Talk:List of old-growth forests

Would Wistman's Wood Count?

From what I can see even though Wistman's Wood in Dartmoor, England has been changed in some ways it seems that it is still pretty old since the trees can be up to 400-500 years old and there seems to be a succession consistent with other old growth forest. Should this be on the list?

Eastern U.S. old growth

The book I referenced is available on Google Books and still has lots of locations that aren't on the list, for anyone who's curious. There's a dearth of this kind of information online and this is as good a place as any to collect it.

Massachusetts has several recently identified old-growth stands not yet listed, see this page from Harvard University. Miguel.v (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Lots of potential old growth forests in NYS

I found this document - http://www.primalnature.org/ogeast/ny.pdf - which lists sites in New York State of primary old growth forests over 40 acres in area (and a partial list of smaller sites) with many areas falling outside the general domain of the Adirondacks and Catskills. They also provide outside references, which I assume are acceptable to wikipedia standards. Should these be added to this page or a separate NYS listing to avoid clutter? Ledflyd (talk) 05:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Updated Massachusetts listing

I added a table listing all old-growth forests identified by Harvard University as published in the Northeastern Naturalist journal. Coincidentally, this is the same source as identifed by Miguel above. Anyway--can someone with more programming ability than I convert the table so its sortable? --CPAScott (talk) 22:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the initial work. Miguel.v (talk) 15:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Ideas for putting information in tables

I think we should try to get all the information on this page in sortable tables, since it would make it easier to navigate and make the information on it easier to find and understand.

I'm trying to think of column headings to have on the tables that would accommodate both small and large areas. Here are my thoughts:

• Name: the name of the old growth forest itself, or if it lacks a name, the name of the geographical or administrative area where it's located.
• Location: the coordinates of the forest, with fewer digits of accuracy for large areas and more digits for small areas.
• Size: the area of the forest.
• Forest types: an indication of the types of forests represented, including tree species or habitats.
• Ecoregion: to show the old growth forest's significance as a landscape free of human influence in a broad ecological context.

Any other ideas for what should be included or excluded in the columns? Miguel.v (talk) 02:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I decided against coordinates, since they can be misleading when the old growth locations are scattered within an area and since they increase list maintenance. If an area merits inclusion on this list, then it merits its own page, and the locations of the old-growth forests within that area should be maintained on the referenced page. Miguel.v (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Acres and hectares

I think both acres and hectares (or square kilometres) should be included in the list. Now as the US areas are only in acres, it is difficult for a non-US readers to understand, how big or small are the US areas. Probably many think acre~hectare, which leads to an overestimation. The units in the metric system are easy to calculate (100 ha = 1 km2), but it is more complicated between acres and hectares. Krasanen (talk) 14:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right. With Template:Convert, the numbers don't sort properly, so I'd been using Template:Nts, which does let them sort properly. But then I couldn't get the automatic conversion. It turns out that Template:Ntsc will do both: convert the numbers and sort them properly, so we should use that. Miguel.v (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Old-growth forests in arboretums

Hi, this is a great resource, thanks for all the whole work going into it. I was researching the 40 or 50 acre old growth forest at the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx and found an article about an arboretums that has a small old growth forest of 30 acres and mentions the NY Botanical Garden and the one at Rutgers, here, thought it might be relevant. I'm not so sure about the NYBG one being included here, apparently they manage the forest now and remove dead trees, did a DNA survey, and it is heavily used. Drawn Some (talk) 23:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

New research on European old-growth forests

A new study has identified over 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of old-growth forests in Bulgaria and Romania. I don't have access to the full article, but there's a blog post on it [1].

And here's a cite you can copy and paste if you can get the actual paper:

{{cite journal |author=Veen, P., Fanta, J., Raev, I., Biriş, I., Smidt, J., & Maes, B. |year=2010 |title=Virgin forests in Romania and Bulgaria: results of two national inventory projects and their implications for protection |journal=Biodiversity and Conservation |url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/k3282365513234j0/ |doi=10.1007/s10531-010-9804-2}}

Veen, P., Fanta, J., Raev, I., Biriş, I., Smidt, J., & Maes, B. (2010). "Virgin forests in Romania and Bulgaria: results of two national inventory projects and their implications for protection". Biodiversity and Conservation. doi:10.1007/s10531-010-9804-2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Miguel.v (talk) 15:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Citations

Unless there's a Wikipedia policy suggesting otherwise, I'd prefer that the citations for old-growth go into the linked articles, rather than on this page. Putting citations in the relevant article lets us go into much more detail (locations, history, vegetation, etc) than we can fit on this page, leaves only one location for updating the citations, and helps keep this page from becoming cluttered with dozens of them. The Ouachita National Forest page is an example.

For the record, all the links with the [citation needed] tag on them do have citations for the old-growth in the linked articles. Maybe we should put a note in the lead saying to look in the linked articles for citations and more details. Miguel.v (talk) 03:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia policy does call for any substantive claims in all articles—including "List of..." articles—to be verifiably sourced per WP:V, a core wiki-policy. Wikipedia itself is not considered an adequate source: see the section Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it in the WP:V policy. The lone exception, where sources are not required, is disambiguation pages. We need not cite every detail about any particular old growth forrest, but if a claim is made about the size, or as to the fact that the XYZ Nature Park contains any old growth forest at all (which is an assertion), then a citation should be provided that will source those two claims about that particular forrest. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Old growth vs virgin forests,

I would like to point out that old growth and virgin forests are not the same. Virgin forest are those that have never been cut. Old growth are secondary growth that have been cut in the distant past and have regrown. Maybe in a few thousands year old growth will resemble virgin forest, but not in out life time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.209.215.26 (talk) 12:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no agreed upon definition of 'old growth'. Original growth is another term that may be more instructive as many areas of minimal human disturbance do not contain unusually large trees which is what the public often thinks of as 'old growth' or 'virgin' and may be difficult for non-experts to identify. The timescales of widespread human alterations also differ massively between the old and new worlds, in North & South America there has been insufficient time for any cut forest to return to old growth conditions.198.136.190.254 (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Not correct. In the US, many 100 year+ clearcuts have regrown to the point of being considered "old-growth" by the United States Forest Service. See citations in old growth article. Crescent77 (talk) 03:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Amazon Rainforest

Perhaps I'm missing something really obvious (hence the lack of edit), but isn't the Amazon rainforest a really obvious omission from the (currently empty) South America section? Is there something that means it is technically excluded? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.31.24 (talk) 16:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The obvious reason is lack of information. As you see, the list is essentially a list of American old-growth forests, likely made by American editors.Krasanen (talk) 16:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

So what's the point here anyway?

looking at what's here, I'm puzzled because there's lots of old-growth forests that aren't provincial parks; and it's not like Clayoqout Sound is all forest (it's a water body, and also a region, much of which isn't old-growth forest even on land). Many parks in BC are old-growth forests, and not all are in parks; actually most parks in BC are old-growth forest, come to think of it. This list to me seems to have too general a title. Maybe "List of protected old-growth forests" would be a better title, otherwise.......well, the little bit of forest behind our old "camp" (village) at Ruskin Dam would qualify.Skookum1 (talk) 01:44, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Request from Ontario

I have copied the following here from the Help Desk. Maproom (talk) 09:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I would like to have this old growth forest added please if it's of merit since I feel it has been overlooked.

https://vimeo.com/93339810

http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/planning_pdf/cr/clea/clea_pre_MS.pdf

Clear Lake Conservation Reserve was established to protect its provincially significant representation of old growth eastern hemlock upland forests, mature tolerant hardwood forest and a limnological complex 1 . Additionally, it is an established long-term ecological research site with research potential to undertake palaeoecological 2 investigations of a meromictic 3 lake. Today, it is also recognized for its landscape leve l function connecting protected and enhanced management areas. Elements of biodiversit y include: a significant representative pocket of ‘sparse coniferous forest on bedrock’; old growth hemlock, red pine, white pine and hard maple forest communit ies; and structural characteristics of mature/old growth stands. Clear Lake CR also in cludes important headwater areas, suitable habitat for species at risk (SAR), preferred habitat for area sensitive and provincially managed wildlife, and opportunitie s for ecologically sustainable traditional outdoor heritage activities. Its excell ent condition as an undisturbed protected area and relatively remote character prov ide additional support for the above values and intact ecological integrity. Recen t issues around trail development have highlighted the need to maintain ecological in tegrity of the CR.

Many thanks,

David Chambers [REDACTED] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.17.135 (talk) 05:34, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Romania

There are multiple sources online stating that Romania has most of the remaining virgin forests in Europe (outside Russia). So this article is grossly understating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Myster pda (talk • contribs) 20:21, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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