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

2016-11-29 Thread Kevin Kenny 
Mess is right. There is fundamental misunderstanding about the difference
between land ownership, land protection, land use and land cover.

I know what I decided to do in the reimport of New York state lands, but I
can't recommend it as a best practice, because every single tag that I
proposed had objections raised. (I eventually decided to go ahead with the
way I did it, because nobody who raised an objection had a better
suggestion.)


What I did is complicated because the governing law is complicated, but a
quick summary was that Wild Forest and Wilderness areas (which enjoy
extremely strong protection under the state constitution as Forever Wild -
and have timber harvest prohibited in perpetuity) are tagged

boundary=protected_area protect_class=1b leisure=nature_reserve

which makes no assertions about landcover (which in those areas is mostly
'old second growth', with the oldest trees about 150 years old). I also
added 'governance', 'protection_title', 'related_law', 'site_ownership' as
recommended.

For State Forest, where the State cannot sell the land but can allow timber
harvest (and for which timber production is the statutory objective), I
tagged

boundary=protected_area protect_class=6 protection_object=timber
landuse=forest leisure=nature_reserve

They are 'nature reserves' in that they are protected from development, and
that public access for recreational purposes is a recognized secondary
objective in their management. They are 'forests' in that they are managed
for forestry, with regular timber harvests on most of them and many active
reforestation projects on the ones that are worn-out farmland or scrubland.
Alas, this causes many to interpret that they must be entirely covered by
trees - which they are not. They are frequently large parcels that contain
lakes, marshes, and scrublands as well as woods. I maintain that the
interpretation of 'landuse=forest' as denoting any sort of land cover is a
mistake. Forestry is, by statute, the land use in these.

Similarly, the New York City water protection units, most of which are also
heavily forested, are tagged

boundary=protected_area protect_class=12 protection_object=water
leisure=nature_reserve

Once again, public recreation is permitted and encouraged as a secondary
objective of the land management.

There was a whole zoo of other land classifications, to which similar
reasoning was applied.

I frankly do not know what a 'natural' wood is. In my part of the world,
there is no such thing as an 'unmanaged' woodland. The old growth forests,
with six-hundred-year-old cedars and forty-metre-tall hemlocks, are managed
perhaps more intensively than any other government land. It is true that
the management consists primarily in protecting them against incursions by
development, limiting access to passive uses such as hiking, ski touring
and birding, and otherwise allowing Nature to take her course, but much
time and effort is spent on just that. 'Unmanaged' woodland simply does not
exist around here. Most land that is not in state hands has been developed
and allowed to fall to ruin multiple times in the three or four hundred
years that the land has been settled by Europeans. Huge trees sprout from
the ruins of abandoned farms, mines and villages.

Because 'natural' woods do not exist, I suspect, here or anywhere, I use
'natural=wood' for all land that looks like forest. That fact is observable
whether I know the management policy or not. (The places that I tagged
'landuse=forest' are ones where the management policy is observable in the
field by means of signage.) I might prefer 'landcover=trees', but that is
not widely recognized; it does not render, and JOSM treats it as an
unrecognized value. I haven't tagged very much land cover in any case. In
producing my own maps, I use other sources of land cover data that are more
comprehensive (albeit less accurate) than OSM. Since most of what I've
contributed has been in some way 'scratching my own itch,' I simply haven't
had much incentive to work on land cover.

Forestry is an aspect of land management that seems to be mired in
misunderstanding. The concept that a tract of land the size of some
countries could be reserved by statute for the production of timber,
despite the fact that some areas within it are not wooded, not amenable to
reforestation, and will never be suited to timber production, is something
that appears almost to offend some OSM'ers. I've heard the serious
suggestion that National and State Forests not be mapped since they are
'mere' property lines. Nevertheless, they are significant cultural,
recreational, and political features. In New York, the boundaries of the
Adirondack Park, and of the designated preserves inside it, are much more
significant to the local communities than the boundaries of counties or
townships. People identify with the preserves, and expect to see them on
maps, the way they see them signed on the roads that cross or skirt them.
Out West, the

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

2016-11-29 Thread 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
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Re: [Talk-us] Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (landuse=forest and US National forests again)

2016-11-29 Thread Tod Fitch 
My take:

landuse=forest ==> Managed for wood, timber, lumber, paper production, etc.
natural=wood ==> Its got trees on it. May be managed for recreation, watershed, 
endangered species, etc. or it may not managed at all.

My preferred take, not fully accepted by the wiki or tagging list but certainly 
in use according to taginfo, is to use landcover=trees rather than natural=wood 
as I can’t necessarily tell even in a survey if the area is natural, managed, 
or not but I can tell if it has trees on it.


> On Nov 29, 2016, at 1:25 PM, Elliott Plack  wrote:
> 
> My take:
> 
> landuse = forest ---> human managed
> natural = wood ---> natural
> 
> I don't agree with designating USFS land as landuse=forest, unless we can 
> agree to abort the use of landuse=forest for tagging clumps of trees. We need 
> a best common practice here.
> 
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 4:09 PM Paul Norman  > wrote:
> On 11/29/2016 7:14 AM, Andy Townsend wrote:
> > All I know of the area is"lots of parts of it do have lots of trees",
> > but does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National
> > Forest boundary, or should it be on the forested areas within?  I
> > mention this here rather because I'm sure there are people here
> > familiar with the area, which I'm not.
> 
> The forested areas within. Or natural=wood, both get used in practice,
> but that's an entire different mess.
> 
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Re: [Talk-us] Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (landuse=forest and US National forests again)

2016-11-29 Thread Elliott Plack 
My take:

landuse = forest ---> human managed
natural = wood ---> natural

I don't agree with designating USFS land as landuse=forest, unless we can
agree to abort the use of landuse=forest for tagging clumps of trees. We
need a best common practice here.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 4:09 PM Paul Norman  wrote:

On 11/29/2016 7:14 AM, Andy Townsend wrote:
> All I know of the area is"lots of parts of it do have lots of trees",
> but does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National
> Forest boundary, or should it be on the forested areas within?  I
> mention this here rather because I'm sure there are people here
> familiar with the area, which I'm not.

The forested areas within. Or natural=wood, both get used in practice,
but that's an entire different mess.

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-- 
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http://elliottplack.me
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Re: [Talk-us] Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (landuse=forest and US National forests again)

2016-11-29 Thread Paul Norman 

On 11/29/2016 7:14 AM, Andy Townsend wrote:
All I know of the area is"lots of parts of it do have lots of trees", 
but does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National 
Forest boundary, or should it be on the forested areas within?  I 
mention this here rather because I'm sure there are people here 
familiar with the area, which I'm not.


The forested areas within. Or natural=wood, both get used in practice, 
but that's an entire different mess.


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

2016-11-29 Thread Steven Johnson 
> does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National Forest
boundary,

No. The boundary indicated USNF ownership, not landuse/landcover.

or should it be on the forested areas within?

Yes, that's a more appropriate use for that tag.

Similar situation exists in the George Washington Natl Forest.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/38.8777/-78.4453 The boundaries here
represent the Lee Ranger district (an internal USFS admin boundary) do not
reflect surface ownership. I get why it's so ambiguous, but the boundaries
should reflect ownership on the ground.

Some efforts have made to import US Forest Service data:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_Forest_Service_Data#National_Forest_Boundaries
Still much to be done. If there is interest, we should take the discussion
to the OSM-US slack, #imports channel.

-- SEJ
-- twitter: @geomantic
-- skype: sejohnson8

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely
of jokes. --*Ludwig Wittgenstein*

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 10:14 AM, Andy Townsend  wrote:

> I commented on http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/43314846 a few days
> ago - does landuse=forest really make sense there?
>
> For more details on the relation see http://www.openstreetmap.org/r
> elation/1447414#map=15/47.9626/-120.2074 and
> http://osm.mapki.com/history/relation.php?id=1447414 .
>
> All I know of the area is"lots of parts of it do have lots of trees", but
> does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National Forest
> boundary, or should it be on the forested areas within?  I mention this
> here rather because I'm sure there are people here familiar with the area,
> which I'm not.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
>
>
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[Talk-us] Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (landuse=forest and US National forests again)

2016-11-29 Thread Andy Townsend 
I commented on http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/43314846 a few 
days ago - does landuse=forest really make sense there?


For more details on the relation see 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1447414#map=15/47.9626/-120.2074 
and http://osm.mapki.com/history/relation.php?id=1447414 .


All I know of the area is"lots of parts of it do have lots of trees", 
but does the landuse=forest assignment make sense on the National Forest 
boundary, or should it be on the forested areas within?  I mention this 
here rather because I'm sure there are people here familiar with the 
area, which I'm not.


Cheers,

Andy


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