[Tagging] Deprecation of landuse=forest

Zeke Farwell ezekielf at gmail.com
Tue Apr 20 15:24:47 UTC 2021


There may have been a time in the past where we could have defined
`landuse=forest` to specifically mean an "area used for timber production
or other forestry purpose, regardless of current tree cover".  It is too
late for that now.  For years `landuse=forest` has been rendered in either
the same or very similar style to `natural=wood` suggesting a wooded (tree
covered) area.  So effectively `landuse=forest` and `natural=wood` are
synonyms and no amount of discussion about the original intent will change
that.

So what is the path forward?

There could be an effort to re-define landuse=forest as a true land use
value as described above.  For this to be effective, rendering would need
to change (in many different renderers) to something that does not suggest
tree cover.  Then a massive re-tagging campaign would be needed to check
the nearly 5 million uses of landuse=forest and change them if they don't
fit the true land use definition.  This would be a lot of work, if not
impossible.

A more realistic path forward would be to clearly document that
landuse=forest is an exact synonym of natural=wood and deprecated for new
tagging.  Then create a new tag clearly defined to mean an "area used for
timber production or other forestry purpose, regardless of current tree
cover".  This seems to be the goal of the forestry boundary proposal.
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