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--></style><title>Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National
Forests</title></head><body>
<div>Jeffrey Ollie replies:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:16 PM, stevea
<<a
href="mailto:steveaOSM@softworkers.com">steveaOSM@softworkers.com</a>>
wrote:
<blockquote>Me collecting firewood makes this a forest producing
timber. Full stop.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>So my backyard is a forest now? My
backyard has trees, and I collect all of the downed branches and use
them when I build fires in my fire pit. I really don't see how
it's useful to take the definition of a "forest" to such an
extreme.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>This isn't extreme. Your backyard activity is consistent
with the definition of a forest: a land which is used for the
production of wood/lumber/timber/firewood/pulp/et cetera. Even
if this is just you or me picking up twigs and branches for a modest
fire, whether your backyard (which IS your backyard, you are USING it
as a forest if you do so) or our National Forests.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Anybody who wonders why I act like such a stickler about this
hews to the maxim of "nobody likes it when someone takes
something away from you" (especially when, as usual, they have no
right to do so). So, a brief story:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Recently, an OSM volunteer in Washington state changed many
California State Parks from leisure=park to leisure=nature_reserve.
As the latter is a much "higher" classification (more
protection, usually less public access or usage), this felt like a
distinct "taking" (in the US Constitution 5th Amendment
sense of the word): even if it's "just" OSM tagging,
somebody was taking away my enjoyment to recreate in my park by
tagging it something more restrictive. For a short time, we
agreed to disagree, but eventually he relented and either changed
these tags back to park or he let me do this, and he stopped further
making such changes.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>While not exactly the same with "landuse=forest" being
deprecated on USFS polygons, the analogy holds: taking away
designation of this polygon as having a land use of forest feels like
somebody is saying "you can't collect firewood here any
longer." Except, I CAN collect firewood in National Forests
(unless otherwise prohibited, something I fail to see anybody bolster
with any evidence to the contrary). While minor, and I agree,
seeming like a small technicality, this feels like a "taking"
(away from me, and all owners/users of our National Forests) and
hence, I've legitimately got something to say about it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Again, I agree that it is fully correct going forward to use
boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6 on these -- except that
schema doesn't render in mapnik/Standard. (IT SURE WOULD BE NICE
IF IT DID SOON!)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Then, there is the very large issue of landcover=* as a tag, and
IT, TOO, is not rendered in mapnik/Standard.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>We press ahead on these topics, though I still see only minor
progress. And even a bit of "drubbing" (in the guise
of "let's take a majority vote").</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Can we at least have the magical/silent/invisible process of
updates to mapnik rendering chime in and say "yes, talk-us, it
would be good if mapnik began to implement rendering of
boundary=protect_class and landcover=*?" Oh, those are
not-especially-well-defined tags, hm, that could prevent good
rendering, as "the rules aren't fully established," so how
can we write a renderer that implements them? Well, everybody,
let's roll up our sleeves and do these. Otherwise, we will keep
having the landuse=forest-on-USFS-polygons discussion over and over
again forever. Or, I am all ears to listen to other proposals
that will allow distinct forward momentum.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>SteveA</div>
<div>California</div>
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