Peter Wohlleben explains the cause of forest fires. I’ve decided to post this in farming because forestry is farming in a wider sense.

From my personal haunting grounds: Portugal’s ICNF (Instituto de Conservação da Natureza e Florestas, haha) continues to recommend landowners the planting of eucalyptus and pine. In the name of fire safety they created regulations around having to clean your land. That means that organic matter that would improve soils over time has to be removed, as well as plant cover that might help retain moisture in the soil for longer. In early summer all you hear is the sound of weed cutter machines, the fossil fuel industry is of course delighted, and everything dries out even faster. Add some Roundup to the mix for some extra toxic flavour.

Decades ago the ICNF used lies and deception around blue tongue disease in livestock to appropriate common pasture lands and force the planting of pine forests, and despite all studies clearly indicating that ‘planting matches’ is a problem.

The fucking profiteers from all this mess don’t have to live in the affected areas.

Meanwhile the large paper corporations (Navigator is the biggest one here) have their greenwashing on point - if you read their advertising you would think they plant nothing but magical fairytale forests when in reality it’s eucalyptus monoculture (with FSC label of course!) They have firefighting gear and helicopters for their own plantations, while private landowners (often poor fellows who own a few hectares of mountain land) who have been lured into planting the euca have their landscapes burn down with whole mountain ranges turning black.