This is the comment made some days ago in the news about meat and CO2 emissions.
This idea that animals just eat the produce of intensive farming (or that grazing pastures are planted by men specifically for that purpose) is wrong in many parts of the world.
We have the obvious example of Argentina, where free grazing cattle uses the naturally available grass to get fed.
In the case of Southern Europe, there are also goats that have been used to clean the forests for a long time in order to prevent fires, and that provides for most or even all of their feeding requirements (besides fulfilling the important role of fire prevention).
The idea going around how animals are so inefficient per Kg of food/Kg CO2, fails to take into account (basically all the time) that part of those animals, only consume naturally occurring flora that is in no way planted by men.
P.S.: As an interesting related side note, there are a lot of cooking recipes for old goat in Portugal (the meat needs to be cooked differently).
Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way. And even in South America often forest is cleared to make room for grass, but in that soil the grass is not sustainable.
> Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way.
That is true. Question is why. In NZ our beef is still exclusively reared on pasture (with hay and winter crops like brassicas for winter feed), I've never understood why there's such a move to feeding grain to cattle overseas.
US subsidy policy encourages huge over-production of grain, so ways have to be found to get rid of it such as feeding it to animals or making ethanol out of it, or making HFCS and putting it in drinks.
There was a policy decision made in the Nixon era.
Basically, it was determined that corn was the cheapest way to generate certain caloric targets. This achieved that objective and also secondarily helped with certain political objectives. So there's a whole subsidy and trade system around corn growth that basically stifles everything else.
The outcome for agriculture has overall been devastation for all but the largest operators. The "scale up" makes it impossible for all but the largest farms to compete. When my parents were kids in the 60s, a diversified, smallish farm was a sustainable thing. When I was a kid in the 80s/90s, they concentrated on bigger dairy or corn operations. Today, they're going out of business or make money selling doughnuts.
'Chanfana de Cabra' or 'Chanfana de Borrego' is probably the most famous recipe as wdata pointed out.
I am not sure there are a lot of recipes for this type of meat as it is claimed.
Mostly it is either slow roasted in an oven or slow cooked in a stew with some variations on stew ingredients.
The main difference is in the longer cooking time and in preparing the meat.
Traditionally people remove the lymph nodes from certain areas under the legs and some of the nearby fat tissue. Otherwis this tissue will give a really unpleasant taste/smell to the cooked meat.
You are right, there are only an handful of dishes using old goat meat.
I was under the impression (my personal take) that there are quite a few different ways to prepare them though, although the end result (the dish itself) is similar.
In places where there's limited land and a surplus of water,
it makes a lot of sense to optimize for land. So there, grow & eat crops.
And in places where there's a lot of land and limited water,
it makes sense to optimize for water. So there, grow & eat ruminants.
P.S.: There are also other things to take into account, but think that already shows how we should balance our view and not advocate for a single form of subsistence everywhere.
I recently read a really good book about the 'rewilding' project at Knepp in Sussex in the UK - they emphasise the role of large animals in maintaining a 'healthy' landscape:
The approach is called holistic management. Basically, you make sure cows stay in one place until they've grazed (or trampled, doesn't matter) the tall grasses away. Then you move the cows to another place and let nature do its job. On average, the places where tall grasses were converted to natural fertilizer, do much better vs. ungrazed places. It's all about the thickness of the humus layer and the presence of the accompanying microorganisms.
The places where it's not working are usually overgrazed or missing other elements that prevent erosion.
The problem of desertification can be solved everywhere, though it's not always easy. You need to:
- prevent wind erosion by adding the right grasses
- prevent wind erosion by creating terraces
- make sure leaves, branches and other dead materials are added to the humus layer
- protect the vegetative cover by adding trees
- cycle nutrients through grazing
- trap water in the humus layer, pits, ditches
Also, look up the work of John D. Liu, he did great work in the Löss plateau in China and Jadav "Molai" Payeng, who created a 300 hectare forest mostly by himself.
Farmers are behind a lot of fire forests that aim to replace trees in public (and private) spaces by meadows for cattle
Last years half Portugal and big chunks of Spain suffered of a big fireforest's wave in a global attack from Cadiz to the North of Spain. Fireforests started in the same weekend by what can be only called as "organised crime". We are talking about 1.485 billion in damages for Europe, 10.000 hectares burnt down intentionally and even a few people killed burnt alive. This is terrorism, in uppercase letters.
Now the area has ben cleared and the cattle has been allowed to enter again and munch the remaining tree saplings and regenerating vegetation. In this war for the public resources and territorial uses, politicians are surrendering to criminals and giving them what they wanted. Is a humongous mistake.
Land. It's quite hard to steal, but the old way of occupying it by force still works in areas that are remote and lawless enough. America has had a few high-profile cases of this, but with more guns and less fire. I'm surprised to see it happening in Spain.
Is more common that you think. The quota system implies that Europe/ Portugal/ Spain will pay you subsidies only if you can justify rights of use over a minimun number of hectares of pasture (calculated for your declared number of animals). Easy money. You have benefits even it you let the animals die later. Space is limited, and forests (and climate change figthing) always get in the way.
Two years after the crime, nobody had seen anything, everybody closed their mouths and nobody cares anymore. Ka-ching!. You had assured that the money will keep flowing
Often, but not only public land. The land owner and the owner of the roaming free cattle can be different people. The fire does not care about property boundaries in any case.
In Portugal the official figures are that fires by negligence beat intentional fires, although not by a lot: in 2017, about 3000 due to negligence and 2250 were intentional (which includes things like vandalism and personal conflicts).
There are a lot of sources but 1) will be in spanish or portuguese, 2) recopilate it for you would take me a few hours and 3) even if there is a strong suspicion about the authors, not all cases are solved. This is not new at all. Some day, somebody dies in their bed, and the forest stops burning misteriously once a year like in the last forty years.
Some recent links, all about farmers detained from starting and spreading fires in natural environments:
> tras esa oleada de incendios hay "imprudencias en quemas agrícolas, tanto para la regeneración de pastos como por aprovechamiento forestal". Y descarta un supuesto complot: "la investigación ha podido determinar que las posibles causas que originaron estos incendios no están relacionadas entre sí".
> La Guardia Civil ha recordado que las Administraciones ponen a disposición de los ganaderos equipos especializados para poder realizar estas quemas para pastos en condiciones de seguridad.
This is mostly negligence, not criminal intent as you insinuated. Granted, I would argue criminal negligence, but still negligence.
To put things in context, the article talks about 350 forest fires starting in the same weekend or so, in a spanish area sligthly smaller than Connecticut. On Sunday night there was 139 fires active at the same time with South winds of up to 120Km/h and an active warning of prohibition of burning any vegetation.
Trying to do "pasture regeneration" in this conditions goes long, long way beyond negligence.
That year there was a second event where a lot of people died later in the year. That happened in a weekend just before rain was forecasted. I can't confirm the criminal intent but there is no doubt that all throughout the country people were burning forest and agricultural waste just before the rain. Because of the weather conditions that started fires all over the country. One thing that changed after that dark year is that the police now takes it seriously when you call in about someone burning a pile somewhere. Whereas before this was already illegal but widely tolerated even though it is very dangerous.
I was in Spain early this year, and even in semi-agricultural suburbs around Jerez I saw people burning large piles agricultural waste in their gardens.
There is a fire index published by the administration for each day of the year. It goes from 1 (low) to 5 (extreme risk) and uses probably air humidity, temperature, and expectacion of future rains and winds.
It is allowed to make a small bonfire or a barbeque in your backyard at day when the index is low or moderate.
>> police now takes it seriously when you call in about someone burning a pile somewhere.
Not too sure. I was on holiday in the Algarve last year in Sept, and called the police to ask them about a lot of smoke drifting down into the town where I was. They just shrugged it off as "people are clearing their fields". I know Sept is not prime fire season, but there was little rain at the time last year.
It will depend on the climate and date if september is still forbidden. It's not the same every year. Local policing is also highly variable. Calling the national emergency number is the correct procedure I believe (112).
The US has learned some lessons on reducing risk to dwellings, and other countries may want to look at public education campaigns if they haven't already:
The first two links are what happens when we decide to spread false news and give voice to conspiracy theories:
Accused is different from charged. Even if the person saying it is the head of the fireman fighting the fire. It is not the police job (nor the fireman) to determine who is responsible for a crime. We have courts for that. In Portugal people get preemptively arrested when there is risk of escape among other things. This might have been the case. No mention is made on said person being charged with anything.
As can be read on one of the articles:
“The suspect’s actions put people’s lives, houses and the forest at risk,” the police said, without explicitly saying that the detained man was responsible for the ongoing wildfire.
I am not saying that there are no bad agents at play. I am just pointing out that the public uproar against "fire mafias" and fire starters is so big that it reaches fire chiefs and police officers. It then gets out on the news which propagates it further, just like an avalanche ball.
That said:
Now is my time for a conspiracy theory.
The recent past (cambrige analytica et al) has taught us that most of our rage reactions are being manipulated and abused by higher interests. In this case who might be the big player influencing public opinion through news and propaganda that focus on supposed fire-starters and "fire mafias" ? (cof E cof D cof P)
Yes, you should take anything that Jaime Marta Soares says with a big grain of salt. He's not just the head of the Voluntary Fireman's League (the board of which is staffed by his family members), he's even on the board of a big footbal club smack in the middle of Lisbon. Talk about serving two masters.
Dude, cattle farming is almost inexpressive in those areas.
Do you really think all those big fires are the result of a conspiracy of evil shepherds?
If you want fuel for your conspiracies, just use Google and you'll find most fires are the result of negligence, mental illness and entering suspicion territory: loggers ( Leiria ) and fire fighting "industrial complex", since it has been reported over the years in various places, the usual low flying small airplanes throwing something out and minutes later everything is on fire.
This is very common in Israel. Every year my settlement actually invites local Beduins, with whom we have terrific relations, to come set up tent and graze. It is win-win for everyone, besides being a win for relations.
It's propaganda. The settlement is on land that belonged to the bedou in the first place - throwing them scraps and interpreting them taking those as "terrific relations" is just trying deflect from the question of why there are settlements by the occupying country on occupied land.
My only point of reference for this kind of thing would be like an American landowner in the Southwest allowing a Navajo rancher from the reservation to graze on their property. Is it basically the same thing, or is it somehow "different"?
> My only point of reference for this kind of thing would be
> like an American landowner in the Southwest allowing a Navajo
> rancher from the reservation to graze on their property. Is
> it basically the same thing, or is it somehow "different"?
It is similar and it is different.
One difference is that Arizona was founded as a state earlier than Israel, so people feel that "it's older, so it is OK now".
Another difference is that America decided "all the land is ours", then herded the Navajo into reservations. In Israel we built in specific places and the Bedouins continued to be nomadic around us.
Note also that the Bedouins were until recently very nomadic, but today few Bedouin are nomadic. When the Bedouins were nomadic they would roam huge areas, but "occupy" only a small area at any one time. From what I understand, the idea "this land is OURS" didn't pop into anyone's mind, each family (Hamula) would roam and they pretty much did not need to bother fighting over land. Only when permanent settlements started being built, and thus land was removed from the common pool, did this become an issue.
Another issue is that today, a sort of "land war" is happening between some Bedouins and the state of Israel. I actually believe that the state stared the problem and then it escalated. In a nutshell, the state is forcing Bedouins off some settled land and in response the Bedouins are starting to claim more lands as "permanent settlements". In one particular case that I'm aware of, the Bedouins have been pushed off a parcel of land and then returned over 100 times. We're not talking about grazing land, which there is enough of for everybody to share and build on. We are talking about tents and stables and families. There is a huge difference between the state building a town on a corner of the grazing land, and the state forcefully remove people from these places. The former is the case 99% of the time, but the latter is happening and any decent person will, as I am, oppose it.
This is a pretty unnecessarily inflammatory comment unless you consider every country in the world as an "occupying country on occupied land". What country didn't gain their land through conquest and occupation?
> What country didn't gain their land through conquest and occupation?
That's interesting. I guess it depends on the definition of country which is a relatively modern concept, and the meaning of "gain". If I take it loosely, then your question could be defined as which first peoples have managed to retain the land that they were the first to populate. Is that a fair interpretation? For example, it was interesting for me to realize that Vietnamese, Thais, Malays, Indonesians, Phillipinos, actually extinguished (meaning genetic/cultural extinguishment through assimilation or genocide) the aboriginal people of those lands (Papuan-like peoples) and the Australians, New Zealanders are quite far along in that process as well.
The Sentinelese of India have managed to hold on to their island, albeit it is a fragile hold, and credit to Indian establishment for holding steadfast to that policy of allowing them to completely self-determine their lives. Although I do fear that period may come to an end if CNFC (China) explorations and fishing vessels continue to pursue that region.
I'm realizing I'm ill equipped to answer your question. It is definitely interesting.
The reply I'm replying to is the propaganda. He has no idea where I live, he sees the word "Israel" and assumes that means that I stole land.
In fact the place where I live, like the vast majority of places, has had good relations with the Bedouins and has since the beginning. These are grazing lands, and the Bedouins do graze most of it. We're built up on the rocky hilltops where there is nothing to graze, the only thing that could grow there might be olive trees. The Bedouins likely have had their herds graze here before the houses were build, but that doesn't make it "their land" and more than the store where you buy your bread is "your store". Unless you think that each Bedouin has the equivalent personal land sized several times any large city, and they all overlap!
I'm not disputing the fact that there is an Israeli-Arab conflict. I understand the argument "Israel steals land" even if I dispute it. Separate from that, there is an issue of Bedouin land. But neither argument is the one that is being made here, parent poster is conflating issues to influence your opinion. That's not uncommon when people are motivated by hate.
> The Bedouins likely have had their herds graze here before the houses were build, but that doesn't make it "their land" and more than the store where you buy your bread is "your store"
That is a naïve comparison applied to how land ownership in Palestine works and worked and in that way it's just feeding the myth of "A Land with no People for a People with no Land". That is not hate, that just means that the entire modern country of Israel was founded by driving out the people that were already living there.
Maybe consider what would happened to the Bedou if they weren't trying to make "good relations" with the people who were suddenly bulding on the land that they need in order for their livestock to survive. Pretending there is any space for "terrificness" in that situation is clearly incorrect.
And labeling any opposition to your narrative of "terriffic relation" of the occupiers to the occupied as "hate" is kind of supporting the idea that the term "propaganda" seems not entirely incorrect.
For one thing, we both agree that the "A Land with no People for a People with no Land" argument is bullshit. Of course people were living here.
Estimates of percentages vary depending which side of the narrative the estimator sits, but most Arabs who left the land of Palestine in 1948 did so at the insistence of Arab leaders who promised to clean the land of the Jews. I'm not disputing that the Jewish armies of the time committed atrocities. In fact, there is a place less than a half-hour drive from my house where an atrocity took place. You won't be surprised to hear that the Arabs committed atrocities of their own.
But none of that is under discussion. You are conflating the Bedouins with what are nominally termed Palestinians. The Bedouins are a different people, don't intermarry with them, and have had a separate spate of problems with the Jews than did the Palestinians. There is even some animosity between the groups, for instance the Bedouins can volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces.
I understand exactly your viewpoint, and you probably do not even realize that you are conflating two issues. I'm not even disputing the general gist of your viewpoint even though I reject it. I am disputing the relation of your viewpoint to the relations that my settlement has with the Bedouins. Not all Arabs peoples here consider themselves part the "the Palestinian struggle", or consider their grief with the Israeli state as part of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
Same pattern repeating again and again. 2019-Aug. Canary Islands: Three big fireforests in 2 weeks in turistic peak season. "Don't worry, Spain and Europe will inject lotta money for fix our s*t. We did the correct and we feel justified". Goats win.
I'm English and I rather like fireforests even though this is the first time I've seen it. To me it gives an impression of a bigger problem than forest fire. To me it works like this: a forest fire is a fire in a forest whereas a fireforest is a whole forest on fire, much scarier.
It is very common in Spain to use goats and sheeps to clean the low vegetation from forests and and reduce the wild fire risk. I heard that first time 10 years ago, I cannot imagine why the neighbour country wouldn't do the same until nowadays.
NYC had some goats this summer to clear vegetation. There was a big launch party and lots of media attention. It probably put goats on the radar of some NYT journo.
The article is about a specific government program of "firefighting goats" ("Cabras Sapadoras") that was launched last year. The concept itself, of course, is not new.
Australian (Victoria) Alpine region seems to flip flop between banning grazing [1] to protect the vulnerable high mountain fauna and the water quality as it is a source for many rivers. Then allowing grazing again as forest fires go nuts down there.
Even their bushes and trees are encouraging fires as a vector for growth. [2]
CERN has sheep on the site because it's the cheapest way to get the grass cut. It was weird having meetings that were punctuated by "baaah!" every now and again.
There used to be a guy in my town that had a portable electrical fence and a small heard of goats and you could have him set up on your property and clear out areas. Much cheaper + environmentally friendly than having someone come over with a gravely.
The catalyst of Portugal forest fires is the extense eucalyptus plantations. Eucalyptus is an introduced pyrophyte species and it doesn't stay confined to the initial plantation areas, reducing endemic forest, which is generally "fire-resistant", such as Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa.
I understand what you want to say, and a better planning definitely wouldn't hurt, but blaming the tress because are flammable is like saying that the problem of school shootings is that people is shootable and wore shirts instead bullet-proof vests.
Spain has Eucalyptus also. Curiously the private plantations burn often less than the public areas adjacent or the nature parks. Talk about weird statistics.
Without a hand that starts the fire, several times, in several places, in the middle of the night, in the most windy and dry day of the year, with devices specially designed for it... without this hand, there is not fire.
It has been proven in the USA, Canada, Australia that the damage caused by fires is not reduced by trying to stop ignitions, reducing the impact of the ignitions is a better strategy. Remember that ignitions by error or malice will always happen.
> Without a hand that starts the fire, several times, in several places, in the middle of the night, in the most windy and dry day of the year, with devices specially designed for it... without this hand, there is not fire.
There are also other explanations that do not require "mafias". Smokers, which many smoke inside the cars, and car/motorcycles backfires can explain many cases.
Pay attention if the fires don't start at Friday and Saturday nights near rural roads.
Like many plants native to fire-prone regions, eucalyptus trees (aka gum trees in Australia) are adapted to survive — or even thrive — in a wildfire. Fallen eucalyptus leaves create dense carpets of flammable material, and the trees' bark peels off in long streamers that drop to the ground, providing additional fuel that draws ground fires up into the leaves, creating massive, fast-spreading "crown fires" in the upper story of eucalyptus forests."
> The catalyst of Portugal forest fires is the extense eucalyptus plantations.
That's at best baseless speculation, and one that doesn't stand to any objective scrutiny. The truth of the fact is that there was no forest fire prevention policy until the deadly Pedrógão Grande fire that left well over 60 dead, and even then the main cause was widespread abandonment of public and private property, where even municipalities failed to comply with the minimum legal obligations of clearing up their property and roadsides.
e.g. Madeira Island: Laurel forest doesn't burn by arson, efficiently, people that tried, never succeeded more than 10sq meters, and were arrested. Only Gorse ulex europaeus and eucalyptus not managed forests (all introduced species) did burn out of control, guaranteeing success of the arsonist.
My point is that fire-resistant species would help reduce fire propagation.
Not even in "Pedrógão Grande fire", only after the fires of mid-October 2017 did the Portuguese government started to react, and by react I mean enforcing the law that has been around for 20 years.
I rented a house on Martha's Vineyard one time and the owner had a company come in and fence off the backyard and put a bunch of pigs in there to clear it out. It was heavily overgrown with grass, brush, small trees, and shrubs. In a week the pigs had completely cleared the whole area out, even ripped out the roots of the shrubbery / small trees. Quite impressive.
I read an article somewhere, maybe the New Yorker, maybe the NY Times (a new found goat obsession?) which talked about some, I guess herders upstate who take in goats and then rent them out all around the North East to eat grasses.
Seemed like a neat businesses, and I guess if I’d have been lucky I might have seen them in NYC happily eating grasses in Central and Inwood parks.
Sometimes you just gotta eat away your problems before they eat away at you I suppose :-).
Right down the street from my house a neighbor hired up some goats to eat through a bunch of overgrowth. A truck pulling a livestock trailer showed up, they ran a 4 foot high electric fence around some of the property, and in went about 6-8 goats. They've been working for a couple of days now, we'll see how they do.
I've been wanting to start the exact same business because there are so many older folks living on suburban properties that are hopelessly overgrown with buckthorn and all manner of nasty weeds.
Not sure what I would do with the goats all winter, though.
Typical NYT - they can’t resist blaming warmer summers (always climate change). WRONG Portugal has been quite cool last 2 summers, I moved to Cascais 2 years ago from UK, my wife constantly complains how cold it is here especially because I promised her warm weather! eg today has been typical, only 21 degrees C in August. However has been sunny and incredibly windy, I suspect the wind contributes more to fire risk than high temperature.
We raised goats growing up. We lived in a heavily forested area of rural Texas. When it came time to build a new chicken pen, we temporarily fenced our goats in the area we wanted the pen, and in a week or three, there was no underbrush or scrub left (except for yaupon, even goats don't touch that one) - just the trees.
This sounds so much easier than it practically is - unless you're talking electrical fence or have something really decent you can setup temoporarily? Our goats destroy, both willingly and unwillingly, any simple fence in hours or days.
no underbrush or scrub left - just the trees
We have a rather large species of goats (maybe largest, something Nubian) and they eat the bark of trees so unless you get them away from the tree or the tree has a sufficient diameter which makes it hard enough to get their teeth on it, at least 30cm or so, the trees also don't survive :)
Pine trees the primary tree we had present, they have rather resinous bark the goats did not eat. The fence was pretty robust - the only 'temporary' part of it was the actual fencing. The posts were bedded in cement with sturdy chain-link fencing. After the goats were done, my father and older brothers removed the chain-link and substituted it for chicken wire to form the basis for the new chicken pen.
I have to search yaupon, is a holly. It seems that is the only North American native plant with caffeine. Is interesting that Mate drink cames also from another holly producing caffeine, so it makes sense.
The genus is pretty poisonous, but it even the goats respect it its chemical defenses must be really impressive. There are not a lot of plant species that goats avoid.
102 comments
[ 7.3 ms ] story [ 215 ms ] threadThis idea that animals just eat the produce of intensive farming (or that grazing pastures are planted by men specifically for that purpose) is wrong in many parts of the world.
We have the obvious example of Argentina, where free grazing cattle uses the naturally available grass to get fed.
In the case of Southern Europe, there are also goats that have been used to clean the forests for a long time in order to prevent fires, and that provides for most or even all of their feeding requirements (besides fulfilling the important role of fire prevention).
The idea going around how animals are so inefficient per Kg of food/Kg CO2, fails to take into account (basically all the time) that part of those animals, only consume naturally occurring flora that is in no way planted by men.
P.S.: As an interesting related side note, there are a lot of cooking recipes for old goat in Portugal (the meat needs to be cooked differently).
That is true. Question is why. In NZ our beef is still exclusively reared on pasture (with hay and winter crops like brassicas for winter feed), I've never understood why there's such a move to feeding grain to cattle overseas.
Also feedlots.
- Feed lots can fit a whole lot more cows per acre.
- Corn tends to fatten up cows more (and more quickly) than grazing.
- Increased fat content = meat that grades higher and tends to sell for more meaning you also earn more $/lb on top of the other reasons.
Basically, it was determined that corn was the cheapest way to generate certain caloric targets. This achieved that objective and also secondarily helped with certain political objectives. So there's a whole subsidy and trade system around corn growth that basically stifles everything else.
The outcome for agriculture has overall been devastation for all but the largest operators. The "scale up" makes it impossible for all but the largest farms to compete. When my parents were kids in the 60s, a diversified, smallish farm was a sustainable thing. When I was a kid in the 80s/90s, they concentrated on bigger dairy or corn operations. Today, they're going out of business or make money selling doughnuts.
I'd love to get hold of some, it'd be good for cooking chamois and tahr in my country.
Fun fact, goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world.
This is the wikipedia page talking about the most famous dish: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanfana
This is one of the recipes: https://aldeiasdoxisto.pt/artigo/531
Do you have a trusted source for this?
A quick search query using my favorite search engine tells otherwise. But that's just random internet information.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-consumed-meat-in-world_n...
Although to be fair, pork makes way more sense.
The article does not disprove the (somewhat vaguely) stated hypothesis.
I am not sure there are a lot of recipes for this type of meat as it is claimed.
Mostly it is either slow roasted in an oven or slow cooked in a stew with some variations on stew ingredients.
The main difference is in the longer cooking time and in preparing the meat.
Traditionally people remove the lymph nodes from certain areas under the legs and some of the nearby fat tissue. Otherwis this tissue will give a really unpleasant taste/smell to the cooked meat.
I was under the impression (my personal take) that there are quite a few different ways to prepare them though, although the end result (the dish itself) is similar.
Naturally available grass that previously had rainforests over it?
I mean, yes, livestock eats grass but there's still a lot of livestock that eats beans.
https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636377572388864...
She summarises it in a single tweet at the end:
P.S.: There are also other things to take into account, but think that already shows how we should balance our view and not advocate for a single form of subsistence everywhere.It was discussed here within this year, but I can't find the discussion page. One possible link: https://returntonow.net/2017/11/30/cows-can-turn-desert-back...
https://knepp.co.uk/home
Review of the book:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/28/wilding-isabel...
He received a lot of criticism, but the evidence shows it's working. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/aug/19...
The places where it's not working are usually overgrazed or missing other elements that prevent erosion.
The problem of desertification can be solved everywhere, though it's not always easy. You need to:
Also, look up the work of John D. Liu, he did great work in the Löss plateau in China and Jadav "Molai" Payeng, who created a 300 hectare forest mostly by himself.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/13/pigs-rad...
Last years half Portugal and big chunks of Spain suffered of a big fireforest's wave in a global attack from Cadiz to the North of Spain. Fireforests started in the same weekend by what can be only called as "organised crime". We are talking about 1.485 billion in damages for Europe, 10.000 hectares burnt down intentionally and even a few people killed burnt alive. This is terrorism, in uppercase letters.
Now the area has ben cleared and the cattle has been allowed to enter again and munch the remaining tree saplings and regenerating vegetation. In this war for the public resources and territorial uses, politicians are surrendering to criminals and giving them what they wanted. Is a humongous mistake.
Two years after the crime, nobody had seen anything, everybody closed their mouths and nobody cares anymore. Ka-ching!. You had assured that the money will keep flowing
Who are they terrorising and what's the purpose of the terror they are purposely inflicting?
Why? Burning trees causes more trees to grow. Talk about backfiring!
In Portugal the official figures are that fires by negligence beat intentional fires, although not by a lot: in 2017, about 3000 due to negligence and 2250 were intentional (which includes things like vandalism and personal conflicts).
Source (in Portuguese): http://www2.icnf.pt/portal/florestas/dfci/Resource/doc/rel/2... (causes are listed in page 34 and 35).
There are a lot of sources but 1) will be in spanish or portuguese, 2) recopilate it for you would take me a few hours and 3) even if there is a strong suspicion about the authors, not all cases are solved. This is not new at all. Some day, somebody dies in their bed, and the forest stops burning misteriously once a year like in the last forty years.
Some recent links, all about farmers detained from starting and spreading fires in natural environments:
https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/3268868/0/detenido-ganadero...
https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/ourense/2016/12/20/det...
https://www.diariodeleon.es/articulo/provincia/detenido-gana...
https://www.laregion.es/articulo/ourense/detenido-incendio-a...
https://www.farodevigo.es/comarcas/2009/05/06/ganadero-caniz...
https://www.lavozdeasturias.es/noticia/asturias/2019/03/28/d...
https://elpais.com/politica/2016/02/26/actualidad/1456484922...
https://www.abc.es/videos-espana/20150814/ganaderos-detenido...
https://www.astorgadigital.com/identifican-ganadero-zona-pri...
https://www.burgosconecta.es/provincia/merindades/ganadero-h...
https://www.diariodecadiz.es/noticias-provincia-cadiz/Invest...
> tras esa oleada de incendios hay "imprudencias en quemas agrícolas, tanto para la regeneración de pastos como por aprovechamiento forestal". Y descarta un supuesto complot: "la investigación ha podido determinar que las posibles causas que originaron estos incendios no están relacionadas entre sí".
> La Guardia Civil ha recordado que las Administraciones ponen a disposición de los ganaderos equipos especializados para poder realizar estas quemas para pastos en condiciones de seguridad.
This is mostly negligence, not criminal intent as you insinuated. Granted, I would argue criminal negligence, but still negligence.
To put things in context, the article talks about 350 forest fires starting in the same weekend or so, in a spanish area sligthly smaller than Connecticut. On Sunday night there was 139 fires active at the same time with South winds of up to 120Km/h and an active warning of prohibition of burning any vegetation.
Trying to do "pasture regeneration" in this conditions goes long, long way beyond negligence.
Several independent reports pointed out that the Pedrogão Grande fires (the ones that killed 64 people) started at the power lines.
https://www.tsf.pt/sociedade/interior/pedrogao-edp-na-origem...
https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/pais/causa-do-incendio-principal...
https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/interior/incendio-causado-porlin...
Please stop these conspiracy theories. Many other fires can be tracked down to power lines.
It is allowed to make a small bonfire or a barbeque in your backyard at day when the index is low or moderate.
Not too sure. I was on holiday in the Algarve last year in Sept, and called the police to ask them about a lot of smoke drifting down into the town where I was. They just shrugged it off as "people are clearing their fields". I know Sept is not prime fire season, but there was little rain at the time last year.
* https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-wil...
That's only one specific case though. However, the general sentiment is prevalent, as even fire chiefs comment on it:
* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40355787
The US has learned some lessons on reducing risk to dwellings, and other countries may want to look at public education campaigns if they haven't already:
* https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Wildfire/Prep...
* https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Wildfire
Accused is different from charged. Even if the person saying it is the head of the fireman fighting the fire. It is not the police job (nor the fireman) to determine who is responsible for a crime. We have courts for that. In Portugal people get preemptively arrested when there is risk of escape among other things. This might have been the case. No mention is made on said person being charged with anything.
As can be read on one of the articles: “The suspect’s actions put people’s lives, houses and the forest at risk,” the police said, without explicitly saying that the detained man was responsible for the ongoing wildfire.
I am not saying that there are no bad agents at play. I am just pointing out that the public uproar against "fire mafias" and fire starters is so big that it reaches fire chiefs and police officers. It then gets out on the news which propagates it further, just like an avalanche ball.
That said:
Now is my time for a conspiracy theory.
The recent past (cambrige analytica et al) has taught us that most of our rage reactions are being manipulated and abused by higher interests. In this case who might be the big player influencing public opinion through news and propaganda that focus on supposed fire-starters and "fire mafias" ? (cof E cof D cof P)
:)
Do you really think all those big fires are the result of a conspiracy of evil shepherds?
If you want fuel for your conspiracies, just use Google and you'll find most fires are the result of negligence, mental illness and entering suspicion territory: loggers ( Leiria ) and fire fighting "industrial complex", since it has been reported over the years in various places, the usual low flying small airplanes throwing something out and minutes later everything is on fire.
Follow the money.
That is a nice thing to hear. Is this common or is it an exception?
One difference is that Arizona was founded as a state earlier than Israel, so people feel that "it's older, so it is OK now".
Another difference is that America decided "all the land is ours", then herded the Navajo into reservations. In Israel we built in specific places and the Bedouins continued to be nomadic around us.
Note also that the Bedouins were until recently very nomadic, but today few Bedouin are nomadic. When the Bedouins were nomadic they would roam huge areas, but "occupy" only a small area at any one time. From what I understand, the idea "this land is OURS" didn't pop into anyone's mind, each family (Hamula) would roam and they pretty much did not need to bother fighting over land. Only when permanent settlements started being built, and thus land was removed from the common pool, did this become an issue.
Another issue is that today, a sort of "land war" is happening between some Bedouins and the state of Israel. I actually believe that the state stared the problem and then it escalated. In a nutshell, the state is forcing Bedouins off some settled land and in response the Bedouins are starting to claim more lands as "permanent settlements". In one particular case that I'm aware of, the Bedouins have been pushed off a parcel of land and then returned over 100 times. We're not talking about grazing land, which there is enough of for everybody to share and build on. We are talking about tents and stables and families. There is a huge difference between the state building a town on a corner of the grazing land, and the state forcefully remove people from these places. The former is the case 99% of the time, but the latter is happening and any decent person will, as I am, oppose it.
That's interesting. I guess it depends on the definition of country which is a relatively modern concept, and the meaning of "gain". If I take it loosely, then your question could be defined as which first peoples have managed to retain the land that they were the first to populate. Is that a fair interpretation? For example, it was interesting for me to realize that Vietnamese, Thais, Malays, Indonesians, Phillipinos, actually extinguished (meaning genetic/cultural extinguishment through assimilation or genocide) the aboriginal people of those lands (Papuan-like peoples) and the Australians, New Zealanders are quite far along in that process as well.
The Sentinelese of India have managed to hold on to their island, albeit it is a fragile hold, and credit to Indian establishment for holding steadfast to that policy of allowing them to completely self-determine their lives. Although I do fear that period may come to an end if CNFC (China) explorations and fishing vessels continue to pursue that region.
I'm realizing I'm ill equipped to answer your question. It is definitely interesting.
What?
The reply I'm replying to is the propaganda. He has no idea where I live, he sees the word "Israel" and assumes that means that I stole land.
In fact the place where I live, like the vast majority of places, has had good relations with the Bedouins and has since the beginning. These are grazing lands, and the Bedouins do graze most of it. We're built up on the rocky hilltops where there is nothing to graze, the only thing that could grow there might be olive trees. The Bedouins likely have had their herds graze here before the houses were build, but that doesn't make it "their land" and more than the store where you buy your bread is "your store". Unless you think that each Bedouin has the equivalent personal land sized several times any large city, and they all overlap!
I'm not disputing the fact that there is an Israeli-Arab conflict. I understand the argument "Israel steals land" even if I dispute it. Separate from that, there is an issue of Bedouin land. But neither argument is the one that is being made here, parent poster is conflating issues to influence your opinion. That's not uncommon when people are motivated by hate.
That is a naïve comparison applied to how land ownership in Palestine works and worked and in that way it's just feeding the myth of "A Land with no People for a People with no Land". That is not hate, that just means that the entire modern country of Israel was founded by driving out the people that were already living there.
Maybe consider what would happened to the Bedou if they weren't trying to make "good relations" with the people who were suddenly bulding on the land that they need in order for their livestock to survive. Pretending there is any space for "terrificness" in that situation is clearly incorrect.
And labeling any opposition to your narrative of "terriffic relation" of the occupiers to the occupied as "hate" is kind of supporting the idea that the term "propaganda" seems not entirely incorrect.
Estimates of percentages vary depending which side of the narrative the estimator sits, but most Arabs who left the land of Palestine in 1948 did so at the insistence of Arab leaders who promised to clean the land of the Jews. I'm not disputing that the Jewish armies of the time committed atrocities. In fact, there is a place less than a half-hour drive from my house where an atrocity took place. You won't be surprised to hear that the Arabs committed atrocities of their own.
But none of that is under discussion. You are conflating the Bedouins with what are nominally termed Palestinians. The Bedouins are a different people, don't intermarry with them, and have had a separate spate of problems with the Jews than did the Palestinians. There is even some animosity between the groups, for instance the Bedouins can volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces.
I understand exactly your viewpoint, and you probably do not even realize that you are conflating two issues. I'm not even disputing the general gist of your viewpoint even though I reject it. I am disputing the relation of your viewpoint to the relations that my settlement has with the Bedouins. Not all Arabs peoples here consider themselves part the "the Palestinian struggle", or consider their grief with the Israeli state as part of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
There is no useful discussion to be had based on your belief that I am too stupid, while you understand exactly what I am thinking.
So while I obviously do not agree with you, let's leave it at that.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49388823
Probably some friend of a friend of a NYT journalist learned about it now.
Even their bushes and trees are encouraging fires as a vector for growth. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_National_Park#Agricultu...
[2] https://www.livescience.com/40583-australia-wildfires-eucaly...
Spain has Eucalyptus also. Curiously the private plantations burn often less than the public areas adjacent or the nature parks. Talk about weird statistics.
Without a hand that starts the fire, several times, in several places, in the middle of the night, in the most windy and dry day of the year, with devices specially designed for it... without this hand, there is not fire.
Less people wandering around in private areas than public, smoking, making campfires, or generally just throwing flammable litter around?
> Without a hand that starts the fire, several times, in several places, in the middle of the night, in the most windy and dry day of the year, with devices specially designed for it... without this hand, there is not fire.
There are also other explanations that do not require "mafias". Smokers, which many smoke inside the cars, and car/motorcycles backfires can explain many cases.
Pay attention if the fires don't start at Friday and Saturday nights near rural roads.
Like many plants native to fire-prone regions, eucalyptus trees (aka gum trees in Australia) are adapted to survive — or even thrive — in a wildfire. Fallen eucalyptus leaves create dense carpets of flammable material, and the trees' bark peels off in long streamers that drop to the ground, providing additional fuel that draws ground fires up into the leaves, creating massive, fast-spreading "crown fires" in the upper story of eucalyptus forests."
https://www.livescience.com/40583-australia-wildfires-eucaly...
That's at best baseless speculation, and one that doesn't stand to any objective scrutiny. The truth of the fact is that there was no forest fire prevention policy until the deadly Pedrógão Grande fire that left well over 60 dead, and even then the main cause was widespread abandonment of public and private property, where even municipalities failed to comply with the minimum legal obligations of clearing up their property and roadsides.
My point is that fire-resistant species would help reduce fire propagation.
Not even in "Pedrógão Grande fire", only after the fires of mid-October 2017 did the Portuguese government started to react, and by react I mean enforcing the law that has been around for 20 years.
For one - admittedly odd - example of training goats for this purpose: http://yogoats.org/
Seemed like a neat businesses, and I guess if I’d have been lucky I might have seen them in NYC happily eating grasses in Central and Inwood parks.
Sometimes you just gotta eat away your problems before they eat away at you I suppose :-).
Was always strange to wake up in the morning and wonder why I was hearing “baaa”ing from outside.
I've been wanting to start the exact same business because there are so many older folks living on suburban properties that are hopelessly overgrown with buckthorn and all manner of nasty weeds.
Not sure what I would do with the goats all winter, though.
Eight Portuguese regions have already smashed their local records as a warm blast of air from North Africa sweeps the continent.
August 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/weather-heat...
This sounds so much easier than it practically is - unless you're talking electrical fence or have something really decent you can setup temoporarily? Our goats destroy, both willingly and unwillingly, any simple fence in hours or days.
no underbrush or scrub left - just the trees
We have a rather large species of goats (maybe largest, something Nubian) and they eat the bark of trees so unless you get them away from the tree or the tree has a sufficient diameter which makes it hard enough to get their teeth on it, at least 30cm or so, the trees also don't survive :)
The genus is pretty poisonous, but it even the goats respect it its chemical defenses must be really impressive. There are not a lot of plant species that goats avoid.
https://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/static/effis_stats/