ground but only by a cadastre or other form of registry includes forestry areas, but don't justify the use of a landuse tag. Boundaries are the exception in OSM, as they are used already for other areas which are in many cases not or just in part verifiable or observed at all times on the ground and only mapable by referencing or tracing from "non tangible" resources like a cadastre. SO my conclusion from these remarks is that "management" should not be used as a term in regard to mapping wooded land and that we should accept other means of verifiability when it comes to forestry.
  • "natural=scrub for wooded land" and the ever changing world. I disagree with your conclusion here that changing landcovers should not be expected to be mapped in OSM. Actually I believe it's the contrary. We face the same issues with other landcovers, like landuse=residential is used both on a macro scale as for detailed nearly plot by plot mapping. This overlaps not only create inconsistent rendering but also issues for data consumers, like different landuses overlapping each other. Macro scale mapping of landcovers, as it is done in many scientific applications seems the only solution to me for that. It might be non faesible for beginner mappers, however for the more experienced and scientific users which we should also cater for, a very accessible concept. It is true that this might require additional maintenance and care, as these areas might change in landcover but the same goes for so many other tags we use in OSM. It's not the frequency of change or the maintainanbility that should drive our mapping, but the accuracy and ground truth.

--Bert Araali (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The African or "Third world" vision

(emerging markets, lean countries (as for carbon footprint) or economically developing countries are better terms) In regard to my remarks I also made some proposals to develop a model that could be supporting this view and compatible with the global vision as it emerges from your proposals:
Human intervention is clearly observed on the ground, management is not (always) or to confuse to be used by a "common non expert" mapper. It is however not directly linked to forestry. natural=wood is for any wood covered land where there is doubt of any human interference for the wooded vegetation. This human interference must be obervable but can be very subtile, like firewood gathering, removal of invasive species and very explicit like clearing for economical wood extraction. We should move from a tagging scheme that asks a mapper to consider "management" practices, often not verifiable by ground truth only, to a scheme where we have tags to describe any form of human interference and a tagging scheme that describes the discipline or management with boundaries as these might require verification through non tangible resources. That is what we currently don't have, because of the consideration or different interpretation of the term "management" in the landuse=forest tag. That's my conclusion of what is meant in these comments and examples. As such a variant and possible migration could be to make natural=wood mandatory on all wood covered land. A natural tag does not exclude a landuse tag. Natural=wood would be added to all existing landuse=forest. Existing landuse=forest have to be reviewed or will naturally change over time as human interference with the wooded land is still observed or not. Boundary=forestry has to be added on all land, mainly wooded but other like scrub, plantations etc.. that are managed under forestry practices, verifbale through on the ground boundaries AND/OR authoritative and reliable resources. Landcover is for mapping macro scale landcovers, could be more detailed as it is now to supply sufficient data a was defined already in the '70s by the UN and still in brought use today, but is not related to forestry. See it as different layers: layer 0 = natural=wood to describe vegetation, overlapping or on the same multiploygon as landuse=forest or other landuse tags to describe human interference. Layer 1 is for landcovers. Layer 2 is for boundaries. Layers can exist and be evaluated by themselves.
I like the suggestions you made in the Consequent proposals and they approach the proposal that is still growing in my minds. What it doesn't cover is the layering aspect and get rid of the managed=* tag from natural=wood. I wouldn't include it there at all, will cause only more confusion because management implies human use and thus a landuse tag. Consider a clear split as described above and a managed tag only on the boundary. The products or other human interference, possibly used on a retained landuse=forest should only describe the ground observable activity or products being practised or extracted. Most of the managed values you give in the example are not verifiable as ground truth, contradicting the requirement of the verifiable only as by ground truth you defined as a start. --Bert Araali (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

African definition of forestry - other references

  1. "An Act to provide for the conservation, sustainable management and development of forests for the benefit of the people of Uganda; to provide forthe declaration of forest reserves for purposes of protection and production of forests and forest produce; to provide for the sustainable use of forest resources and the enhancement of the productive capacity of forests; to provide for thepromotion of tree planting; to consolidate the law relating to the forest sector and trade in forest produce" from Uganda: THE NATIONAL FORESTRY AND TREE PLANTING ACT, 2003
  2. From the DRC:
a. les terrains recouverts d’une formation végétale à base d’arbres ou d’arbustes aptes à fournir des produits forestiers, abriter la faune sauvage et exercer un effet direct ou indirect sur le sol, le climat ou le régime des eaux.
b. les terrains qui, supportant précédemment un couvert végétal arboré ou arbustif, ont été coupés à blanc ou incendiés et font l’objet d’opérations de régénération naturelle ou de reboisement. Par extension, sont assimilées aux forêts, les terres réservées pour être recouvertes d’essences ligneuses soit pour la production du bois, soit pour la régénération forestière, soit pour la protection du sol.
LOI N° 011/2002 DU 29 AOUT 2002 PORTANT CODE FORESTIER and a more comprehensive set of laws and regulations from the DRC (second largest natural forest after the Amazon!) can be found here: WRI:RISK TOOL - The Democratic Republic of the Congo


The best reference I know of for comparing the different forestry related legislation and management practices across the world is World Resource Institute: Forest Legality Initiative
--Bert Araali (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Western worldview

Most people dislike Nature, except for the barbers and coiffeurs, it provides them a steady income. --Hungerburg (talk) 20:01, 16 September 2021 (UTC)