[Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On May 10, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Mike Thompson <miketho16 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry if I misrepresented your viewpoint.

Not a problem.  Sorry if I sounded harsh while doing so.  Just a minor disagreement that we seem to have ironed out.

> "but I can't cut it down and start a campfire" - Are you excluding the gathering of fallen branches for firewood from the definition of forestry? That might be helpful: forestry = any place where, with the necessary permits, one may cut down a tree for the some economic use (i.e. not just to get rid of the tree).  I still think it is broad, but it excludes the case where someone is just picking a few sticks off the ground to make a campfire.

The number of double negatives (can’t, excluding..from the definition, not just to get rid of, excludes the case…) in here make me go, “Ummmmmmm.”

I strongly believe (and have asserted here many times) that because my national forests allow me to collect downed wood and start a campfire (not always, but enough of the time that I consider this a generally true fact in our national forests) that “gathering of fallen branches for firewood” meets the definition of “forestry.”  Very, very small scale (individual human being!) forestry, though forestry nonetheless.  Importantly, I (and others) feel strongly that OSM should support this with clear rendering, so it can be seen where it is possible to do this.  As the song goes:  “This land is your land, this land is my land, from the redwood forests…”.

> > We really have a number of different facts we are attempting to represent:
> > * What is on the ground (i.e. landcover). Currently this is tagged natural=wood, but we could change to landcover=trees, or whatever we agree on.
> 
> Yes, I agree, but a fair bit more evolution, description and full-fleshing out of semantics (and very likely, real rendering) must be established for the landcover tag before we get nothing but utter confusion using it.
> Fleshing out is good, but I think the community is close.

Well, “closer,” yes.  Close, I respectfully disagree.  We need a super-terrificly written (very clear) wiki page, we really ought to have at least a plan for how this will be rendered in mapnik (if not outright rendering already beginning) and we might have some serious biologists and/or botanists and/or forestry folks make thoughtful contributions to a highly-developed tagging scheme.  I don’t believe we are there yet.

> landcover=trees means anywhere there are standing plants which are classified as trees. Fleshing out might include how dense the trees have to be, and whether standing deadwood counts as “trees"

Again:  GOOD!  This is awesome discussion, and I want to declare my ridiculous enthusiasm for this project and how I see it continually progressing.

SteveA
California
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