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<p><font face="Verdana">To what I've noticed in different tagging
forums, forums and across different continents and languages,
there is a general consensus to resolve the landuse=forest
ambiguity.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">The usage of landuse tags in general, is
the cause of similar issues as we move from general mapping to
more detailed mapping. In countries where most of the land is in
uniform "landuse" zones, large or general landuse mapping has
not cuased too many issues, except for some grey areas or
exceptions. In order to map larger managed or landuse
accurately, we will never be able to do it with areas and/or
multi-polygons. As said before, we create inner holes or
multiple patched outer areas, making it difficult to observe the
larger managed area.<br>
So it's not a matter of saying that using boundaries is an
alternative to a landuse tag, it's to indicate or map a larger
area reflecting it's management. A forest, as a whole or in
part, being managed or not, nicely explained in this proposal,
can contain parts which are not managed or not, parts which are
not wood covered, have different landuse. Boundaries are the
perfect solution for that.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">It might co-exist with landuse=forest for
some time, or as a specific well defined variant. Instead of
deprecating, it seems viable to allow parts of the forest to be
left as being tagged with landuse=forest, others with
natural=wood, others with other landuse and natural tags, but
all being part of the same forestry "managed" area.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">The difficulty lies in defining what is to
be considered to be "managed". Leaving a certain area in it's
natural state or development, is also a form of management,
purposely applied in the strategy for the overall management or
development of the forest. This was the cause for many
discussions with local communities in the non-western world.
NGO's mapped nearly all our forests as natural=wood, because,
the common western user don't understand what forest management
means in our local context, on a more global scale. Many non
industrialised, non-western parts of the world still have forest
reserves (notice, we call them forest reserves, not wood
reserves), all managed by local communities, national or even
international authorities. <br>
It's not just economic exploitation or harvesting, management
means much more. Same goes for natural parks, wetlands etc...
with which we have the same issues. Many are protected, kept in
their natural state, means they are managed, by national
authorities or private organisations. Same applies for private
and other forests.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">So the point is, we need boundary mapping
and tagging, to map all managed areas AND landuse to more
accurately distinguish the parts within the boundaries. <br>
If we have natural=wood in a forestry area, does that make it by
definition a forest (as being a managed area), I would say no,
the difference doesn't lay in the managed aspect but more in the
harvesting and/or economical aspect. In this I would ask David
again for his advise, how do we distinguish one from the other,
how do we distinguish sustainable management strategies from
non-suitainable or non natural strategies. Landuse=forest can
then be redefined, not in conflict with most (not all) current
use, in harmony and besides natural=wood and/or landcover
tagging. Allowing us to make the map more accurate, the data
more usable both for environmentalist and for economic purposes,
verifiable by the common (global) mapper.<br>
If it can't be established with one global definition, add local
clarification when and where to use it.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">So, co-exist, resolve the ambiguity but
don't deprecate landuse=forest. It's popularity and use will
become obvious, as is with the new boundaries, grow organically
over time as we want, need and are making more detailed maps.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Many rejections and discussions are also
about the verifiability vs ground truth principle. This is
inherent to all boundaries as it is to many other tagging
schemes in OSM. We have a mission there, to extend the
verifiability principle, as it was attempted to some extend in
this proposal. Without going into details, it would be useful
to start a separate thread for that.<br>
<br>
My conclusion for the way forward:<br>
1 Introduce the new boundary=forestry (this proposal)<br>
2 Narrow and clarify the definition for landuse=forest, do not
deprecate it (separate proposal), allow and clarify local
variants and examples<br>
3 Clarify and extend the acceptable verifiability and ground
truth principle, for boundaries specifically (administrative AND
others) AND OSM in general<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Greetings,</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Bert Araali<br>
</font></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/04/2021 19:54, David Marchal via
Tagging wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:hk621Kr1oXBdi30t3UNQCdgMNSL7M-u3orz9uLDuCJ3F0pwPZqzI_g182iOrTVEVCtlWhSrkVzUcBHdjF7edVD-rNjFX9_RHKszbpx19iiU=@protonmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Le dimanche, 11. avril 2021 18:34, Peter Elderson <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:pelderson@gmail.com"><pelderson@gmail.com></a> a écrit :
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Though I agree that a move to natural=wood for all wooded areas would be beneficial, there is a big if: if it is supported by a majority, not of mailing list members but of mappers. I do not see such a majority.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Nor can I, as there is no way to ask all contributors. The habits of some would need to evolve, of course, but it seems that this 75% approval rule is made for that: to tell mappers "Hey, a bunch of people meeted, and widely agreed that X should be done!", inciting them to do X. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that most people will agree on the confusion around this issue, and that things should evolve to remove this confusion.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I think at most a recommendation to move landuse=forest to natural=wood, pointing out the benefits, would be in order. Once a movement/trend begins, you can estimate the growing support, and maybe at some point in time deprecation would be in order.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I would have preferred such a solution and wanted to do that at a first, but how would you prevent such tagging migration to stall in-between and, in the end, having merely a seventh approach to forests in addition of the six already existing? This approach has, AFAIK, already been attempted, and fail. If you see a different path that can be tried to make it happen and finally solve the mess, I would love to know it, because I don't understand how to do it.
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