Forest

FOREST IN HISTORY

The word forest comes from the Latin foris meaning “out of doors”.

By Donar Reiskoffer, Wikipedia Commons

William the Conqueror cleared 225 Saxon villages during his reign to create the New Forest in southern England, which became a royal hunting area.

William the Conqueror's son, William Rufus, succeeded his father to the throne in 1087. Thirteen years later he was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest. There is a legend that claims the king died because locals had placed a curse on him for stealing their land.

The Charter of the Forest, issued on November 6, 1217 by King Henry III of England, was a foundational legal document that restored and protected the rights of common people to access royal forests, which were vast tracts of land designated by the monarchy for hunting and royal use. This charter was closely related to the Magna Carta, which had been signed two years earlier in 1215, as both sought to curb the crown’s power over common resources and address the grievances of free men against royal restrictions.

The destruction under Genghis Khan may have scrubbed as much as 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by allowing forests to regrow on previously populated and cultivated land.

Louis XIV's minister of finance had the huge Forest of Troncais created in 1670 to provide the future French Navy with a supply of oak masts. When the forest reached maturity 250 years later, the navy was busy switching to steam ships.

Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2,500,000 acres (1,000,000 ha) in the state of Wyoming. Originally Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve, it was established by President Benjamin Harrison on March 30, 1891. It was renamed Shoshone National Forest on September 13, 1902.

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt established 150 National Forests.

On September 24, 1950 forest fires blacked out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A blue moon was seen as far away as Europe.

The average distance between patches of forest in the U.S. increased by nearly 1,690 feet—or 14%—between 1992 and 2001.

The International Day of Forests, March 21, was established by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2012. Each year, various events celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests, and trees outside forests, for the benefit of current and future generations.

FUN FOREST FACTS

Over two million square miles of the Amazon basin is virgin rain forest, containing 30% of all known plant and animal species.

The Amazon rain forest is considered by many to be the world’s largest, containing one-fifth of the world’s freshwater reserves and producing one-third of the earth’s oxygen.

The Taiga region in the far north, covering much of Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and Russia, is considered by some to be the world’s largest forest.

Around one third of all the trees on earth are conifers in the Taiga.

A forest the size of Wales is needed to supply the paper used in the UK every year.

Since ancient times, it is estimated that the world has lost 80 per cent of its forests.

Due to the deforestation of the forests in North China, over one million tons of sands blows into Beijing from the Gobi desert. It sometimes causes the sky to turn yellow.

China has planted over 500 thousand square kilometers (193,000 square miles) of forest since 1978 to combat the expansion of the Gobi Desert making it the largest forest plantation in the world.

New Hampshire is the most tree-covered of the lower 48 American states. 89 percent of it is covered in forest.

Malaysia has the world's oldest rainforests. The forests of Sabah are the home of trees towering over one hundred metres high.

20% of the world's forests are found in Russia.

Sweden is actually increasing forest biomass despite being the second largest exporter of paper in the world because they plant three trees for each one they cut down.

The Białowieża Forest in Poland is one of the last remaining remnants of a forest that once stretched across all of Europe. The forest is only intact because a king in the 14th century used it as a refuge from the plague and afterward made it a protected land.

Officials in Siak, Indonesia are using trained elephants outfitted with water pumps and hoses to help control forest fires.

Lightning is the cause of most forest fires.

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

You can remove all the birds and still have a forest, but if you remove all the fungi, the forest will die.