[Talk-us] Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (landuse=forest and US National forests again)

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

As someone who has been around and around and around with this (landuse=forest on National forests) for the better part of over seven years, I agree with Steven, Paul, Elliott and Tod here.  There has emerged a great deal of harmony and consensus on this topic, but I agree we could and should sharpen it up into a Best Practice.  The fact that it gets re-hashed means we need to do this, preferably putting the results into our wiki.

I DID tag landuse=forest on National Forests, but the boundary=protected_area tagging scheme evolved since, and with wide concurrence, it is better than what was.  (The tags landuse=forest and natural=wood "devolving" into something which is now in a still-tangled "land cover" bucket should be solved, too).  I also agree with the "it always has been this way" sense that landuse=forest is something akin to (if not actually) "managed timberland" and natural=wood is "more like" (but necessarily so) "primeval forest."  OK, natural=wood might be tagged on second- or third-generation trees, but if they are now left alone and are intended to be left alone, natural=wood is better than landuse=forest.

SteveA
California