Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Hi Charlotte, good to hear from you, hope all is well!

Essentially, yes to all that (except I'm not sure on landuse=conservation); 
looks 'depreciated' via http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:landuse 

As far as how to 'properly tag' the various types of 'National' protected 
areas, I think this table has the most recent/good conceptually schema:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area#Protect_classes_for_various_countries
 

Then we can get back to 'what is a forest/tree/scrub/etc.' :)  On a serious 
note, yes - I think it's going to take some 'micro-mapping' to accurately show 
usage of our natural resources. Back to the Ski Resort/Piste mapping, yep - 
Breck and Copper and about 1/2 dozen other ski resorts are 'inside White River 
NF' with agreement/contracts with USFS, but we don't tag the whole forest 
winter recreation area - which it seems someone deleted my polygon around 
Copper :(

=Russ

-Original Message-
From: Charlotte Wolter [mailto:techl...@techlady.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 4:22 PM
To: Talk-US@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

Russ,

 I think you have come closest to a good 
general description of something with multiple 
uses. Yes, above all, U.S. national forests are protected.
 So, does that mean that tagging is 
boundary=protected_area and landuse=conservation, 
along with, of course, tagging of individual 
features/uses, such as campground, fishing, archaeological site, etc.?

Charlotte


At 05:07 AM 5/11/2016, you wrote:

>Hi Greg and all,
>Sorry, I either need a refund on that Forestry 
>degree or have to call this out as incorrect:
>Perhaps the problem here is the multiple roles 
>that the the US Forest Service plays. Note that 
>that name is from the olden days. Now the 
>service is know as the National Park Service.
>The National Park Service and National Forest 
>Service are too very different things (i.e. 
>branches of government, US Department of 
>Interior versus Department of Agriculture respectively).
>I think we need to return to that "basic 
>question" – what is the main "service"/function 
>of these services – Protection! The only reason 
>we have National Forests, Parks, etc. is to 
>protect them, not use – although yes, usage is 
>allowed under the various rules/regulations of the particular unit.
>=Russ
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Charlotte Wolter
927 18th Street Suite A
Santa Monica, California
90403
+1-310-597-4040
techl...@techlady.com
Skype: thetechlady



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Charlotte Wolter]

Russ,

I think you have come closest to a good 
general description of something with multiple 
uses. Yes, above all, U.S. national forests are protected.
So, does that mean that tagging is 
boundary=protected_area and landuse=conservation, 
along with, of course, tagging of individual 
features/uses, such as campground, fishing, archaeological site, etc.?


Charlotte


At 05:07 AM 5/11/2016, you wrote:


Hi Greg and all,
Sorry, I either need a refund on that Forestry 
degree or have to call this out as incorrect:
Perhaps the problem here is the multiple roles 
that the the US Forest Service plays. Note that 
that name is from the olden days. Now the 
service is know as the National Park Service.
The National Park Service and National Forest 
Service are too very different things (i.e. 
branches of government, US Department of 
Interior versus Department of Agriculture respectively).
I think we need to return to that "basic 
question" – what is the main "service"/function 
of these services – Protection! The only reason 
we have National Forests, Parks, etc. is to 
protect them, not use – although yes, usage is 
allowed under the various rules/regulations of the particular unit.

=Russ
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Charlotte Wolter
927 18th Street Suite A
Santa Monica, California
90403
+1-310-597-4040
techl...@techlady.com
Skype: thetechlady



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Eric Christensen]

On 05/10/2016 01:28 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:

What
muddied the waters is whether or not this should apply to a US National
Forest.  I believe it is NOW widely accepted that we should not do that
on a USFS administrative boundary (instead using
boundary=protected_area, protect_class=6).


I recently removed "landuse=forest" from the boundary of George 
Washington National Forest specifically because it's not all 
forest/woods.  There are many residential areas and other land use 
inside the protected area.  I hope to go back and actually map the 
forest area within that boundary.  So, yes, I believe it's not 
appropriate to use landuse=forestry for national forests *unless* the 
entire encapsulated area is, in fact, forest.


--Eric

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Hi Greg and all,

 

Sorry, I either need a refund on that Forestry degree or have to call this out 
as incorrect:

 

Perhaps the problem here is the multiple roles that the the US Forest Service 
plays.   Note that that name is from the olden days.  Now the service is know 
as the National Park Service. 

 

The National Park Service and National Forest Service are too very different 
things (i.e. branches of government, US Department of Interior versus 
Department of Agriculture respectively).

 

I think we need to return to that ‘basic question’ – what is the main 
‘service’/function of these services – Protection! The only reason we have 
National Forests, Parks, etc. is to protect them, not use – although yes, usage 
is allowed under the various rules/regulations of the particular unit.

 

=Russ

 

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Greg Morgan]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 10:28 AM, OSM Volunteer stevea <
stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote:

> Bradley White  writes:
>
> Just to add my two cents, I do not think that "landuse=forest" should be
> tagged with national forest boundaries.
>
>
> I would like to be clear, here:  I USED TO believe this, as it was the
> “best practice” at the time, and so I DID tag like this.  But this was back
> in 2010-12 or so.  Meanwhile, the boundary=protected_area tag developed and
> evolved, and now I tag US National Forests with this (when I do) along with
> protect_class=6 (or protect_class=1b on Wilderness areas).  This is widely
> accepted in OSM in the USA.
>


> Yes, natural=wood is an important tag, as it really is distinct from
> landuse=forest:  the latter will have (or does have) trees being felled,
> the former simply will not.  OK, OK, maybe a natural=wood had trees felled
> “a long time ago” and so is second-growth (or third-growth).  I think OSM
> can live with that.  As long as the intention is for these trees to remain
> (uncut), and the entirety of the area (closed polygon) is essentially
> “treed,” I believe natural=wood is the correct tag.  I don’t need to have a
> degree in forestry (nor should I) to determine whether to tag natural=wood
> or landuse=forest.  Start with the former, and if you or someone else
> learns of or knows it to be timberland, change it to the latter.  I think
> that can suffice in 98% of the cases, and the other 2% can “be handled” as
> needed.
>
>
Perhaps the problem here is the multiple roles that the the US Forest
Service plays.   Note that that name is from the olden days.  Now the
service is know as the National Park Service.  I looked at the history of
some of these areas.  It looks like most of the tags, nodes, and ways were
configured seven years ago. One of the problems is trying to make sense of
the wiki pages because you bounce around.[1][2].

What does it mean to harvest or fell trees?  It doesn't always mean fresh
cut trees.  I remember skidding trees via a mule in a burn area.  The
rancher that I worked for had a permit to do so from the NPS.  I believe
one of the essential jobs now of the NPS is to cut down trees that were
damaged by beetles so that other trees are not infected.  Sure these trees
are not used to build a building though the standing dead fall may be used
for this purpose in some cases, but the wood makes great fire wood.

I've only casually looked at the protected tag via this discussion.
Perhaps it still applies to the historic preservation[3][4] efforts that
the NPS provides.  I also note at least for Arizona, the Arizona State
Parks department is responsible for forwarding documents to the NPS for the
national register.[5]  In the case of some of these sites, they feel more
like regular parks to me.[6][7]  I like the way Ian brought these over as
leisure=park especially in the case of Pipe Spring National Monument.  Also
note, federal studies must be provided for many construction projects.  I
don't know the exact reasons that would trigger such a study.  The desire
is to prevent additional lost of historic places.  These studies may add
some sites to the registry.

There appear to be problems with the idea of a park.  A park can be larger
than just a small area in a city. In the case of several Maricopa County
regional parks, some have been tagged as boundary=protected_area,
landuse=conservation, and leisure=nature_reserve starting five years
ago[8][9][10].  However, these areas are recreation areas and not protected
areas or conserved land that has been set aside so that moderate human
contact with the area.  These large Maricopa County parks are no different
than New York's Central Park.  I believe that leisure=park is more fitting
for these areas.

Finally, I always wondered why I thought forests outside of Arizona looked
so much greener than what is located here.  Two things dawned on me.  One,
the type of tree is so much different in Arizona compared to, say, a tall
pine tree in Colorado.  Two, there is little to no grass between the
trees.  Hence, some of these boundary=protected_areas in Arizona are
forests but not like the expectation of natural=wood or landuse=forest in
other parts of the country.  ;-)

Regards,
Greg


[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:protect%20class?uselang=en-US
[2]
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area#Classification

[3] http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/heritage/
[4] https://www.nps.gov/nr/
[5] http://azstateparks.com/SHPO/

[6] https://www.nps.gov/pisp/planyourvisit/maps.htm
[7]
http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/359249951/history#map=17/36.86230/-112.73726

[8] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/100085359/#map=14/33.9250/-112.2644
[9] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/94849767#map=14/33.8300/-111.9998
[10] http://www.maricopacountyparks.net/assets/1/6/lake-pleasant-8x112.pdf
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Eternal vigilance is what liberty costs.  I maintain that my forests are my 
forests.  Maybe a sign or current campfire regulations prevent me from 
collecting downed wood, but if I’m camping in a National Forest (and I’m a 
citizen or a national) I’m going to assume that is true until it is proven 
otherwise.  This is the Department of Agriculture’s land (mine, ours) that I’m 
on.  Those fallen branches are mine, and will make both me and my tea warm, 
perhaps even hot if I care to go there.

Sure, contacting the local office of the national forest is the best, local, 
“today” knowledge.  But a national forest is a national forest is a national 
forest.

I am an adult am the owner of these lands, along with millions of others.  
Impassable trails and starting a fire don’t scare me.

Go ahead and consider landuse=forest as useless, that will go down like the 
Hindenburg.

SteveA
California

> On May 10, 2016, at 7:43 PM, Jeffrey Ollie  wrote:
> I think that the landuse=forest tag as you describe it here is close to 
> useless for the purposes of OSM. First of all, the areas that the US Forest 
> Service (or similar state agency) allows timber to be harvested from is going 
> to change, probably at least on a yearly basis, as the agencies manage the 
> lands under their control. Second of all, the information on where timber 
> harvesting is currently allowed may not be public information since it's part 
> of a commercial contract with a private business (I could be wrong through). 
> Third, that sort of information is probably of little use to the general 
> public anyway since only those companies with the necessary permits would be 
> allowed to harvest timber anyway.  And no, gathering up dead wood from the 
> forest floor for a campfire does not count in my book as timber harvesting.
> 
> If you were planning a hike through a National Forest and wanted to avoid 
> areas that were actively being harvested, you'd be much better off contacting 
> the US Forest Service directly anyway as they'd be able to inform you about 
> other issues with your hiking plans like recent landslides that made trails 
> impassable, wildfires, etc.
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Ollie
> 


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Jeffrey Ollie]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 12:28 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea <
stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote:

>
> As an aside, I STILL believe that it is/would be correct WITHIN this
> boundary to ALSO tag landuse=forest where it is KNOWN (ground truth is
> best, but public data, signage or other sources could convince me) that
> harvesting of wood is allowed in those specific areas where there is
> exactly this sort of tree cover.  Although, I might evolve further still to
> be convinced to use a landcover tag (instead) if/as this becomes better
> developed.  The landcover tag becoming more clearly rendered would likely
> help here.
>

I think that the landuse=forest tag as you describe it here is close to
useless for the purposes of OSM. First of all, the areas that the US Forest
Service (or similar state agency) allows timber to be harvested from is
going to change, probably at least on a yearly basis, as the agencies
manage the lands under their control. Second of all, the information on
where timber harvesting is currently allowed may not be public information
since it's part of a commercial contract with a private business (I could
be wrong through). Third, that sort of information is probably of little
use to the general public anyway since only those companies with the
necessary permits would be allowed to harvest timber anyway.  And no,
gathering up dead wood from the forest floor for a campfire does not count
in my book as timber harvesting.

If you were planning a hike through a National Forest and wanted to avoid
areas that were actively being harvested, you'd be much better off
contacting the US Forest Service directly anyway as they'd be able to
inform you about other issues with your hiking plans like recent landslides
that made trails impassable, wildfires, etc.

-- 
Jeff Ollie
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Just to bring in some ‘ground verification’, here are the signs you find around 
Pike:



 

Just a few minute detour from going to the Post Office :)

=Russ

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

> On May 10, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Mike Thompson  > wrote:
> Ok, you are talking about gathering of fallen branches, not just cutting of 
> standing trees.

I could be wrong about this, so I will say what I strongly believe to be true, 
but am not 100% certain:  in a US National Forest, I can gather downed wood and 
build a fire with it.  (If there IS any downed wood, and it is safe to build a 
fire).  I cannot tear off or cut off low branches and do the same.  I could if 
I had a USFS timber permit, but that is (usually) beyond the scope of what I’m 
talking about:  a citizen-owner who might be camping for a night or three and 
wants to stay warm and boil water for tea.  The cutting of standing trees, 
if/when/as allowed, does make a “treed” area a forest, I believe we would all 
agree.  However, while the casual gathering of downed wood does, too (perhaps 
less agreement here, but I do assert this), the cutting of standing trees is a 
more intense sort of forestry.  So, both the individual (human) of gathering of 
downed wood makes a land a forest, as does the (usually permitted and/or 
notified to the general public that this activity is occurring) more intensive 
felling of entire trees (up to and including clear-cutting the whole lot of 
them on the entirety of the polygon denoted as landuse=forest).

> In which case, why is my backyard, from which I gather fallen branches for 
> firewood, any different from a landuse perspective, than a National Forest? 
> What about a private campground, open to the paying public, where they allow 
> the gathering of fallen branches for firewood? I don't understand how 
> ownership should change how landuse is classified. 

My answer falls roughly into the realm of “your backyard is part of your 
property, with a residential house upon it, so it is therefore (primarily) 
residential.”  I do not disagree with you (meaning I agree with you) that 
collecting fallen branches in your backyard to build a fire in your fireplace 
isn’t TOO different than what might be done at a campsite upon USFS land.  But 
YOUR land is a residence, with an incidental use of you collecting wood to 
burn.  It’s a “primary vs. ancillary” argument:  residential is primary.

As for a private (open to the public who pays) campground where I can collect 
firewood?  Again, as tourism=camp_site seems like the overwhelmingly primary 
landuse here, that how I would tag the enclosing polygon.  As landuse and 
tourism do not conflict as tags, I see no terrible conflict in additionally 
tagging landuse=forest if it really is the case that you can collect downed 
wood and build a campfire.  As that seems unusual (but possible) I personally 
also would add a note tag of “This isn’t a true timberland in the usual sense 
of landuse=forest but this campground does allow the collection of downed wood 
for campfires.”

Multiple tagging like this is quite acceptable in OSM.  An example is 
railway=abandoned which is also tagged with highway=cycleway (or 
highway=bridleway) for a “Rails To Trails” abandoned railway which has been 
converted into a bike path (or horse trail).  It is both, so it is OK to tag it 
with both.

It isn’t necessarily ownership that makes the determination, it is the primary 
use of the land which should guide our choice for the value of the landuse tag.

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 1:32 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea <
stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote:

> On May 10, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Mike Thompson  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.
>
No problem, glad we have it worked out.

>
>
> 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…”.
>
Ok, you are talking about gathering of fallen branches, not just cutting of
standing trees. In which case, why is my backyard, from which I gather
fallen branches for firewood, any different from a landuse perspective,
than a National Forest? What about a private campground, open to the paying
public, where they allow the gathering of fallen branches for firewood? I
don't understand how ownership should change how landuse is classified.

>
>
> > 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.
>
I agree there is room for improvement.  BTW, this publication may be
useful: http://www.pbcgis.com/data_basics/anderson.pdf


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

Mike
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On May 10, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Mike Thompson  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, “Ummm.”

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.

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 12:15 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea <
stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote:

>
> > On May 10, 2016, at 10:55 AM, Mike Thompson  wrote:
> > We need to be more specific as to what this means. I would suggest that
> this tag is only appropriate where there is active commercial cultivation
> of trees for timber, pulp or similar products. Steve things otherwise, and
> I respect his point of view and appreciate how he is making his argument.
> However, if we go with a much less specific definition, such as anywhere
> someone can gather camp fire wood, then any land where there is a tree
> (with the exception of designated wilderness areas, etc) become
> landuse=forest.
>
> Mmm, hang on, Mike.  When you say “Steve thinks otherwise,” I disagree:
> this is exactly what I think.  Again, what we are agreeing to here is that
> landuse=forest means “active cultivation of trees for timber, pulp or
> similar products.”  (I leave out your choice of the word “commercial”
> because there is our local Demonstration State Forest which is
> publicly-owned and not all of its products are commercial, some being used
> for other state/public projects, for example.  But let’s not get lost in
> the weeds quibbling).
>
> You also mention a “much less specific definition, such as anywhere
> someone can gather campfire wood” equating to “any land where there is a
> tree” is also landuse=forest.  I’ll go real slow here.  In OSM, a USFS can
> correctly has boundary (multi)polygon(s) denoted with
> boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6.  We agree.  A USFS is not
> always 100% covered with trees, so delineating it with landuse=forest is
> not correct.  We agree.  (This didn’t used to be true, but OSM has
> evolved).  A USFS often, but not always, and not in every square meter of
> it, allows the collection of downed wood (where trees throw off downed
> wood) which can be collected by its owner (US citizens/nationals), and even
> (when safe) this wood can be used to build a fire.  We agree.
>
> These facts are different than your assertion of “anywhere someone can
> gather campfire wood.”  I can do that in my backyard, but I don’t tag it
> landuse=forest, nor should I.  These facts are different than “any land
> where there is a tree.”  “There is a tree” in my local city park, but I
> can’t cut it down and start a campfire, so I don’t tag landuse=forest
> there.  “There is a tree” (for sale) at the local plant nursery, but
> neither is that a commercial forest, so I shouldn’t tag it as one.
>
Sorry if I misrepresented your viewpoint.


"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.


> > 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.  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"

Mike
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Elliott Plack]

Charlotte,

I agree that the "tree(s)" definition is a bit broad. That was just meant
as an example of the things that landcover might include. I once spent a
month hiking around Joshua Tree NP, such a cool area!

Following the typical OSM tagging hierachy, in your cases you'd have

landcover=shurb (or trees, sounds like there is some academic disagreement
there).
natural=desert
shrub=joshua_tree;suguaros

There is definitely a ton of ambiguity insofar as I've only spent a short
time thinking about this. I think that a wikitable with lots of examples
would help the community, then we'd get those reference documents into the
popular editor tools that support a wiki link!

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 2:46 PM Charlotte Wolter <techl...@techlady.com>
wrote:

> Elliott,
>
> But, how do you define a "tree"?
> As someone who lives in a desert environment, the word "tree" can
> be defined quite differently from the East Coast.
> Would you call Joshua Trees "trees"? In aerial photography they
> look like widely spaced shrubs. What about suguaros? They're big, and most
> biologists would define them as trees, though they also look like shrubs on
> aerial photography. And, how about our Southern California chaparral or the
> pinyon-juniper all over the Southwest, both of which are smaller than 15
> feet tall? These "trees" cover thousands of square miles in the West.
> If we use land cover, I think there has to be a lot of guidance
> and examples in order for people to be consistent.
>
> Charlotte
>
>
> At 10:29 AM 5/10/2016, you wrote:
>
> Thanks for the continued discussion. It seems that one of you removed the
> offending landuse that I mentioned in my email yesterday (from an import
> that was not attributed). As a result, the tiles have begun to regen, and
> we can now see the beautiful, detailed forest tracing that someone did
> around the ski slopes. This is an example of why blanketing a few hundred
> thousand square miles is not appropriate. Here is a screenshot:Â
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xgtiodzjvhq1l4/2016-05-10%2013_14_51-OpenStreetMap.png?dl=0
>
> Now, I gave this some more thought, and I do tend to agree with Steve A
> that landuse=forest indicates an area designated by humans for a particular
> use. For instance, landuse=residential is to define an area that is
> residential in nature, landuse=cemetery is a cemetery. Keeping with that
> trend, I think that the semantics of the tag are aligned with a managed
> forest. That said, we need to document this and then move to start using a
> new set of tags for landcover=*, to map areas covered with whatever it is,
> regardless of whether humans put them there or not. landcover=trees,
> landcover=grass, landcover=rocks, etc. These tags could be on
> landuse=forest areas, or alone. I think we should resurrect the landcover
> proposal!
>
>
>
> Next step would be change landuse=forest to landcover=trees where
> appropriate.
>
> That is the only way I think we as a community can hope to resolve this.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Elliott
>
>
> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 7:53 PM Russell Deffner <russdeff...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Steve and all,
>
> Â
>
> I think you are correct that we’re trying to build consensus, I think
> this is a good time to review the ‘OSM best practices/rule(s) of
> thumb’.  I would counter-argue that a ‘blanket use of
> landuse=forest’ does not meet the ‘verifiable rule/guideline’ [1];
> it’s not something you can easily observe when there is not active timber
> harvesting. Also, we know that not only is National Forest land used for
> timber production, but also mushroom/berry harvesting, hunting, recreation,
> etc., etc. – so we also should not ‘blanket’ national forestt with
> other tags, but try to accurately/verifiably show things. If you look at
> the discussion page for the proposed landcover features [2] it is a good
> representative of many of these ‘natural’ vs. landuse vs. vegetation
> cover, etc. As I have said in previous threads on this topic – please have
> patience with Pike National Forest – Iâ€I’ve been working on this and
> have verified that Pike does not allow timber harvesting except by permit
> in very small designation sub-sections of the forest, which rotate/change
> frequently, so unless we are talking about ‘importing those boundaries’
> then I’m slowly working on tagging ‘forested’/areas with trees as
> natural=wood (i.e. that I believe meets ‘verifiability’ – i.e. you can
> pretty well see forest edge/tree line in imagery).
>
> =Russ
>
> Â
>
> [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability
>
> [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

> On May 10, 2016, at 11:24 AM, Charlotte Wolter  wrote:
> Steve, I see your argument. You're going for consistency, which is usually a 
> good thing.
> But, what if the land "cover" is scattered trees that are the size of 
> large shrubs in a desert environment? I'm thinking of the chaparral of 
> Southern California, the Joshua Tree forests in the Mohave desert and the 
> Saguaro forests of southern Arizona. They would meet a biologist's definition 
> of "forest.”

I AM going for consistency, even as I know it to be sometimes ridiculed as the 
foolish hobgoblin of small minds.  However, consistency is an absolute 
necessity in a project as wide as OSM, with its millions of contributors, huge 
number of wiki pages offering helpful tagging instructions and shred of hope 
for sanity going forward.

Your examples are excellent edge cases of “well, what do we do HERE?”  OSM does 
cause us to examine those sorts of things from time to time, and I’m very glad 
that it does and I’m very glad that OSM has discussions like this, talk pages, 
wikis, voting, and especially, free-form tagging.  All of these allow us to 
evolve into something better, and not only have we done that, we will continue 
to do so.

It is fascinating to consider a scrub desert or a large area where huge cacti 
are a dominant plant species and ask myself (ourselves):  is this a forest?  
What IS this?  These are awesome questions and I do not have an immediate 
answer.  I am very glad you ask them.

> Part of the problem is a concept of "forest" and "land cover" based 
> on the East Coast and Europe. I know you're a Californian, so you must see 
> the difference.

I do.  OSM tagging really must evolve to cover our entire planet Earth.  OK, 
sure, we started in Europe, but we are quite the worldwide project now.  Let 
our tagging catch up to that, as it must.

> I do like the idea of using boundary=protected_area.

As I said, it “came to the rescue” and good, thoughtful tagging with 
well-established semantics can and will do exactly this again in the future.  
Yes!

> By the way, I wonder about the writer below who said the city of Reno 
> is within the national forest. Surrounded by it, maybe, like Flagstaff, Ariz. 
> (Coconino NF), but I guarantee it's not actually part of the federal forest. 
> Maybe we need to get more accurate boundaries.

Yeah, me, too.  I didn’t look at those specific examples in OSM, but your 
characterizations are correct and it may be that OSM needs much better tagging 
if it is asserted that large cities are found WITHIN the boundaries of US 
National Forests:  I strongly believe they are not, regardless of whether OSM 
tags them that way.  Do we have errors in our map?  Yes.  Can and do we correct 
them?  Yes, we do.  OSM simply continues to get better and better.  Partly due 
to discussions like these.

SteveA
California
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

> On May 10, 2016, at 10:55 AM, Mike Thompson  wrote:
> We need to be more specific as to what this means. I would suggest that this 
> tag is only appropriate where there is active commercial cultivation of trees 
> for timber, pulp or similar products. Steve things otherwise, and I respect 
> his point of view and appreciate how he is making his argument.  However, if 
> we go with a much less specific definition, such as anywhere someone can 
> gather camp fire wood, then any land where there is a tree (with the 
> exception of designated wilderness areas, etc) become landuse=forest.

Mmm, hang on, Mike.  When you say “Steve thinks otherwise,” I disagree:  this 
is exactly what I think.  Again, what we are agreeing to here is that 
landuse=forest means “active cultivation of trees for timber, pulp or similar 
products.”  (I leave out your choice of the word “commercial” because there is 
our local Demonstration State Forest which is publicly-owned and not all of its 
products are commercial, some being used for other state/public projects, for 
example.  But let’s not get lost in the weeds quibbling).

You also mention a “much less specific definition, such as anywhere someone can 
gather campfire wood” equating to “any land where there is a tree” is also 
landuse=forest.  I’ll go real slow here.  In OSM, a USFS can correctly has 
boundary (multi)polygon(s) denoted with boundary=protected_area and 
protect_class=6.  We agree.  A USFS is not always 100% covered with trees, so 
delineating it with landuse=forest is not correct.  We agree.  (This didn’t 
used to be true, but OSM has evolved).  A USFS often, but not always, and not 
in every square meter of it, allows the collection of downed wood (where trees 
throw off downed wood) which can be collected by its owner (US 
citizens/nationals), and even (when safe) this wood can be used to build a 
fire.  We agree.

These facts are different than your assertion of “anywhere someone can gather 
campfire wood.”  I can do that in my backyard, but I don’t tag it 
landuse=forest, nor should I.  These facts are different than “any land where 
there is a tree.”  “There is a tree” in my local city park, but I can’t cut it 
down and start a campfire, so I don’t tag landuse=forest there.  “There is a 
tree” (for sale) at the local plant nursery, but neither is that a commercial 
forest, so I shouldn’t tag it as one.

> 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.

> * Who administers the land / has jurisdiction (e.g. US National Forest 
> Service) - seems like we (the people participating in this thread) agree on 
> this one.

We agree:  the boundary=protected_area tag (and others which are associated, 
like ownership=public, admin_level and so on) came to the rescue here.

>  * How did the landcover get there? e.g. old growth, human planted, natural 
> secondary growth? I suggest that these be "secondary" tags. In other words, 
> all treed areas are tagged natural=wood (or whatever tag we agree on), and 
> tags indicating the origin of the trees be added where this information is 
> known.

I like this.  I have seen tagging which attempts to delineate between, for 
example deciduous vs. evergreen or different biota of plant species, but this 
can be a very useful semantic to capture with appropriate tagging.

> * How is the land being used? This is where we need to come to a consensus on 
> a more specific definition for landuse=forest - see above.

It is entirely possible that landuse=forest to denote timberland is just a 
starting place.  (But it is an important one, and crucially, it is 
well-established within the semantics of OSM tagging).

Good, GOOD!

SteveA
California
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 11:29 AM, Elliott Plack 
wrote:

> Thanks for the continued discussion. It seems that one of you removed the
> offending landuse that I mentioned in my email yesterday (from an import
> that was not attributed). As a result, the tiles have begun to regen, and
> we can now see the beautiful, detailed forest tracing that someone did
> around the ski slopes. This is an example of why blanketing a few hundred
> thousand square miles is not appropriate. Here is a screenshot:
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xgtiodzjvhq1l4/2016-05-10%2013_14_51-OpenStreetMap.png?dl=0
>
Nice!

>
> Now, I gave this some more thought, and I do tend to agree with Steve A
> that landuse=forest indicates an area designated by humans for a particular
> use.
>
We need to be more specific as to what this means. I would suggest that
this tag is only appropriate where there is active commercial cultivation
of trees for timber, pulp or similar products. Steve things otherwise, and
I respect his point of view and appreciate how he is making his argument.
However, if we go with a much less specific definition, such as anywhere
someone can gather camp fire wood, then any land where there is a tree
(with the exception of designated wilderness areas, etc) become
landuse=forest.

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.
* Who administers the land / has jurisdiction (e.g. US National Forest
Service) - seems like we (the people participating in this thread) agree on
this one.
* How did the landcover get there? e.g. old growth, human planted, natural
secondary growth? I suggest that these be "secondary" tags. In other words,
all treed areas are tagged natural=wood (or whatever tag we agree on), and
tags indicating the origin of the trees be added where this information is
known.
* How is the land being used? This is where we need to come to a consensus
on a more specific definition for landuse=forest - see above.

Mike

>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Elliott Plack]

Thanks for the continued discussion. It seems that one of you removed the
offending landuse that I mentioned in my email yesterday (from an import
that was not attributed). As a result, the tiles have begun to regen, and
we can now see the beautiful, detailed forest tracing that someone did
around the ski slopes. This is an example of why blanketing a few hundred
thousand square miles is not appropriate. Here is a screenshot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xgtiodzjvhq1l4/2016-05-10%2013_14_51-OpenStreetMap.png?dl=0

Now, I gave this some more thought, and I do tend to agree with Steve A
that landuse=forest indicates an area designated by humans for a particular
use. For instance, landuse=residential is used to define an area that is
residential in nature, landuse=cemetery is a cemetery. Keeping with that
trend, I think that the semantics of the tag are aligned with a managed
forest. That said, we need to document this and then move to start using a
new set of tags for landcover=*, to map areas covered with whatever it is,
regardless of whether humans put them there or not. landcover=trees,
landcover=grass, landcover=rocks, etc. These tags could be on
landuse=forest areas, or alone. I think we should resurrect the landcover
proposal!

Next step would be change landuse=forest to landcover=trees where
appropriate.

That is the only way I think we as a community can hope to resolve this.

Thanks,

Elliott


On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 7:53 PM Russell Deffner <russdeff...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Steve and all,
>
>
>
> I think you are correct that we’re trying to build consensus, I think this
> is a good time to review the ‘OSM best practices/rule(s) of thumb’.  I
> would counter-argue that a ‘blanket use of landuse=forest’ does not meet
> the ‘verifiable rule/guideline’ [1]; it’s not something you can easily
> observe when there is not active timber harvesting. Also, we know that not
> only is National Forest land used for timber production, but also
> mushroom/berry harvesting, hunting, recreation, etc., etc. – so we also
> should not ‘blanket’ national forest with other tags, but try to
> accurately/verifiably show things. If you look at the discussion page for
> the proposed landcover features [2] it is a good representative of many of
> these ‘natural’ vs. landuse vs. vegetation cover, etc. As I have said in
> previous threads on this topic – please have patience with Pike National
> Forest – I’ve been working on this and have verified that Pike does not
> allow timber harvesting except by permit in very small designation
> sub-sections of the forest, which rotate/change frequently, so unless we
> are talking about ‘importing those boundaries’ then I’m slowly working on
> tagging ‘forested’/areas with trees as natural=wood (i.e. that I believe
> meets ‘verifiability’ – i.e. you can pretty well see forest edge/tree line
> in imagery).
>
> =Russ
>
>
>
> [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability
>
> [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landcover
>
>
>
> *From:* OSM Volunteer stevea [mailto:stevea...@softworkers.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, May 09, 2016 3:29 PM
> *To:* talk-us@openstreetmap.org
>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests
>
>
>
> Mike Thompson writes:
>
> 1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the
> ground observation.
>
>
>
> Granted:  from an on-the-ground observation, a landuse=forest might look
> very much like a natural=wood.  However, if you saw that part of the area
> had some stumps, you could safely conclude it is not natural=wood (unless
> there was "illegal logging” going on, and that DOES happen) but rather that
> it is landuse=forest.  THEN, there is where you know for a fact (from facts
> not on-the-ground, but perhaps from ownership data, signage like “Welcome
> to Sierra National Forest” or other sources) that THIS IS a real, live
> forest, in the sense OSM intends to mean here (landuse=forest implies
> timber harvesting now or at some point in the future).
>
>
>
> 2) While the English word "natural" might suggest this, we use "natural"
> for other things that man has a hand in creating or modifying, e.g.
> natural=water for a man made reservoir.
>
>
>
> Again, I’ll grant you this, but it only shows that OSM’s tagging is not
> always internally consistent.  I can live with that.  What is required (and
> “more clear" in the case of natural=water) is the understanding that
> consensus has emerged for natural=water:  this gets tagged on bodies of
> water which are both natural and man-made, and that’s OK, and we don’t lose
> sleep over it or look for more consistency.  It’s like an exception to a
> rule of grammar:  you just learn it, and say “shucks” that there

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Bradley White > 
writes:

> Just to add my two cents, I do not think that "landuse=forest" should be 
> tagged with national forest boundaries.

I would like to be clear, here:  I USED TO believe this, as it was the “best 
practice” at the time, and so I DID tag like this.  But this was back in 
2010-12 or so.  Meanwhile, the boundary=protected_area tag developed and 
evolved, and now I tag US National Forests with this (when I do) along with 
protect_class=6 (or protect_class=1b on Wilderness areas).  This is widely 
accepted in OSM in the USA.

As an aside, I STILL believe that it is/would be correct WITHIN this boundary 
to ALSO tag landuse=forest where it is KNOWN (ground truth is best, but public 
data, signage or other sources could convince me) that harvesting of wood is 
allowed in those specific areas where there is exactly this sort of tree cover. 
 Although, I might evolve further still to be convinced to use a landcover tag 
(instead) if/as this becomes better developed.  The landcover tag becoming more 
clearly rendered would likely help here.

> That something is within a national forest boundary does not guarantee that 
> it is a managed forest, or even that it has tree cover. A 'national forest' 
> is more an administrative boundary to me than anything - it designates an 
> area with active federal management and a stricter set of laws involving 
> development, etc. Half of Reno, NV where I reside is technically inside the 
> Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest boundary, including the urban center. There 
> is certainly nothing that qualifies as a 'forest' here in the traditional 
> sense. Even many parcels just outside of urbanized areas of Reno that are 
> both within the national forest boundary and owned by the forest service have 
> no tree cover whatsoever, and couldn't possibly qualify for any definition of 
> a forest involving trees.
> 
> Personally I think the problem here is a poor definition of 'landuse=forest’.

I don’t think it is poor at all:  I think the definition of landuse=forest is 
clear:  "timberland” in a single word, an area where present or near-future 
harvesting of trees/wood is taking place.  What muddied the waters is whether 
or not this should apply to a US National Forest.  I believe it is NOW widely 
accepted that we should not do that on a USFS administrative boundary (instead 
using boundary=protected_area, protect_class=6).

OSM evolved.  From its earlier days of using the landuse=forest tag to mark the 
boundary of a US National Forest, we evolved to say “no, plenty of national 
forests are covered by scrub, rocks, no trees whatsoever, craggy mountains or 
just bare ground, so landuse=forest around the whole thing just isn’t correct.” 
 Yes, the landcover tag was also discussed as an alternative, but this remains 
less clear than the boundary=protected_area solution that has emerged, and 
which has solid consensus upholding it.

> Does this mean land used for timber production? I see a lot of on-the-ground 
> verifiability issues with that sort of definition. Should it imply a large, 
> managed area of trees? As explained earlier, there are many federally owned 
> and managed 'national forest' areas with no tree cover whatsoever. I would be 
> partial to a definition of 'land owned directly managed by a forestry 
> service' - forestry land - but then mapping something like that would require 
> parcel-level imports since not every piece of land owned by the forest 
> service is clearly marked on the ground.

Yes, ground-truth verifiability is a strong tenet of OSM.  Then, there is “what 
you know and can otherwise show” or “what simply is true.”  For example, near 
here is the Soquel State Demonstration Forest.  100% of it is landuse=forest, 
and correctly so.  It isn’t just that the word “Forest” is in its name, it is 
demonstrably a forest (timber production area) that the state of California 
declares as such (and is mighty proud of due to its environmental and 
cutting-edge forestry practices).  THAT is something deserving of the tag 
landuse=forest, no question about it.  And while it is in public ownership, 
there are also vast tracts of land near here known as “Big Creek Forests” which 
are private timberland.  They are also huge areas covered with trees, but 
because of outstanding (private, this time) stewardship, the logging which 
takes place upon them is quite light indeed:  you may never see a stump or hear 
a chainsaw as you attempt to ground-truth these facts.  That doesn’t make them 
“not a forest,” they are.  Trees grow rather slowly, remember, not being ready 
for harvest after decades or even centuries.

> I personally only use 'natural=wood' anymore, since at the very least it is 
> easy to verify that trees exist. I don't care much for the 'original growth' 
> definition of 'natural=tree' either due to verifiability issues. Much of the 
> Lake Tahoe is second-growth forest, but 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Hi Steve and all,

 

I think you are correct that we’re trying to build consensus, I think this is a 
good time to review the ‘OSM best practices/rule(s) of thumb’.  I would 
counter-argue that a ‘blanket use of landuse=forest’ does not meet the 
‘verifiable rule/guideline’ [1]; it’s not something you can easily observe when 
there is not active timber harvesting. Also, we know that not only is National 
Forest land used for timber production, but also mushroom/berry harvesting, 
hunting, recreation, etc., etc. – so we also should not ‘blanket’ national 
forest with other tags, but try to accurately/verifiably show things. If you 
look at the discussion page for the proposed landcover features [2] it is a 
good representative of many of these ‘natural’ vs. landuse vs. vegetation 
cover, etc. As I have said in previous threads on this topic – please have 
patience with Pike National Forest – I’ve been working on this and have 
verified that Pike does not allow timber harvesting except by permit in very 
small designation sub-sections of the forest, which rotate/change frequently, 
so unless we are talking about ‘importing those boundaries’ then I’m slowly 
working on tagging ‘forested’/areas with trees as natural=wood (i.e. that I 
believe meets ‘verifiability’ – i.e. you can pretty well see forest edge/tree 
line in imagery).

=Russ

 

[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability

[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landcover 

 

From: OSM Volunteer stevea [mailto:stevea...@softworkers.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 3:29 PM
To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

 

Mike Thompson writes:

1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the ground 
observation.

 

Granted:  from an on-the-ground observation, a landuse=forest might look very 
much like a natural=wood.  However, if you saw that part of the area had some 
stumps, you could safely conclude it is not natural=wood (unless there was 
"illegal logging” going on, and that DOES happen) but rather that it is 
landuse=forest.  THEN, there is where you know for a fact (from facts not 
on-the-ground, but perhaps from ownership data, signage like “Welcome to Sierra 
National Forest” or other sources) that THIS IS a real, live forest, in the 
sense OSM intends to mean here (landuse=forest implies timber harvesting now or 
at some point in the future).

 

2) While the English word "natural" might suggest this, we use "natural" for 
other things that man has a hand in creating or modifying, e.g. natural=water 
for a man made reservoir.

 

Again, I’ll grant you this, but it only shows that OSM’s tagging is not always 
internally consistent.  I can live with that.  What is required (and “more 
clear" in the case of natural=water) is the understanding that consensus has 
emerged for natural=water:  this gets tagged on bodies of water which are both 
natural and man-made, and that’s OK, and we don’t lose sleep over it or look 
for more consistency.  It’s like an exception to a rule of grammar:  you just 
learn it, and say “shucks” that there are such things as grammatical exceptions.

 

I’m doing my very best to listen, and it seems many others are, too.  Listening 
is the heart of building consensus.  Let us not also become entrenched in minor 
exceptions or established conventions adding further confusion when identifying 
them as such actually can help us achieve more clarity.

 

SteveA

California

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Bradley White]

Just to add my two cents, I do not think that "landuse=forest" should be
tagged with national forest boundaries. That something is within a national
forest boundary does not guarantee that it is a managed forest, or even
that it has tree cover. A 'national forest' is more an administrative
boundary to me than anything - it designates an area with active federal
management and a stricter set of laws involving development, etc. Half of
Reno, NV where I reside is technically inside the Humboldt-Toiyabe National
Forest boundary, including the urban center. There is certainly nothing
that qualifies as a 'forest' here in the traditional sense. Even many
parcels just outside of urbanized areas of Reno that are both within the
national forest boundary and owned by the forest service have no tree cover
whatsoever, and couldn't possibly qualify for any definition of a forest
involving trees.

Personally I think the problem here is a poor definition of
'landuse=forest'. Does this mean land used for timber production? I see a
lot of on-the-ground verifiability issues with that sort of definition.
Should it imply a large, managed area of trees? As explained earlier, there
are many federally owned and managed 'national forest' areas with no tree
cover whatsoever. I would be partial to a definition of 'land owned
directly managed by a forestry service' - forestry land - but then mapping
something like that would require parcel-level imports since not every
piece of land owned by the forest service is clearly marked on the ground.

I personally only use 'natural=wood' anymore, since at the very least it is
easy to verify that trees exist. I don't care much for the 'original
growth' definition of 'natural=tree' either due to verifiability issues.
Much of the Lake Tahoe is second-growth forest, but without a forestry
degree I don't see the average mapper being able to tell where
second-growth starts and stops.
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Mike Thompson writes:
> 1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the ground 
> observation.


Granted:  from an on-the-ground observation, a landuse=forest might look very 
much like a natural=wood.  However, if you saw that part of the area had some 
stumps, you could safely conclude it is not natural=wood (unless there was 
"illegal logging” going on, and that DOES happen) but rather that it is 
landuse=forest.  THEN, there is where you know for a fact (from facts not 
on-the-ground, but perhaps from ownership data, signage like “Welcome to Sierra 
National Forest” or other sources) that THIS IS a real, live forest, in the 
sense OSM intends to mean here (landuse=forest implies timber harvesting now or 
at some point in the future).

> 2) While the English word "natural" might suggest this, we use "natural" for 
> other things that man has a hand in creating or modifying, e.g. natural=water 
> for a man made reservoir.


Again, I’ll grant you this, but it only shows that OSM’s tagging is not always 
internally consistent.  I can live with that.  What is required (and “more 
clear" in the case of natural=water) is the understanding that consensus has 
emerged for natural=water:  this gets tagged on bodies of water which are both 
natural and man-made, and that’s OK, and we don’t lose sleep over it or look 
for more consistency.  It’s like an exception to a rule of grammar:  you just 
learn it, and say “shucks” that there are such things as grammatical exceptions.

I’m doing my very best to listen, and it seems many others are, too.  Listening 
is the heart of building consensus.  Let us not also become entrenched in minor 
exceptions or established conventions adding further confusion when identifying 
them as such actually can help us achieve more clarity.

SteveA
California
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Paul Norman]

On 8/19/2015 2:29 AM, Nathan Mixter wrote:
I would like to see areas in OSM categorized as either land use, land 
cover (which we call natural for the most part in OSM) or 
administrative to clear the confusion. I am also in favor of 
eliminating the landuse=forest tag at least in its current incarnation 
and switching any official forested areas to boundary tags.


I think most of us would agree that having trees across an area with 
few or no trees looks weird. Yes, I know - don't tag for the render, 
blah blah. But it seems like it would make sense if we kept wood and 
forest areas separate. Since natural=wood and landuse=forest virtually 
render the same now, they should be treated differently than they are 
currently.


As this isn't US specific, you should probably raise this on the tagging 
list.


One of the few areas of forest tagging where there is consensus is that 
a US "National Forest" does not get a landuse=forest tag. Fortunately, 
we're getting towards having fixed up many areas in the US where this 
was made. Beyond that, there are many opinions on where to use 
natural=wood and where to use landuse=forest, none of which are 
universal. This is why OpenStreetMap Carto renders natural=wood the same 
as landuse=forest. It's also intentional that trees are present on the 
rendering everywhere that one of these is tagged.


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 1:36 PM, Wolfgang Zenker 
wrote:

> * OSM Volunteer stevea  [160509 20:23]:
> > This might sound glib, but I believe that setting landuse=forest on a
> (multi)polygon which is land use forest is correct. [..]
>
> I guess everyone would agree with that. The problem is that we (as in
> "the mappers of OpenStreetMap") don't agree on what landuse=forest
> actually means. As far as I remember we have one group that thinks
> its an area set aside for growing and harvesting timber, so it can
> be recognized by the presence of (planted) trees or the remains of
> trees that have been recently harvested and will be replaced by newly
> planted trees soon(-ish); and another group defining it as an area
> where timber or small wood can be legally harvested or collected,
> regardless of trees being actually or at least possibly present.
> For forests using the second definition you would have to follow
> official boundaries, which might be difficult to verify on the ground.
>
I think there is a group (with whom I do not agree) that thinks that
anything administered by the US Forest Service or similar agencies in other
governments, should be tagged as landuse=forest. Just because a piece of
land is administered by an agency with "forest" in its name does not mean
that the land in question is used for "forestry" (growing and harvesting of
trees). For example, there are areas administered by the US National Forest
Service where timber harvesting is forbidden, such as in wilderness
areas[1][2].



>
> My personal preference would be to take up mapping areas covered by
> trees as landcover=trees and rendering these areas the way that
> landuse=forest is currently rendered, to map National Forests with
> an administrative boundary and just rendering the boundary line and
> deprecate landuse=forest altogether.
>
+1, although "natural=wood" is well entrenched.

Mike

[1] e.g. http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recarea/?recid=80803
[2] "In general, the law prohibits logging,mining, mechanized vehicles
(including bicycles), road-building, and other forms of development in
wilderness areas, though pre-existing mining claims and grazing ranges are
permitted through grandfather clauses in the Wilderness Act.[9] Wilderness
areas fall into IUCN protected area management category Ia (Strict Nature
Preserves) or Ib (Wilderness areas)." -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Wilderness_Preservation_System
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Wolfgang Zenker]

* OSM Volunteer stevea  [160509 20:23]:
> This might sound glib, but I believe that setting landuse=forest on a 
> (multi)polygon which is land use forest is correct. [..]

I guess everyone would agree with that. The problem is that we (as in
"the mappers of OpenStreetMap") don't agree on what landuse=forest
actually means. As far as I remember we have one group that thinks
its an area set aside for growing and harvesting timber, so it can
be recognized by the presence of (planted) trees or the remains of
trees that have been recently harvested and will be replaced by newly
planted trees soon(-ish); and another group defining it as an area
where timber or small wood can be legally harvested or collected,
regardless of trees being actually or at least possibly present.
For forests using the second definition you would have to follow
official boundaries, which might be difficult to verify on the ground.

My personal preference would be to take up mapping areas covered by
trees as landcover=trees and rendering these areas the way that
landuse=forest is currently rendered, to map National Forests with
an administrative boundary and just rendering the boundary line and
deprecate landuse=forest altogether.

Wolfgang

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Russ, Elliott, Kenny and all:

This might sound glib, but I believe that setting landuse=forest on a 
(multi)polygon which is land use forest is correct.  Yes, I have notice that 
mapnik rendering has changed over the years so that other 2-D objects which 
occupy the same space may yield unexpected results.  I believe this is because 
of the ordering of the rendering of these multiple objects, acting as “layers” 
in the final visual representation.  Whatever changes have been make to mapnik 
in how it orders lands rendering (or, specifically, landuse=forest) seems to be 
the culprit here.  While I might have gotten used to an older rendering, the 
newer rendering is simply a different way of seeing what is hopefully 
accurately tagged areas.

In short, tag correctly.  If the renderer renders in an unpleasing way, see if 
it is because there are multiple objects on top of one another, and examine 
whether that is the right approach — it likely is not, but it may be, too.  
THEN we might discuss if the mapnik renderer has problems. 

SteveA
California


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Hey Elliot and all,

 

Thanks for this notice, I think it is two separate issues. One is the use of 
the landuse=forest tag which has been discussed many times on many lists. The 
other is the rendering, I think this is ‘just’ a rendering issue as you can see 
where ‘meadow/grass/scrub’ coloring is ‘overlaid on-top’ of the forest/green, 
but the tree icon stays.  Of course this can be ‘mitigated’ with relations, but 
that’s part of why I haven’t made progress in ‘my neck of the woods’.  There’s 
actually some great momentum in several directions with our local meetup[1] so 
I might try to bring this up/make an effort to ‘clean-up’ forests here.

 

Cheers,

=Russ

[1] OSM-Colorado: http://www.meetup.com/OSM-Colorado/ 

 

From: Elliott Plack [mailto:elliott.pl...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 11:03 AM
To: stevea; kenn...@acm.org
Cc: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

 

Looping back to this. I was looking at the town of Breckenridge, Colorado, and 
the whole things is covered by trees. On some renders, it is just a big green 
blob over the town. Here it is: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3724941

 

This is not right. "landuse" implies that the *land* has a *use*, which is 
whatever follows the = sign. I am fine if we want to say that landuse = timber 
production (or whatever) in general, but to render the tag landuse=forest with 
little trees or a bold green color does not give the right impression to the 
viewer. I think we should be encouraging users to trace the forests more 
precisely, rather than with big blocks.

 

Also I've noticed these Colorado imports are not being done by a user with an 
_import account, so it makes me wonder if these folks importing forest cover 
are following the import rules. These forests also have a national park tag, 
which they are not.

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Lengthy replies to lengthy post do follow; fair warning.


On 08/19/2015 05:29 AM, Nathan Mixter wrote:
In any discussions about land use and land cover, we should look at 
what organizations have done and how they have mapped ares. For 
instance, in USGS imagery in JOSM you can see how they render 
borders with just a dashed line and let the land cover have various 
shades of color on top of it.


Complex park boundary mapping semiotics are something that I 
identified as needing improvement in OSM as far back as 2009, when 
Nathan and I (along with OSM volunteers Apo42 and DanHomerick) mapped 
many public recreation areas in Northern California (parks, nature 
reserves, commons, state beaches...) finding difficulties with how 
these might be reconciled with landuse tags (forest, wood and 
meadow).  In short, this is not a new problem, and crisp definitions 
(semantics) along with accurate rendering (semiotics) of our tags 
(syntax) are the only combination that will solve these ambiguities. 
The troubles are:  1) getting accurate tagging by everybody 
(difficult when tags have overloaded meanings), 2) achieving 
consensus is difficult and time-consuming and 3) rendering update 
implementations seriously lag 1) and 2) even when they do happen.


(Nathan further quotes USDA, USFS and interagency definitions of 
forest vegetation and landuse/landcover)...


And Kevin Kenny replies:
I hear a lot of argument here, and much of it is philosophizing. Let 
me offer another argument. Deficiencies in the standard rendering 
are leading us to impose constraints that do not exist.


YES!  To a large degree, Kevin reiterates that 3) (above) is a major 
problem:  mapnik/Standard rendering seems to lag, get wrong, and/or 
exacerbate the difficulties we have with landuse and landcover 
issues.  Ditto administrative boundaries, especially for public areas 
of


The very idea that we should have to cut out watercourses and 
highways from a National Forest to show it correctly on a map is 
absurd. If the renderer cannot cope with the idea that the Elm Ridge 
Wild Forest (a protected area - and specifically an area of state 
ownership with public access for recreation and harvesting of fish 
and game) lies partly within and partly outside the Catskill Park (a 
different sort of protected area, not all under state ownership) and 
in turn has several bicycle corridors (an area of less protection) 
overlaid upon it, then it cannot cope with the messy reality that I 
work with locally.


I believe we agree that watercourses and highways which are IN a 
National Forest really are inside the polygon boundary defining it, 
but that we shouldn't necessarily see (rendered) little trees in 
the middle of a lake, or on top of a highway.  These are rendering 
issues, not tagging issues:  nobody should have to cut out of a 
National Forest polygon every single lake within it so that trees 
don't render on it, that is indeed absurd.  Fix the renderer, 
instead.  This largely seems to be issues with mapnik CSS being 
ordered properly, though I likely oversimplify.


Since I render my own maps, let me begin by observing: THE LACK OF 
CONSENSUS ON THESE ISSUES MEANS THAT I DO NOT USE OSM AS A DATA 
SOURCE FOR PROTECTED AREA BOUNDARIES. I go to alternative, mostly 
government, data sources for the boundaries of government and other 
protected lands and use them for map production. I simply cannot 
cope with wholesale retagging of these areas every few months as 
each new tagging scheme comes through. WE NEED TO REACH SOME SORT OF 
STABLE CONSENSUS, at least one that lets us produce medium-scale 
maps suitable for general use without running on a hamster wheel of 
patching renderers to adapt to changing tag schemes.


In a word:  YES!

I've half come around to the position that National Forest 
boundaries don't belong in our database at all. They're often not 
any more observable on the ground than any other property lines - 
and I believe that we reached a consensus that delineating land 
ownership is outside the scope of OSM. (Am I wrong about this?) In 
fact, the reason that I'm able to ignore OSM on the point is that 
most of the data I need is available in authoritative form from the 
agencies that manage the land.


National Forest boundaries belong in our database as much as other 
administrative boundaries belong in our database:  and THEY DO.  Map 
consumers EXPECT to find these in a map.  A map that does not show 
the boundary between California and Nevada, or California and Mexico? 
Absurd!  If small neighborhood boundaries in a large city are shown 
or not shown, I can live with it either way.  If not shown, perhaps 
that city has none, or volunteers haven't yet gotten around to that 
level of detail.  If shown, I do not find these to be map clutter, 
in fact they are useful to me.  I think many others or even most of 
us agree with this sentiment (though that doesn't automatically 
convey consensus on the topic).  That said, we 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Kevin Kenny]

On 08/19/2015 05:29 AM, Nathan Mixter wrote:
In any discussions about land use and land cover, we should look at 
what organizations have done and how they have mapped ares. For 
instance, in USGS imagery in JOSM you can see how they render borders 
with just a dashed line and let the land cover have various shades of 
color on top of it.


The U.S. Forest Service has a distinct classification for mapping 
vegetation within the forest. And the USDA differentiates between use 
of forest land and forest cover 
(http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/glossary.aspx).


Here is how the USGS defines land use and land cover 
(http://www.mrlc.gov/nlcd92_leg.php and in more depth at 
http://landcover.usgs.gov/pdf/anderson.pdf). Not sure how other 
countries map land use and land cover, but this is a sample from what 
the U.S. does.


From 
http://www.ers.usda.gov/about-ers/strengthening-statistics-through-the-interagency-council-on-agricultural-rural-statistics/land-use-and-land-cover-estimates-for-the-united-states.aspx#h
Land use and land cover are often related, but they have different 
meanings. Land use involves an element of human activity and reflects 
human decisions about how land will be used. Land cover refers to the 
vegetative characteristics or manmade constructions on the land’s 
surface.


I hear a lot of argument here, and much of it is philosophizing. Let me 
offer another argument. Deficiencies in the standard rendering are 
leading us to impose constraints that do not exist. The very idea that 
we should have to cut out watercourses and highways from a National 
Forest to show it correctly on a map is absurd. If the renderer cannot 
cope with the idea that the Elm Ridge Wild Forest (a protected area - 
and specifically an area of state ownership with public access for 
recreation and harvesting of fish and game) lies partly within and 
partly outside the Catskill Park (a different sort of protected area, 
not all under state ownership) and in turn has several bicycle corridors 
(an area of less protection) overlaid upon it, then it cannot cope with 
the messy reality that I work with locally.


Since I render my own maps, let me begin by observing: THE LACK OF 
CONSENSUS ON THESE ISSUES MEANS THAT I DO NOT USE OSM AS A DATA SOURCE 
FOR PROTECTED AREA BOUNDARIES. I go to alternative, mostly government, 
data sources for the boundaries of government and other protected lands 
and use them for map production. I simply cannot cope with wholesale 
retagging of these areas every few months as each new tagging scheme 
comes through. WE NEED TO REACH SOME SORT OF STABLE CONSENSUS, at least 
one that lets us produce medium-scale maps suitable for general use 
without running on a hamster wheel of patching renderers to adapt to 
changing tag schemes.


I've half come around to the position that National Forest boundaries 
don't belong in our database at all. They're often not any more 
observable on the ground than any other property lines - and I believe 
that we reached a consensus that delineating land ownership is outside 
the scope of OSM. (Am I wrong about this?) In fact, the reason that I'm 
able to ignore OSM on the point is that most of the data I need is 
available in authoritative form from the agencies that manage the land.


Unfortunately, some of the smaller agencies (mostly county and municipal 
agencies) still haven't moved forward into using GIS, or simply don't 
have the resources to make what GIS data they have available to the 
public, so there's still some amount of measuring on paper maps. I'd 
done a few local nature preserves that way (along with cross checking by 
hiking to corners and collecting GPS waypoints), and it had been 
convenient to use OSM as a store for the data so collected, but I'm 
willing to give that up and go back to holding the data privately and 
rendering them as another layer - doing an export from OSM to my own 
data store. Again, the features are hard to observe in the field. It's 
quite an interesting hunting expedition, trying to find the corners of a 
county nature preserve where the adjoining landowner doesn't trouble to 
post the land. Sometimes it involves trying to locate survey pins with a 
metal detector in dense forest.


Since we don't have a good general policy for OSM maintenance of data 
where the authoritative copy is elsewhere, OSM really simply becomes the 
convenience of one stop shopping. I enjoy having that convenience, and 
so do many other users. But for some of the data, it simply costs too 
much time and effort to negotiate the minefield of tag wars.


And I still claim it's largely because of the renderer.

So now let me move forward to specific rendering suggestions - noting 
that that I'm here as a field mapper (I mostly do hiking trails and 
associated facilities, and for the most part don't armchair-map 
anything), a consumer of OSM data (I produce my own maps for my 
GPS-equipped smartphone, because I find them 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Uncle.  Forests are not to be tagged forests.  Tag as you like, everybody.

We have a lot of work to do in this project.

I'm now leaving for a national forest to recreate.

SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Torsten Karzig]

 OK, so say so where so.  (Tag in OSM accordingly).  If you wish to 
 subtract from the polygon areas which you are absolutely certain no 
 timber production is allowed or possible, go for it.  I won't argue. 
 Your list is a good start.

 Well, perhaps we have a happy compromise here.  Tell you what:  I'll 
 start with the assumption that a forest should be tagged forest. 
 (That's fair, and/or I'm listening to your alternative proposition). 
 WHEN, WHERE and IF you know a particular area to be expressly NOT a 
 forest, you are perfectly welcome to exclude that subset from said 
 polygon.  I'm fine with that.

Wikipedia says National Forest is a classification of federal lands in the 
United States. This doesn't mean that the name National forests implies a 
forest tag (it's just an administrative classification). Further Wikipedia says 
National Forests are largely forest and woodland areas. I guess this is why 
you want to use the landuse=forest tag as a first approximation with the 
intention that mappers will go ahead and modify (exclude subsets) 
appropriately. The problem with this approach is that it makes further editing 
hard and discouraging (exactly the opposite of creating forward momentum). When 
the landuse=forest tag is part of the administrative boundary one needs to 
create complicated mulitpolygones for any further refinement of the map. This 
stops (or at least discourages) me as a contributer from making the map better. 
Moreover the generic landuse=forest tag adds no new information that isn't 
already there with the name National Forest and the administrative boundary. 

It is OK to do first approximations when mapping, but one needs to make sure 
that these will not seriously hinder further refinement. For this reason I am 
against general tagging of vast areas simply because they are largely 
forests. Imagine somebody tagging Finnland (75% forests) as landuse=forest [or 
natural=wood].

In this sense my alternative proposition is remove the generic landuse=forest 
tag and thus encourage OSM contributors to go ahead and build a beautiful map.






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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

On 08/19/2015 07:25 PM, stevea wrote:

 This isn't extreme.  Your backyard activity is consistent with the
 definition of a forest:  a land which is used for the production of

  wood/lumber/timber/firewood/pulp/et cetera.


Frederik, Frederik, Frederik...where do I begin?!

According to our wiki, which I DO follow when there is ambiguity or 
any question about what or whether I should map something, 
landuse=forest is used to mark areas of land managed for forestry. 
As I have said here before (recently), this is EXACTLY, PRECISELY 
what a USFS national forest is.  If we change what tags mean in this 
project, we ought to have a better set of tags to use instead, and we 
are some distance from that.



There is a problem with this definition; it is too broad.


I use the wiki definition I note above.  Consistently.  Even on 
polygons from local zoning/cadastral data marked as Timber 
Production in my county.  Whether there is active felling of trees 
or not.


The heart of the matter here is quite likely that the wiki definition 
for forest is overloaded:  OSM uses at least four different 
interpretations as the wiki outlines.  A solution to this problem 
might start with consensus-based re-definition, followed by 
consistent (worldwide) application of the new method, and rendering 
support to see what we have done.  That's a lot of work we ought to 
get started doing.



Even the
seabed can fulfil some of these uses and we don't want to tag forests in
the sea.


What the heck?  I know of no trees growing on the seabed!  (Although 
if there were an odd tree, say near the shoreline of the sea, I agree 
with a natural=tree node there -- but I don't think I've ever seen 
one).



This definition of a forest is unsuitable for OSM and should
not inform our tagging. (Luckily the Wiki, which is not always reliable
on these issues, says: A forest or woodland is an area covered by
trees., and not: A forest is an area where you could potentially find
something to light a fire with.)


Please don't twist what I say, conflate my meanings or read into what 
I have written, as it appears you have.  What I have done is apply 
the wiki definition (area of land managed for forestry) to USFS 
polygons.  Stick to that and tell me I'm wrong, because I don't 
believe I am by that definition and application.



There is also a problem with your interpretation of this
already-unsuitable definition; you say that if land yields wood for any
reason, it is used in the production of wood. But I see a difference
here between scavenging and agriculture. Just because there's wild
berries somewhere, doesn't make the area an orchard. Just because you
are legally allowed to pick up a branch that has fallen down from a
tree, doesn't make this a lumber production facility.


It's way off the rails confusing scavenging and agriculture (oh, and 
the US Forest Service is actually a unit of the Department of 
Agriculture -- as in, those trees are GROWN to be HARVESTED by US, 
its owners).  I only used wood-gathering as proof that I use these 
lands as forest, ipso facto they should be tagged that way: 
landuse=forest.  Do you have a problem with that?  Let's stick to 
that, rather than seabeds and wild berries.



Your definition is unsuitable, and your interpretation of your
unsuitable definition is extreme, and it seems like you're fighting
political battles/squabbles on the back of OSM. Whether something is a
park or a national reserve should not be subject to your personal
interpretation of your country's constitution.


Hey, the politics of this is real:  I am the owner of these lands 
(along with hundreds of millions of others), and I take offense that 
you call this political like I have a squabble to pick on the back 
of OSM.  I don't:  I tag OSM with the reality of these public lands 
as they are defined in our wiki.  If you have a problem with that, 
perhaps you might update the wiki (but please, let's achieve 
consensus first).


Your definition is unsuitable and your interpretation of your 
unsuitable definition is extreme...  Wow, Frederik, those are pretty 
harsh words to a passionate volunteer like me (a top 50 US 
contributor), a speaker at our national conferences, present and 
active for most of the history of this project, responsible for over 
10,000 quality edits and somebody who is honestly and truly dedicated 
to doing the right thing.  Are you looking to alienate me from this 
project?  Because words like yours above go a long way towards doing 
exactly that.  Do you mean to do so?



To me, a lot of your bordering-on-political-rant argument reads like
what we get in other areas of the world where people fight over control
of areas; and we tell them: We map the reality on the ground, not some
wishful thinking. You might see yourself as the (co)-owner of everything
controlled by the US government but if they decide to put up a law, a
fence, or a guard keeping you from enjoying what is yours then please
take it up with 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 08/19/2015 07:25 PM, stevea wrote:
 This isn't extreme.  Your backyard activity is consistent with the
 definition of a forest:  a land which is used for the production of
 wood/lumber/timber/firewood/pulp/et cetera.

There is a problem with this definition; it is too broad. Even the
seabed can fulfil some of these uses and we don't want to tag forests in
the sea. This definition of a forest is unsuitable for OSM and should
not inform our tagging. (Luckily the Wiki, which is not always reliable
on these issues, says: A forest or woodland is an area covered by
trees., and not: A forest is an area where you could potentially find
something to light a fire with.)

There is also a problem with your interpretation of this
already-unsuitable definition; you say that if land yields wood for any
reason, it is used in the production of wood. But I see a difference
here between scavenging and agriculture. Just because there's wild
berries somewhere, doesn't make the area an orchard. Just because you
are legally allowed to pick up a branch that has fallen down from a
tree, doesn't make this a lumber production facility.

Your definition is unsuitable, and your interpretation of your
unsuitable definition is extreme, and it seems like you're fighting
political battles/squabbles on the back of OSM. Whether something is a
park or a national reserve should not be subject to your personal
interpretation of your country's constitution.

To me, a lot of your bordering-on-political-rant argument reads like
what we get in other areas of the world where people fight over control
of areas; and we tell them: We map the reality on the ground, not some
wishful thinking. You might see yourself as the (co)-owner of everything
controlled by the US government but if they decide to put up a law, a
fence, or a guard keeping you from enjoying what is yours then please
take it up with them and don't use OSM to map what you would like
reality to be.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09 E008°23'33

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

John Firebaugh writes:
The political boundaries of US National Forests should not be tagged 
landuse=forest unless the entirety of their area is land primarily 
managed for timber production. I venture to assert that this is not 
true for *any* of the National Forests. Here are some examples of 
areas within National Forests that are not primarily managed for 
timber production.


OK, so say so where so.  (Tag in OSM accordingly).  If you wish to 
subtract from the polygon areas which you are absolutely certain no 
timber production is allowed or possible, go for it.  I won't argue. 
Your list is a good start.


Venturing to assert is a good intention, but unfortunately it 
doesn't quite rise high enough to merit authoritative tagging in OSM. 
You might say something similar to me:  Steve, tagging an entire 
USFS as landuse=forest means you KNOW the entirety of the forest to 
be a forest.  Well, I could be wrong in tagging the entirety of the 
forest as forest, but tagging a (whole) forest as forest is not the 
worst place to begin.  Really, that's where we are:  more-or-less at 
the beginning of tagging USFS polygons (with this discussion).  Let's 
get better at it.  That's the whole point of this discussion.  (I 
certainly recognize that).


Clicking on Firewood  Other Products on http://www.fs.fed.us 
yields this quotable quote:
Collecting firewood or other products for personal use is available 
on many National Forests


So, for any given USFS, one might assume yes, one might assume no. 
It is possibly true that tagging the ENTIRE polygon as landuse=forest 
is too much if such firewood collection is only allowed on subsets 
of it.  Well, let's identify the subsets and tag those!  It is also 
possibly true that the entire polygon allows the collection of downed 
wood.  If so, keep the entire polygon tagged landuse=forest.  Or be 
prepared to argue the point (with me, and others) why not. 
Sub-areas?  Identify them!


Even if you happen to believe that personal wood-gathering for 
building a fire constitutes timber production


You know what?  It does.  Call it patently ridiculous if you want 
to be ridiculed by me, but that timber didn't appear like manna from 
heaven, it was produced by a forest.  I mean, really, how can you say 
otherwise?!


there are many areas within National Forests where it's impossible 
to do so. We should be tagging the areas within them, where timber 
production is happening or at least possible, as landuse=forest, not 
the entire political boundary.


Well, perhaps we have a happy compromise here.  Tell you what:  I'll 
start with the assumption that a forest should be tagged forest. 
(That's fair, and/or I'm listening to your alternative proposition). 
WHEN, WHERE and IF you know a particular area to be expressly NOT a 
forest, you are perfectly welcome to exclude that subset from said 
polygon.  I'm fine with that.


See, everybody:  this isn't easy or glib.  Let's not pretend it is 
and try to dismiss others with differing views using ham-handed 
tactics and harsh words.  I'm trying to be polite, upstanding, 
listening and open-hearted.  All of us trying to move forward on this 
topic should strive to do so, too.


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[John Firebaugh]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 10:22 PM, stevea stevea...@softworkers.com wrote:

 John Firebaugh writes:

 The political boundaries of US National Forests should not be tagged
 landuse=forest unless the entirety of their area is land primarily managed
 for timber production. I venture to assert that this is not true for *any*
 of the National Forests. Here are some examples of areas within National
 Forests that are not primarily managed for timber production.


 OK, so say so where so.  (Tag in OSM accordingly).  If you wish to
 subtract from the polygon areas which you are absolutely certain no
 timber production is allowed or possible, go for it.


It wouldn't be correct to exclude areas where no timber production is
allowed or possible from the multipolygon indicating the political
boundaries of a National Forest. That would mark such areas as not included
inside the boundaries, when in fact they are included. There should be (at
least) two separate entities in the database.
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[John Firebaugh]

The political boundaries of US National Forests should not be tagged
landuse=forest unless the entirety of their area is land primarily managed
for timber production. I venture to assert that this is not true for *any*
of the National Forests. Here are some examples of areas within National
Forests that are not primarily managed for timber production.


http://julialanning.com/files/2011/09/A-Plains-Rainier-RSZ.jpg

This is a pumice field in the Plains of Abraham near Mt. St. Helens. It's
not producing timber, and is not being managed to so as to do so any time
soon. Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument lies within Gifford
Pinchot National Forest.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/6507-ShastaLakeFull.jpg

Shasta Lake, part of Shasta-Trinity National Forest, is the largest
man-made lake in California -- 4,552,000 acre·ft at full pool, though
significantly diminished as a result of the drought. None of the lake area
is being primarily or even partially managed for timber production.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Mendenhall_Glacier_%28Winter%29.jpg

It won't be possible to produce timber in the area currently covered by the
Mendenhall Glacier, in Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, a unit of the
Tongass National Forest, until global warming significantly advances its
melting. It may be sooner than we think, but not today!


http://timberlinetrails.net/sitebuilder/Photos/Whitney/EastFaceRoute.jpg

The East Face of Mt Whitney, in Inyo National Forest, features one of the
world's classic rock climbs. The route lies entirely above 13,000 feet, and
climbers on it will be hard pressed to find any substantial vegetation at
all, let alone anything that could be used to produce timber  -- or even
firewood.


Even if you happen to believe that personal wood-gathering for building a
fire constitutes timber production -- and I, like Frederik, think that
this definition is patently ridiculous -- there are many areas within
National Forests where it's impossible to do so. We should be tagging the
areas within them, where timber production is happening or at least
possible, as landuse=forest, not the entire political boundary.

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 9:57 AM, stevea stevea...@softworkers.com wrote:

 On 08/19/2015 07:25 PM, stevea wrote:

  This isn't extreme.  Your backyard activity is consistent with the
  definition of a forest:  a land which is used for the production of

   wood/lumber/timber/firewood/pulp/et cetera.


 Frederik, Frederik, Frederik...where do I begin?!

 According to our wiki, which I DO follow when there is ambiguity or any
 question about what or whether I should map something, landuse=forest is
 used to mark areas of land managed for forestry. As I have said here
 before (recently), this is EXACTLY, PRECISELY what a USFS national forest
 is.  If we change what tags mean in this project, we ought to have a better
 set of tags to use instead, and we are some distance from that.

 There is a problem with this definition; it is too broad.


 I use the wiki definition I note above.  Consistently.  Even on polygons
 from local zoning/cadastral data marked as Timber Production in my
 county.  Whether there is active felling of trees or not.

 The heart of the matter here is quite likely that the wiki definition for
 forest is overloaded:  OSM uses at least four different interpretations as
 the wiki outlines.  A solution to this problem might start with
 consensus-based re-definition, followed by consistent (worldwide)
 application of the new method, and rendering support to see what we have
 done.  That's a lot of work we ought to get started doing.

 Even the
 seabed can fulfil some of these uses and we don't want to tag forests in
 the sea.


 What the heck?  I know of no trees growing on the seabed!  (Although if
 there were an odd tree, say near the shoreline of the sea, I agree with a
 natural=tree node there -- but I don't think I've ever seen one).

 This definition of a forest is unsuitable for OSM and should
 not inform our tagging. (Luckily the Wiki, which is not always reliable
 on these issues, says: A forest or woodland is an area covered by
 trees., and not: A forest is an area where you could potentially find
 something to light a fire with.)


 Please don't twist what I say, conflate my meanings or read into what I
 have written, as it appears you have.  What I have done is apply the wiki
 definition (area of land managed for forestry) to USFS polygons.  Stick
 to that and tell me I'm wrong, because I don't believe I am by that
 definition and application.

 There is also a problem with your interpretation of this
 already-unsuitable definition; you say that if land yields wood for any
 reason, it is used in the production of wood. But I see a difference
 here between scavenging and agriculture. Just because there's wild
 berries somewhere, doesn't make the area an orchard. Just because you
 are legally allowed to pick up a branch that 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

-Original Message-
From: stevea [mailto:stevea...@softworkers.com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 11:22 PM
To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Cc: John Firebaugh
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

Well, perhaps we have a happy compromise here.  Tell you what:  I'll 
start with the assumption that a forest should be tagged forest. 
(That's fair, and/or I'm listening to your alternative proposition). 
WHEN, WHERE and IF you know a particular area to be expressly NOT a 
forest, you are perfectly welcome to exclude that subset from said 
polygon.  I'm fine with that.

SteveA
California


Hello,

I have another suggestion, how about we do not assume. We seem to be in 
agreement (vast majority) about boundary=protected_area being the only tag that 
should for sure be applied to every National Forest. Please don't tag Pike 
National Forest with landuse=forest because some subsets have already been 
tagged (where you can see timber harvesting 'scars' in the imagery) and I have 
ground verified - by seeing signs (sorry don't have a picture) - but 
(paraphrased) they say fuel wood gathering by permit only and if you'd like 
you can contact the districts for the designated areas where it is allowed but 
shouldn't be mapped the other way around because it is a very small subset of 
Pike.

Cheers,
=Russ


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Torsten Karzig]

On 08/19/2015 11:30 AM, talk-us-requ...@openstreetmap.org wrote:
 Me collecting firewood makes this a forest producing timber.  Full stop.

If I go to the wiki page on landuse I find for landuse=forest For areas with a 
high density of trees primarily grown for timber. This is also what most 
people will associate with an area used for timber production. In the end our 
disagreement here is on a question of scale. For you any small and even private 
usage (e.g. collecting firewood) is timber production. For me I would only call 
it timber production if it is the primary (usually industrial) use of an area 
which includes cutting down trees. I am simply against tagging large areas of 
land based on a technicality that is not important for most people. I would 
rather do it the other way around compared to your proposal. Remove the default 
landuse=forest and only add it for areas where timber production is the primary 
use. Since this is to some degree a question of taste the best would probably 
be to get a majority vote ...

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Jeffrey Ollie]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:16 PM, stevea stevea...@softworkers.com wrote:


 Me collecting firewood makes this a forest producing timber.  Full stop.


So my backyard is a forest now?  My backyard has trees, and I collect all
of the downed branches and use them when I build fires in my fire pit.  I
really don't see how it's useful to take the definition of a forest to
such an extreme.

-- 
Jeff Ollie
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Jeffrey Ollie replies:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:16 PM, stevea 
mailto:stevea...@softworkers.comstevea...@softworkers.com wrote:

Me collecting firewood makes this a forest producing timber.  Full stop.

So my backyard is a forest now?  My backyard has trees, and I 
collect all of the downed branches and use them when I build fires 
in my fire pit.  I really don't see how it's useful to take the 
definition of a forest to such an extreme.


This isn't extreme.  Your backyard activity is consistent with the 
definition of a forest:  a land which is used for the production of 
wood/lumber/timber/firewood/pulp/et cetera.  Even if this is just you 
or me picking up twigs and branches for a modest fire, whether your 
backyard (which IS your backyard, you are USING it as a forest if you 
do so) or our National Forests.


Anybody who wonders why I act like such a stickler about this hews to 
the maxim of nobody likes it when someone takes something away from 
you (especially when, as usual, they have no right to do so).  So, a 
brief story:


Recently, an OSM volunteer in Washington state changed many 
California State Parks from leisure=park to leisure=nature_reserve. 
As the latter is a much higher classification (more protection, 
usually less public access or usage), this felt like a distinct 
taking (in the US Constitution 5th Amendment sense of the word): 
even if it's just OSM tagging, somebody was taking away my 
enjoyment to recreate in my park by tagging it something more 
restrictive.  For a short time, we agreed to disagree, but eventually 
he relented and either changed these tags back to park or he let me 
do this, and he stopped further making such changes.


While not exactly the same with landuse=forest being deprecated on 
USFS polygons, the analogy holds:  taking away designation of this 
polygon as having a land use of forest feels like somebody is saying 
you can't collect firewood here any longer.  Except, I CAN collect 
firewood in National Forests (unless otherwise prohibited, something 
I fail to see anybody bolster with any evidence to the contrary). 
While minor, and I agree, seeming like a small technicality, this 
feels like a taking (away from me, and all owners/users of our 
National Forests) and hence, I've legitimately got something to say 
about it.


Again, I agree that it is fully correct going forward to use 
boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6 on these -- except that 
schema doesn't render in mapnik/Standard.  (IT SURE WOULD BE NICE IF 
IT DID SOON!)


Then, there is the very large issue of landcover=* as a tag, and IT, 
TOO, is not rendered in mapnik/Standard.


We press ahead on these topics, though I still see only minor 
progress.  And even a bit of drubbing (in the guise of let's take 
a majority vote).


Can we at least have the magical/silent/invisible process of updates 
to mapnik rendering chime in and say yes, talk-us, it would be good 
if mapnik began to implement rendering of boundary=protect_class and 
landcover=*?  Oh, those are not-especially-well-defined tags, hm, 
that could prevent good rendering, as the rules aren't fully 
established, so how can we write a renderer that implements them? 
Well, everybody, let's roll up our sleeves and do these.  Otherwise, 
we will keep having the landuse=forest-on-USFS-polygons discussion 
over and over again forever.  Or, I am all ears to listen to other 
proposals that will allow distinct forward momentum.


SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Nathan Mixter]

I would like to see areas in OSM categorized as either land use, land cover
(which we call natural for the most part in OSM) or administrative to clear
the confusion. I am also in favor of eliminating the landuse=forest tag at
least in its current incarnation and switching any official forested areas
to boundary tags.

I think most of us would agree that having trees across an area with few or
no trees looks weird. Yes, I know - don't tag for the render, blah blah.
But it seems like it would make sense if we kept wood and forest areas
separate. Since natural=wood and landuse=forest virtually render the same
now, they should be treated differently than they are currently.

Before, portions of southern California, Arizona and Utah were lit up with
their landuse=forest tags everywhere looking like massive Christmas tree
farms the way they rendered. Now that wood and forest look similar, there
is a smoother flow between the two but still much cleanup to do.

I'd like to see most administrative boundaries be tagged with just a
thicker or dashed border. Even most non city parks should not be green but
should just have the same boundary=protected_area type border. An admin
boundary should always be the base. The color in the map should come from
the land cover in rural areas and the landuse in urban areas. This means
that a national forest shouldn't have the landuse tag. We need to make it
harder for people to accidentally edit an official border rather than
easier.

If an admin area has a landuse tag attached to it, then people who try to
expand and modify it to include a surrounding forest or treed area will get
confused and accidentally move the admin area by mistake. The two areas
need to be separate otherwise people have to try to connect land cover
areas to admin areas in order to map land areas.

In any discussions about land use and land cover, we should look at what
organizations have done and how they have mapped ares. For instance, in
USGS imagery in JOSM you can see how they render borders with just a dashed
line and let the land cover have various shades of color on top of it.

The U.S. Forest Service has a distinct classification for mapping
vegetation within the forest. And the USDA differentiates between use of
forest land and forest cover (
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/glossary.aspx).

Here is how the USGS defines land use and land cover (
http://www.mrlc.gov/nlcd92_leg.php and in more depth at
http://landcover.usgs.gov/pdf/anderson.pdf). Not sure how other countries
map land use and land cover, but this is a sample from what the U.S. does.

From
http://www.ers.usda.gov/about-ers/strengthening-statistics-through-the-interagency-council-on-agricultural-rural-statistics/land-use-and-land-cover-estimates-for-the-united-states.aspx#h
Land use and land cover are often related, but they have different
meanings. Land use involves an element of human activity and reflects human
decisions about how land will be used. Land cover refers to the vegetative
characteristics or manmade constructions on the land’s surface.

The site also has a good break down of how different organizations view
land use and land cover. It is interesting to note how organizations view a
forest. Most of the agencies listed view it as an area with trees. Forest
land is broken up into deciduous and evergreen, something we might be able
to incorporate into the OSM rendering eventually.

I would love to see OSM reach a consensus on this long standing issue and
be able to move forward and even expand the land cover definitions further
to incorporate more features and make them easier to map.

Thanks for reading, Nathan
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Brian May]

On 8/18/2015 10:01 AM, Torsten Karzig wrote:

As mentioned earlier part of the problem is a confusion between tagging what is 
there (landcover) and what it is used for (landuse). In the wiki we actually 
have a consistent approach (Approach 1) to make this distinction. Using 
natural=wood as a landcover tag and landuse=forest for areas of land managed 
for forestry. On top of this we of cause still have administrative boundaries.

For me applying this to National Forests would mean:

Using administrative boundaries to mark the entire National Forest. Remove the landuse=forest tag 
except for regions that are clearly used for forestry. This does not apply to most parts of the 
National forests in Southern California that I have seen. Although these areas are managed in the 
sense that someone administrates it (hence the administrative boundary) most parts of these National Forest 
are largely left alone and the possibility to collect deadwood does in my opinion not qualify as forestry. 
Finally, any larger regions that are covered with trees should be tagged as natural=wood. Other landcovers 
(scrub,water) can also be tagged as appropriate.

The great advantage of the above tagging scheme is in my opinion that it is 
very easy to follow for the mapper on the ground. Knowing whether I am allowed 
to collect deadwood or not in a particular area is not easy to verify on the 
ground, and, in my opinion, not as important as defining landcovers or obvious 
landuses. Moreover, it is very confusing for someone that uses the map if there 
is a large green region marked as landuse=forest and on the ground there is no 
forestry, or obvious management, or trees.

Torsten


Been following the thread and want to say Torsten sums up the issue very well. 
Its an issue of administrative boundary + landcover + land use. And its going 
to get complicated to properly model land use and landcover. Relations using 
multi-polygons may be needed.

Also I think its been mentioned the boundary should be tagged as boundary=protected_area 
which handles the overall mission of national forests is to conserve our forests. 
However, the issue comes up that there are different levels of conservation ranging from 
untouched wilderness to actively managed areas, e.g. sustainable forestry, so 
a blanket boundary=protected_area may not be appropriate. Is there another tag that 
covers a more mixed bag? Is a new tag needed?

Brian



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Brian May b...@mapwise.com wrote:


 Also I think its been mentioned the boundary should be tagged as
 boundary=protected_area which handles the overall mission of national
 forests is to conserve our forests. However, the issue comes up that there
 are different levels of conservation ranging from untouched wilderness to
 actively managed areas, e.g. sustainable forestry, so a blanket
 boundary=protected_area may not be appropriate. Is there another tag that
 covers a more mixed bag? Is a new tag needed?

As you point out, the level of protection varies. For example the Indian
Peaks Wilderness Area overlaps with the Roosevelt National Forest [1].
Wilderness Areas are IUCN 1b category protected areas [2] while US National
Forests as a whole are IUCN VI protected areas [2][3]. In addition,
regulations, and thus levels of protection, vary from place to place within
National Forests that are not part of Wilderness Areas.   For example
target shooting is prohibited in a number of areas within the Roosevelt
National Forest, but is allowed in other areas.[4] National Forests are an
administrative area only.  They are protected, but the protection level
varies. Tagging National Forests as protected areas is acceptable as I said
before (but not ideal as I think more about it) in my opinion because an
authoritative source, the US Government, says National Forests are
categorized as IUCN Category VI protected areas [3]. If we tag them as
protected areas, we will have overlapping protected areas (e.g. National
Forests and Wilderness Areas) and data consumers will have to select the
highest level of protection. Ideally there would be an administrative
boundary tag that could be used for National Forests and protected areas
would be tagged separately.

Not to complicate matters, but this same issue of administration vs
protected areas applies to US (and perhaps other) National Parks.  For
example, there are Wilderness areas within National Parks[5], as well as
Research National Areas [6] which I believe are IUCN 1a protected areas.

Mike

[1] http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recarea/?recid=80803
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_protected_area_categories
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Forest
[4] http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/recreation/?cid=STELPRD3836311
[5] http://www.wilderness.net/NationalParkService
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Natural_Area
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Tod Fitch writes:
We are using British English here and timber appears to mean 
production of wood for building. See, for example, 
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/timber


You may define casual wood gathering of firewood a timber operation 
but I am pretty sure the forest service and others do not even in 
the US with a slightly different concept of the word.


Nope.  I collect wood in Los Padres National Forest (LPNF) and build 
campfires with it.  Ergo, this is a forest.  It is my forest, and I 
am using it as a forest by collecting wood.  I WANT to see this on 
OSM with the tag landuse=forest because it is correct.


I wouldn't be too surprised if you could call someone at the Region 
5 offices and get a list of the forests in California and Hawaii 
that currently have timber operations permitted. It would greatly 
surprise me if any forest in Region 5 is being totally or even 
largely managed for timber production.


OK, be surprised.  But _I_ myself, personally, recently, collect 
firewood at LPNF.  Visit Bottcher's Gap Recreation Site off of Palo 
Colorado Road (Monterey County, California, Region 5 USFS, LPNF) and 
see if Larry (he also goes by Lorenzo, as he and I are bilingual in 
Spanish together) tells you otherwise.  He will not:  he will tell 
you that you are welcome to collect downed wood.  Why?  BECAUSE THE 
LANDUSE HERE IS A FOREST.


In your back yard, at least some districts in the Los Padres 
National Forest allows wood cutting (dead and down, with permits, 
usually in the fall) and Christmas tree cutting (with permit, marked 
trees only). And they will thin small trees out areas for fire 
safety. But at least in the Mt. Pinos Ranger District there is no 
timber production now nor since, I believe, the early 1950s. The 
only large stands of commercial grade trees in the Los Padres are in 
the Mt. Pinos District and most of the high country where such trees 
are likely to grow are designated wilderness areas. So I am very 
sure that there is no trees grown for use in building or carpentry 
(i.e. timber operations, which in OSMese is landuse=forestry) in the 
Los Padres.


Then tag it so EXACTLY where you know this to be true.  Where LPNF is 
designated Wilderness (I have carefully tagged Ventana Wilderness and 
Silver Peak Wilderness and all of the other half-dozen or so 
Wildernesses in LPNF exactly as such) then I don't collect firewood.


Me collecting firewood makes this a forest producing timber.  Full stop.

Disclosure: I have performed volunteer work for the Mt. Pinos Ranger 
District in the Los Padres for quite some time and while I most of 
my contacts are with recreation and fire staff I have had a number 
of discussions with people in resource management.


This doesn't seem to be of the nature of disclosure, but thank you 
for sharing these experiences of yours.


SteveA
California
Owner, National Forests of the USDA (along with hundreds of millions 
of other People)


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Tod Fitch]

 On Aug 18, 2015, at 4:17 PM, stevea stevea...@softworkers.com wrote:
 
 Torsten Karzig wrote:
 
 Remove the landuse=forest tag except for regions that are clearly used for 
 forestry.
 
 Now, slow down here.  It has been (and is, I argue) quite reasonable to tag 
 National Forests landuse=forest, EXCEPT where it is SPECIFICALLY known that 
 absolutely NO timber production is occurring anywhere within the polygon.  It 
 is a tall order to know this to be true, and I again argue that even an 
 administrative boundary called a forest SHOULD sensibly start with a tagging 
 of landuse=forest, UNLESS you KNOW either the whole area or specific 
 sub-areas to NOT allow timber production under any circumstances (and then it 
 is OK to remove the landuse=forest tag).  Where are those specific sub-areas? 
 Well, find out and map them.  Otherwise, leave alone the landuse=forest tag.
 
 And listen up:  me collecting downed wood for a camp fire is darn-tootin' 
 timber production, as this is my/our forest, and I use it as such.  So don't 
 take away from me/us (or the map) a landuse=forest tag when I (or another 
 owner) can do this, as it is flat out incorrect to remove landuse=forest when 
 it is being used as a forest.  Even one person collecting firewood makes this 
 so.  Don't like this?  Please defend your argument.  Our forests are forests, 
 because we use the land this way.

We are using British English here and timber appears to mean production of wood 
for building. See, for example, 
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/timber

You may define casual wood gathering of firewood a timber operation but I am 
pretty sure the forest service and others do not even in the US with a slightly 
different concept of the word.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if you could call someone at the Region 5 offices 
and get a list of the forests in California and Hawaii that currently have 
timber operations permitted. It would greatly surprise me if any forest in 
Region 5 is being totally or even largely managed for timber production.

In your back yard, at least some districts in the Los Padres National Forest 
allows wood cutting (dead and down, with permits, usually in the fall) and 
Christmas tree cutting (with permit, marked trees only). And they will thin 
small trees out areas for fire safety. But at least in the Mt. Pinos Ranger 
District there is no timber production now nor since, I believe, the early 
1950s. The only large stands of commercial grade trees in the Los Padres are in 
the Mt. Pinos District and most of the high country where such trees are likely 
to grow are designated wilderness areas. So I am very sure that there is no 
“trees grown for use in building or carpentry” (i.e. timber operations, which 
in OSMese is landuse=forestry) in the Los Padres.

Disclosure: I have performed volunteer work for the Mt. Pinos Ranger District 
in the Los Padres for quite some time and while I most of my contacts are with 
recreation and fire staff I have had a number of discussions with people in 
resource management.

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Torsten Karzig wrote:
As mentioned earlier part of the problem is a confusion between 
tagging what is there (landcover) and what it is used for 
(landuse). In the wiki we actually have a consistent approach 
(Approach 1) to make this distinction. Using natural=wood as a 
landcover tag and landuse=forest for areas of land managed for 
forestry. On top of this we of cause [sic] (course) still have 
administrative boundaries.


For me applying this to National Forests would mean:

Using administrative boundaries to mark the entire National Forest.


I agree with this approach and have said and done so many times: 
boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6 are appropriate tags on 
USFS (National Forest) polygons.  However, as mentioned, there are 
other appropriate tags in this schema which might ALSO be 
appropriate, too.  For example, many National Forests have included 
within them designated Wilderness area, then boundary=protected_area 
and protect_class=1b are appropriate.  While it may be true that in 
some places 6 and 1b overlap, where that is true it should be 
corrected to be one or the other (6 OR 1b OR whatever protect_class 
is appropriate).


Remove the landuse=forest tag except for regions that are clearly 
used for forestry.


Now, slow down here.  It has been (and is, I argue) quite reasonable 
to tag National Forests landuse=forest, EXCEPT where it is 
SPECIFICALLY known that absolutely NO timber production is occurring 
anywhere within the polygon.  It is a tall order to know this to be 
true, and I again argue that even an administrative boundary called a 
forest SHOULD sensibly start with a tagging of landuse=forest, UNLESS 
you KNOW either the whole area or specific sub-areas to NOT allow 
timber production under any circumstances (and then it is OK to 
remove the landuse=forest tag).  Where are those specific sub-areas? 
Well, find out and map them.  Otherwise, leave alone the 
landuse=forest tag.


And listen up:  me collecting downed wood for a camp fire is 
darn-tootin' timber production, as this is my/our forest, and I use 
it as such.  So don't take away from me/us (or the map) a 
landuse=forest tag when I (or another owner) can do this, as it is 
flat out incorrect to remove landuse=forest when it is being used as 
a forest.  Even one person collecting firewood makes this so.  Don't 
like this?  Please defend your argument.  Our forests are forests, 
because we use the land this way.


This does not apply to most parts of the National forests in 
Southern California that I have seen. Although these areas are 
managed in the sense that someone administrates it (hence the 
administrative boundary) most parts of these National Forest are 
largely left alone and the possibility to collect deadwood does in 
my opinion not qualify as forestry.


I wholeheartedly disagree:  this needs to be bolstered with more 
authority than simply this.  (What you have seen and in your 
opinion).


Finally, any larger regions that are covered with trees should be 
tagged as natural=wood. Other landcovers (scrub,water) can also be 
tagged as appropriate.


M, be careful:  the natural=wood tag is for what are essentially 
primeval trees, never logged or only having been timber production 
long, long, long ago.  I think you are wishing this tag to be used to 
denote what is better stated using a landcover=* tag, something that 
remains still fuzzily-defined.  Please don't conflate natural=wood 
with what is better stated using a landcover=* tag.  This is subtle, 
but we need to establish a correct/best way to do this.


The great advantage of the above tagging scheme is in my opinion 
that it is very easy to follow for the mapper on the ground. 
Knowing whether I am allowed to collect deadwood or not in a 
particular area is not easy to verify on the ground, and, in my 
opinion, not as important as defining landcovers or obvious 
landuses.


Here, we disagree on numerous points:  the mapper on the ground 
cannot tell that collection of downed wood to make a campfire is or 
is not allowed, yet it may or may not be.  So, get that point right 
(with landuse=forest if so), as it is an important one.  It IS 
important to many users of the map, this one, Charlotte and others 
here have said so.  You want to define landcovers?  Fine, define 
them.  Leave the landuse=forest tag alone where it is true and you 
cannot verify otherwise.  If you can verify otherwise, do so with 
exact polygons with appropriate tags.


Moreover, it is very confusing for someone that uses the map if 
there is a large green region marked as landuse=forest and on the 
ground there is no forestry, or obvious management, or trees.


No, it is not confusing to me.  There are large segments of National 
Forest so tagged in Nevada, for example, which (by my personal 
experience) have no trees, but have deadwood (tumbleweeds and other 
downed wood blown by the wind...) available for me to make a 
campfire.  BECAUSE this is a National 

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Paul Norman]

On 8/18/2015 1:58 PM, Ben Discoe wrote:

As someone who has worked on protected areas in OSM globally, it has
always been obvious that the landuse tags and the boundary tags
serve clear and different purposes.
US National Forests are boundaries around land which contain many
uses(*), and landuse=forest is only one of the uses.
If i find that any area is marked as landuse=forest when it does not
actually contain all forest, i fix it, re-mapping the areas which
actually contain forest as landuse=forest (or natural=wood, as
appropriate).
Often, this is very labor-intensive.  I have done this across many
national parks globally, e.g. Ethiopia, Panama and India.


Yes, I've been slowly doing doing this in Washington, creating new 
polygons. I should probably be less of a perfectionist about the exact 
forest edges, as there's no existing data, it's a remote area, there's 
few other features around, and there's a lot to do.


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Eric Ladner]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:02 AM Torsten Karzig torsten.kar...@web.de
wrote:

 As mentioned earlier part of the problem is a confusion between tagging
 what is there (landcover) and what it is used for (landuse). In the wiki we
 actually have a consistent approach (Approach 1) to make this distinction.
 Using natural=wood as a landcover tag and landuse=forest for areas of land
 managed for forestry. On top of this we of cause still have administrative
 boundaries.

 For me applying this to National Forests would mean:

 Using administrative boundaries to mark the entire National Forest.
 Remove the landuse=forest tag except for regions that are clearly used for
 forestry. This does not apply to most parts of the National forests in
 Southern California that I have seen. Although these areas are managed in
 the sense that someone administrates it (hence the administrative boundary)
 most parts of these National Forest are largely left alone and the
 possibility to collect deadwood does in my opinion not qualify as forestry.
 Finally, any larger regions that are covered with trees should be tagged as
 natural=wood. Other landcovers (scrub,water) can also be tagged as
 appropriate.

 The great advantage of the above tagging scheme is in my opinion that it
 is very easy to follow for the mapper on the ground. Knowing whether I am
 allowed to collect deadwood or not in a particular area is not easy to
 verify on the ground, and, in my opinion, not as important as defining
 landcovers or obvious landuses. Moreover, it is very confusing for someone
 that uses the map if there is a large green region marked as landuse=forest
 and on the ground there is no forestry, or obvious management, or trees.

 Torsten


Agree..

Not every square inch of a National Forest has (or will have) trees on it.
There are grasslands, mountains, lakes.

Plus, the stated goal of the USFS isn't solely to grow trees in a national
forest. Land management of these areas focuses on conservation, timber
harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, and
recreation.  So it's not all about the forest.
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Torsten Karzig]

As mentioned earlier part of the problem is a confusion between tagging what is 
there (landcover) and what it is used for (landuse). In the wiki we actually 
have a consistent approach (Approach 1) to make this distinction. Using 
natural=wood as a landcover tag and landuse=forest for areas of land managed 
for forestry. On top of this we of cause still have administrative boundaries.

For me applying this to National Forests would mean:

Using administrative boundaries to mark the entire National Forest. Remove 
the landuse=forest tag except for regions that are clearly used for forestry. 
This does not apply to most parts of the National forests in Southern 
California that I have seen. Although these areas are managed in the sense 
that someone administrates it (hence the administrative boundary) most parts of 
these National Forest are largely left alone and the possibility to collect 
deadwood does in my opinion not qualify as forestry. Finally, any larger 
regions that are covered with trees should be tagged as natural=wood. Other 
landcovers (scrub,water) can also be tagged as appropriate.

The great advantage of the above tagging scheme is in my opinion that it is 
very easy to follow for the mapper on the ground. Knowing whether I am allowed 
to collect deadwood or not in a particular area is not easy to verify on the 
ground, and, in my opinion, not as important as defining landcovers or obvious 
landuses. Moreover, it is very confusing for someone that uses the map if there 
is a large green region marked as landuse=forest and on the ground there is no 
forestry, or obvious management, or trees.

Torsten

   


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Eric Ladner]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 6:18 PM Mike Thompson miketh...@gmail.com wrote:

 The common meaning of forest is a large tract of land covered with
 trees and underbrush; woodland[1] However, many parts of US National
 Forests do not have trees, and either will never have trees, or will not
 have them for many decades, and therefore are not forested
 * Many ski resorts are within National Forests, e.g. [3]. Areas occupied
 by buildings, parking lots and most ski runs do not have trees and are not
 likely to for many years.
 * Areas above treeline do not have trees and will probably not have trees
 for centuries.
 * Meadows, prairies, lakes/reservoirs, areas of scree and mines[4] are all
 found within National Forests and no or few trees will exist in these areas

 Therefore significant parts of National Forests are not being used as a
 forest and tagging them as landuse=forest is not appropriate in my
 opinion.


+1

boundary=protected_area is more appropriate.

Modoc National Forest has large swaths of land (compare [1] and [2]) that
is not covered by trees, managed or not.  Tagging the whole area as
landuse=forest doesn't reflect what's actually on the ground.

I agree with an earlier poster (apologies, I forgot who) who suggested
replacing landuse=forest with landuse=timber.  timber has a more
unambiguous meaning than forest

[1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/41.8233/-121.0963
[2] http://binged.it/1NCIf0Q
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Ben Discoe]

Just to chime in..
As someone who has worked on protected areas in OSM globally, it has
always been obvious that the landuse tags and the boundary tags
serve clear and different purposes.
US National Forests are boundaries around land which contain many
uses(*), and landuse=forest is only one of the uses.
If i find that any area is marked as landuse=forest when it does not
actually contain all forest, i fix it, re-mapping the areas which
actually contain forest as landuse=forest (or natural=wood, as
appropriate).
Often, this is very labor-intensive.  I have done this across many
national parks globally, e.g. Ethiopia, Panama and India.

-Ben

(*) In fact, Land of Many Uses is an official slogan found on most
national forest signs. e.g.
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/graphics/signs/Images/16880.jpg

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Mike Thompson miketh...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Brian May b...@mapwise.com wrote:


 Also I think its been mentioned the boundary should be tagged as
 boundary=protected_area which handles the overall mission of national
 forests is to conserve our forests. However, the issue comes up that there
 are different levels of conservation ranging from untouched wilderness to
 actively managed areas, e.g. sustainable forestry, so a blanket
 boundary=protected_area may not be appropriate. Is there another tag that
 covers a more mixed bag? Is a new tag needed?

 As you point out, the level of protection varies. For example the Indian
 Peaks Wilderness Area overlaps with the Roosevelt National Forest [1].
 Wilderness Areas are IUCN 1b category protected areas [2] while US National
 Forests as a whole are IUCN VI protected areas [2][3]. In addition,
 regulations, and thus levels of protection, vary from place to place within
 National Forests that are not part of Wilderness Areas.   For example target
 shooting is prohibited in a number of areas within the Roosevelt National
 Forest, but is allowed in other areas.[4] National Forests are an
 administrative area only.  They are protected, but the protection level
 varies. Tagging National Forests as protected areas is acceptable as I said
 before (but not ideal as I think more about it) in my opinion because an
 authoritative source, the US Government, says National Forests are
 categorized as IUCN Category VI protected areas [3]. If we tag them as
 protected areas, we will have overlapping protected areas (e.g. National
 Forests and Wilderness Areas) and data consumers will have to select the
 highest level of protection. Ideally there would be an administrative
 boundary tag that could be used for National Forests and protected areas
 would be tagged separately.

 Not to complicate matters, but this same issue of administration vs
 protected areas applies to US (and perhaps other) National Parks.  For
 example, there are Wilderness areas within National Parks[5], as well as
 Research National Areas [6] which I believe are IUCN 1a protected areas.

 Mike

 [1] http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recarea/?recid=80803
 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_protected_area_categories
 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Forest
 [4] http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/recreation/?cid=STELPRD3836311
 [5] http://www.wilderness.net/NationalParkService
 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Natural_Area



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Martijn van Exel]

Hi all,

I really appreciate the productive discussion that ensued my initial
question!
In the mean time, a mapper approached me with concerns about my removing
the landuse tags from the National Forests in Utah, so I reverted those
changes: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33419230 -- I don't want
this to get in the way of folks putting time and energy into mapping these
areas. It's probably better to let the discussion play out first anyway.

Martijn

Martijn van Exel
skype: mvexel

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:17 AM, Eric Ladner eric.lad...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:02 AM Torsten Karzig torsten.kar...@web.de
 wrote:

 As mentioned earlier part of the problem is a confusion between tagging
 what is there (landcover) and what it is used for (landuse). In the wiki we
 actually have a consistent approach (Approach 1) to make this distinction.
 Using natural=wood as a landcover tag and landuse=forest for areas of land
 managed for forestry. On top of this we of cause still have administrative
 boundaries.

 For me applying this to National Forests would mean:

 Using administrative boundaries to mark the entire National Forest.
 Remove the landuse=forest tag except for regions that are clearly used for
 forestry. This does not apply to most parts of the National forests in
 Southern California that I have seen. Although these areas are managed in
 the sense that someone administrates it (hence the administrative boundary)
 most parts of these National Forest are largely left alone and the
 possibility to collect deadwood does in my opinion not qualify as forestry.
 Finally, any larger regions that are covered with trees should be tagged as
 natural=wood. Other landcovers (scrub,water) can also be tagged as
 appropriate.

 The great advantage of the above tagging scheme is in my opinion that it
 is very easy to follow for the mapper on the ground. Knowing whether I am
 allowed to collect deadwood or not in a particular area is not easy to
 verify on the ground, and, in my opinion, not as important as defining
 landcovers or obvious landuses. Moreover, it is very confusing for someone
 that uses the map if there is a large green region marked as landuse=forest
 and on the ground there is no forestry, or obvious management, or trees.

 Torsten


 Agree..

 Not every square inch of a National Forest has (or will have) trees on
 it.  There are grasslands, mountains, lakes.

 Plus, the stated goal of the USFS isn't solely to grow trees in a national
 forest. Land management of these areas focuses on conservation, timber
 harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, and
 recreation.  So it's not all about the forest.


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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Mike Thompson]

The definitive characteristic of US National Forests is that they are
administered/managed by the US National Forest Service.[5] Thus US
National Forests are administrative areas. Areas where the National
Forest Service has some jurisdiction and responsibility. However, National
Forests are categorized by the US as IUCN Category VI protected areas
(Managed Resource Protected Area) [2].  Therefore, tagging them as
protected areas is appropriate (not withstanding the fact that not much in
a National Forest seems protected based upon my visit to a section of the
Roosevelt National Forest yesterday).

The common meaning of forest is a large tract of land covered with trees
and underbrush; woodland[1] However, many parts of US National Forests do
not have trees, and either will never have trees, or will not have them for
many decades, and therefore are not forested
* Many ski resorts are within National Forests, e.g. [3]. Areas occupied by
buildings, parking lots and most ski runs do not have trees and are not
likely to for many years.
* Areas above treeline do not have trees and will probably not have trees
for centuries.
* Meadows, prairies, lakes/reservoirs, areas of scree and mines[4] are all
found within National Forests and no or few trees will exist in these areas

Therefore significant parts of National Forests are not being used as a
forest and tagging them as landuse=forest is not appropriate in my
opinion.


Mike


[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/forest
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Forest
[3] http://www.skiloveland.com/ - note Forest Service Logo at the bottom of
the page
[4] http://www.mining-law-reform.info/california.htm
[5] Definition: National Forest System land—all lands, waters, or
interests therein administered by the Forest Service
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/36/251.51



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Joel Holdsworth writes:

...when the whole administrative area is clobbered with green.


What isn't forest shouldn't be tagged landuse=forest, and what is 
should be.  It is not obvious anything administrative (here) is 
clobbered with green.  It seems semantics are conflated, or I don't 
understand the problem (around here, NW of Karlsruhe), or both.


If some national forests allow no timber harvesting (even hikers not 
being allowed to collect downed wood) then OK, remove the 
landuse=forest tag.  Or, better, draw new polygons where this IS 
allowed and tag THEM landuse=forest.  If a whole USFS (unit, 
polygon...) allows foresting, leave the tag on.  We have the ability 
to tag what we mean, we just don't always have perfect consensus or 
apply the consensus we do have correctly to existing map objects.  I 
think we are getting there, and maybe even are largely there.


We could benefit greatly by a (sooner) consensus on a landcover 
syntax and concomitant rendering that applied it, distinct from the 
Standard layer.  That just makes sense as a potential (improvements 
welcome) path forward.  Technically possible, right?


Land cover is not land use (and vice versa).  Land cover is not 
specified by the landuse=* tag.


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Joel Holdsworth]

 Therefore,
 tagging them as protected areas is appropriate (not withstanding the
 fact that not much in a National Forest seems protected based upon my
 visit to a section of the Roosevelt National Forest yesterday).

+1 agree with everything you say.

Also, come help me map the land-cover! - I've been doing quite a bit
over the past couple of week, but there's a lot to map, and I've only
seen so much of it on the ground.

Joel

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Joel Holdsworth]

Yeah I posted a question about this last week: 
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/44763/tagging-us-national-forests

To me landuse=forest is pretty clearly incorrect. It should be 
boundary=protected_area,protect_class=6 and the rendering rules should be 
patched  to make it appear similar to leisure=national_park.

Joel

On 16 August 2015 20:10:17 GMT-06:00, Martijn van Exel m...@rtijn.org wrote:
Hi,

The new rendering of forests broke cases where a lake is inside a
forest
and the lake is not mapped as an inner section of the surrounding
forest
polygon.

I posted this issue in the carto issue tracker:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/1754

But after some discussion I realized that this may be a side effect of
a
different problem, namely how we tag national forests. In the US, these
seem to be tagged as landuse=forest which is only partly true: within a
National Forest, many different land uses can occur, only one of them
being
forest.

So should we just not tag National Forests as landuse=forest?

Martijn van Exel
skype: mvexel




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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Martijn van Exel]

I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in Utah:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.

The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.

Martijn van Exel
Secretary, US Chapter
OpenStreetMap
http://openstreetmap.us/
http://osm.org/
skype: mvexel

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 6:49 AM, Torsten Karzig torsten.kar...@web.de
wrote:

 I agree with Martijn and Paul. To not repeat some of the arguments I want
 to point out that there was a similar discussion on the mailing list two
 years ago:

 misuse of the landuse=forest tag for national forests
 https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-May/010759.html
 https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-May/010756.html

 I think there was no agreement reached back then so we just kept the
 status quo.

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 17 August 2015, Martijn van Exel wrote:
 I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in
 Utah: http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.

To find further occurances you can use:

http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aZs

You will also see there that many national forests are mapped as 
multiple separate areas each with tags and the same name - like

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2658152
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268500
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268493

It would be a good idea to consolidate those into one multipolygon 
relation so someone searching for a national forest for example will 
find the whole forest and not only the largest subarea.

 The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.

It will also encourage mapping of actual forested areas as well as other 
vegetation and natural features.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Charlotte Wolter]

Folks,

This whole discussion going back more than a year ago has
been dominated by very European concepts of what is a forest.
I live in the dry, high western United States, where forests are
very different from those in Europe (not leafy!) but are no less
forests. How would you tag the pinon-juniper forests all over the
Southwest, where no trees are taller than 15 feet? Or the chapparal
of Southern California or the Jashua Tree stands of the
California desert or the Great Sage Plain with sage 10 feet tall?
And, Christoph, the forests are divided into subunits because
that's how they are administered and because many national forests
are made up of physically separate subunits. They can be as much as
100 miles apart. For example, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest
has five such units. If you want information or a permit, you have to
go to the local subunit. So, no, they should not be combined into one
multipolygon, because, in reality, they are not a single multipolygon.
So, while mapping principles are important, so are the physical,
natural and administrative realities of a place.

Charlotte


At 08:14 AM 8/17/2015, you wrote:

On Monday 17 August 2015, Martijn van Exel wrote:
 I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in
 Utah:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.

To find further occurances you can use:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aZs
You will also see there that many national forests are mapped as
multiple separate areas each with tags and the same name - like
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2658152 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268500 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268493

It would be a good idea to consolidate those into one multipolygon
relation so someone searching for a national forest, for example,
will find the whole forest and not only the largest subarea.

 The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.
It will also encourage mapping of actual forested areas as well as
other vegetation and natural features.

-- Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.dehttp://www.imagico.de
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90403
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Joel Holdsworth]

 This whole discussion going back more than a year ago has
 been dominated by very European concepts of what is a forest.

I think that's the problem.

In europe (and for that matter the whole of OSM) forest == trees. Every
square foot of a landuse=forest area should be covered in trees.

Here in the US, there is a thing called a US Nation Forest which is an
administrative area, which has a lot of trees in it, but also scrub,
grass, rivers, bare rock etc.

The main issue is that we need to separate the administrative border
from the land-cover, so that land-cover drawing is not prevented.

Making boundary=protected_area render similarly to the outline of
leisure=natural_park would be a good starting point, and that should be
a simple mod to make.

Joel

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Tod Fitch]

The issue, as I see it, is that the OSM landuse=forest means that all the land 
so designated is used for timber production. Thus the long discussions about 
natural=wood, landcover=trees, etc. In the case of the US National Forests, the 
boundaries are still tagged with boundary=national_park, 
boundary:type=protected_area, protect_class=6 and protection_title=National 
Forest which should be enough for a map renderer to decide to paint the area in 
a distinctive area.

 On Aug 17, 2015, at 9:55 AM, Charlotte Wolter techl...@techlady.com wrote:
 
 
 I see your point that it's not a natural forest, but national 
 forests are important institutions as preserves, especially, in addition 
 to their other uses (recreation, research).
 Having just returned from a camping vacation in the Southwest, 
 I am especially aware that the national forests, as an institution, play
 an important role there. On most map systems, they are noted by their 
 green color, and that is what most map users expect to see. They use
 the color to plan where to camp and where they can conduct certain
 activities (hunting, fishing). 
 Shouldn't their special status be noted somehow?
 
 Charlotte
 



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Charlotte Wolter]

But, in the United States, forests are not always about
timber production. You won't get any timber for building from
a pinon-juniper forest. The trees are too small (though you will
get great pinon nuts and mesquite charcoal).
It would be a serious problem for OSM if we don't provide
a way for renderers to indicate the national forests boundaries
clearly and distinctly, including our own renderer (because that's
what most people use, folks).

Charlotte


At 10:10 AM 8/17/2015, you wrote:
The issue, as I see it, is that the OSM landuse=forest means that 
all the land so designated is used for timber production. Thus the 
long discussions about natural=wood, landcover=trees, etc. In the 
case of the US National Forests, the boundaries are still tagged 
with boundary=national_park, boundary:type=protected_area, 
protect_class=6 and protection_title=National Forest which should be 
enough for a map renderer to decide to paint the area in a distinctive area.


On Aug 17, 2015, at 9:55 AM, Charlotte Wolter 
mailto:techl...@techlady.comtechl...@techlady.com wrote:



I see your point that it's not a natural forest, but national
forests are important institutions as preserves, especially, in addition
to their other uses (recreation, research).
Having just returned from a camping vacation in the Southwest,
I am especially aware that the national forests, as an institution, play
an important role there. On most map systems, they are noted by their
green color, and that is what most map users expect to see. They use
the color to plan where to camp and where they can conduct certain
activities (hunting, fishing).
Shouldn't their special status be noted somehow?

Charlotte




Charlotte Wolter
927 18th Street Suite A
Santa Monica, California
90403
+1-310-597-4040
techl...@techlady.com
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

I am disappointed to see landuse=forest removed from the very 
quintessence of what our wiki defines as forest: our USDA's 
National Forests.  True, our wiki page (forest) defines four distinct 
tagging approaches which use this tag, all of which can be assumed to 
be correct, even as they might conflict with each other.


However, the wiki definition of forest is unambiguous:  areas of 
land managed for forestry.  This is PRECISELY, EXACTLY what a 
National Forest is.  Just because any particular chunk of it is not 
ACTIVELY having trees felled doesn't mean it isn't a forest.  It 
COULD have trees felled (because it is an area of land managed for 
forestry), so it IS a forest.


Whenever I recreate at a National Forest, I (or anybody as a humble 
US Citizen or National) can pluck wood from the ground and use it to 
build a (safe) campfire, for example.  (Provided other, seasonal, 
regulations don't prohibit this fire-building because of safety 
concerns).  This is land being used as a forest, and I will tag it as 
such.  The whole area, actually, because that is correct.


I wish Martijn had not removed these tags in Utah, and I don't want 
to see this tag removed from National Forests I and others have so 
tagged in California.  Sure, including the newer tags of 
boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6 is a good idea, because 
those tags are also correct.  So is the tag landuse=forest.  It does 
not appear that a consensus is reached about this, as Martijn (and 
what appear to be folks in the UK and Germany, largely) seem to agree 
to remove landuse=forest, but at least Charlotte and I believe it 
should remain.


And, Charlotte's point about subunits not being combined is also 
correct:  if name=* tags of the subunits are different, don't combine 
them into a single multipolygon (please).


The new forest rendering appears to occur at a higher (later) CSS 
layer than other layers such as meadow (and as Martijn noticed, 
natural=water creating a lake inside of a forest).  This causes some 
double-rendering to occur now where it didn't before.  The punch 
through that happened with meadow (and lake) caused a visually 
pleasing rendering to occur that no longer does.  In my opinion, this 
should also be addressed (fixed) with the new rendering of forest: 
code it so it allows other polygons superimposed on the forest (such 
as meadow and bodies of water) to punch through and not draw the 
little trees icons there.  It worked before, it can work this way 
again.


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Martijn van Exel]

My removing the landuse tags from the Utah national forest objects is part
of the process of achieving that consensus, is the way I see it. It's a
simple change that could easily be reverted, and I think it helps the
discussion to actually see the outcome of the change. Apologies for posting
my last message using my openstreetmap.us address by the way, I manage to
mess up my from: field from time to time. These are my own personal views
and do not represent those of the US Chapter board - not that they would
want to meddle in tagging discussions anyway.

Martijn

Martijn van Exel
skype: mvexel

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Tod Fitch t...@fitchdesign.com wrote:

 I have seen lots of “bike shedding” on this and I am of the opinion that
 landuse=forest should be removed from the US national forest boundary
 relations. But I was unaware that a consensus had been achieved. If it has,
 perhaps the wiki page at
 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_Forest_Service_Data#National_Forest_Boundaries
 can be brought into conformance with that consensus.

 On Aug 17, 2015, at 7:44 AM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us
 wrote:

 I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in Utah:
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.

 The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Tod Fitch]

I have seen lots of “bike shedding” on this and I am of the opinion that 
landuse=forest should be removed from the US national forest boundary 
relations. But I was unaware that a consensus had been achieved. If it has, 
perhaps the wiki page at 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_Forest_Service_Data#National_Forest_Boundaries
 can be brought into conformance with that consensus.

 On Aug 17, 2015, at 7:44 AM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us 
 wrote:
 
 I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in Utah: 
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465 
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.
 
 The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.
 



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Joel Holdsworth]

I did the same to the Roosevelt National Forest a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/40.6167/-105.3240

Hopefully we can patch the rendering rules to display
boundary=protected_area

Joel


On 17/08/15 15:44, Martijn van Exel wrote:
 I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in
 Utah: http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465.
 
 The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore.
 



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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Joel Holdsworth]

 It worked before, it can work this way again.

It worked to some degree, but it was rather a road-block to adding more
detail. It won't every be possible to produce a detailed image like this:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/49.1850/7.9723

...when the whole administrative area is clobbered with green.

Joel

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Martijn van Exel]

If we end up opting to maintain current landuse=forest tagging for national
forests, then we may create a MapRoulette challenge to highlight all
'forest internal' way features and have folks convert them into inner
members of the NF multipolygon.

As I said before, I am just trying to ease the discussion along by removing
the tag from a well-defined selection of national forests. I will
personally reinstate them if we all agree that it's not the right thing to
do.

Martijn van Exel
skype: mvexel

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Joel Holdsworth j...@airwebreathe.org.uk
wrote:

  It worked before, it can work this way again.

 It worked to some degree, but it was rather a road-block to adding more
 detail. It won't every be possible to produce a detailed image like this:

 http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/49.1850/7.9723

 ...when the whole administrative area is clobbered with green.

 Joel

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Wolfgang Zenker]

* stevea stevea...@softworkers.com [150817 20:08]:
 I am disappointed to see landuse=forest removed from the very 
 quintessence of what our wiki defines as forest: our USDA's 
 National Forests.  [..]
 [..] It does 
 not appear that a consensus is reached about this, as Martijn (and 
 what appear to be folks in the UK and Germany, largely) seem to agree 
 to remove landuse=forest, but at least Charlotte and I believe it 
 should remain.

Assuming we keep landuse=forest for the National Forests, what would
you suggest we use to tag the areas that are actually covered by trees?
And how should we render these so they can be seen as different from
areas without trees that happen to be part of a National Forest?

Wolfgang

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 17 August 2015, Charlotte Wolter wrote:
  And, Christoph, the forests are divided into subunits
 because that's how they are administered and because many national
 forests are made up of physically separate subunits. They can be as
 much as 100 miles apart. For example, the Apache-Sitgreaves National
 Forest has five such units. If you want information or a permit, you
 have to go to the local subunit. 

I am aware of this, however a national forest with a certain name is 
still one entity that is administered as such by the national forest 
service.  So the national forest as a named feature with proper tags 
indicating a protected area, operator tag etc. should be one entity in 
OSM.  There is nothing wrong with mapping the different subunits on 
their own, but not as a national forest (since they are only parts of a 
national forest).

 So, no, they should not be combined 
 into one multipolygon, because, in reality, they are not a single
 multipolygon. So, while mapping principles are important, so are the
 physical, natural and administrative realities of a place.

The term multipolygon might be confusing here - a multipolygon can have 
multiple separate areas.  This is common for example for archipelagos:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3705990

but also for national forests in the US:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/335140

When you map it as such programs can better interpret the data like 
Nominatim where you get just one result representing the whole forest:

www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Dixie%20National%20Forest

instead of a whole bunch of features here:

www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Apache-Sitgreaves%20National%20Forest

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Tod Fitch]

Unfortunately the magnifying glass is hidden away someplace so my old 
microprint copy of the Oxford English Dictionary is hard to read. I see “An 
extensive tract of land covered with trees and undergrowth, sometimes 
intermingled with pasture.”, Or “A woodland district, usually belonging to the 
king, set apart for hunting wild beasts and game, etc.” Or “A wild uncultivated 
waste, a wilderness”. But I don’t see any inference that UK English implies 
forest is specifically associated with timber production or logging. And from 
everyday use in the US I know that forest does not imply timber production. For 
example there is little or no logging in the forests in the mountains of 
Southern California (in or out of the administrative boundaries of the US 
Forest Service).

Yet the OSM wiki says landuse=forest is For areas with a high density of trees 
primarily grown for timber.” From postings on tagging lists, the timber 
production seems to be a continental European interpretation and appears to be 
part of our semantic issue.

It seems to me that the “landuse=forest” tag should go away. For timber 
production it ought to be something like “landuse=timber” if it is being used 
for timber production. The “natural” tag has the implication that mankind has 
not interfered with the the ecosystem. An area may be scrub or grass covered 
now because of over harvesting of trees in prehistoric times (Easter Island 
comes to mind). Is that a “natural” thing or the result of a former human land 
use?

Landcover strikes me as a much more manageable tag for describing what is on 
the ground to the average mapper. I see trees, grassland or scrub. I can tag 
that. It may not be obvious if it is or was at one time actively managed for 
timber, cattle or watershed so “landuse” and/or “natural” are harder for the 
citizen mapper to tag.

For US National Forest boundaries, I’d like to see the “landuse=forest” go away 
because currently implies logging which also implies actually having trees 
which is often not the case in the US West and Southwest. If an area of a 
forest is actually used for timber production then it should be so tagged, but 
to make it clear that forest !== timber, the “landuse=forest” tag ought to be 
deprecated and replaced with a more specific term.

My $0.02


 On Aug 17, 2015, at 11:39 AM, Martijn van Exel m...@rtijn.org wrote:
 
 If we end up opting to maintain current landuse=forest tagging for national 
 forests, then we may create a MapRoulette challenge to highlight all 'forest 
 internal' way features and have folks convert them into inner members of the 
 NF multipolygon.
 
 As I said before, I am just trying to ease the discussion along by removing 
 the tag from a well-defined selection of national forests. I will personally 
 reinstate them if we all agree that it's not the right thing to do.
 
 Martijn van Exel
 skype: mvexel
 
 On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Joel Holdsworth j...@airwebreathe.org.uk 
 wrote:
  It worked before, it can work this way again.
 
 It worked to some degree, but it was rather a road-block to adding more
 detail. It won't every be possible to produce a detailed image like this:
 
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/49.1850/7.9723
 
 ...when the whole administrative area is clobbered with green.
 
 Joel
 
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[James Umbanhowar]

I've used natural=woods for areas formerly in agriculture that were not
naturally growing in with trees.  This seemed more appropriate than
forest as they are not really being managed for harvest.

I could go either way on the National Forest tagging issue.  While
technically they are managed as forests, they are certainly internally
quite heterogenuous in terms of the landuse to the point where many
areas are not actually being managed as tree growing areas.

James

On Mon, 2015-08-17 at 21:06 +0200, Wolfgang Zenker wrote:
 
 Assuming we keep landuse=forest for the National Forests, what would
 you suggest we use to tag the areas that are actually covered by 
 trees?
 And how should we render these so they can be seen as different from
 areas without trees that happen to be part of a National Forest?
 
 Wolfgang
 
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Russell Deffner]

Hi everyone,

Disclaimer - I do have a degree in forestry, but only loosely continue to 
follow the field.  I would agree with the camp that says 'no' to landuse=forest 
broadly used for all National Forests.  I think someone said 'because you can 
pick up sticks, etc. for campfires' but this is not true across all National 
Forests; here is what the USFS says about it: 
http://www.fs.fed.us/specialuses/special_products.shtml - basically it is up to 
the unit; so taking the example of Pike National Forest near me, they do 
require a permit and only allow fuelwood collection (and other harvesting, like 
Christmas trees) in designated areas: 
http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/psicc/passes-permits/forestproducts/?cid=fsm9_032545
 - also get more restrictive when you consider the 'wilderness' designations 
that are contained within Pike.

In general, I suggest we use protected area and only mark designated areas 
where timber harvesting is allowed as landuse=forest.

=Russ

-Original Message-
From: James Umbanhowar [mailto:jumba...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 1:25 PM
To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

I've used natural=woods for areas formerly in agriculture that were not
naturally growing in with trees.  This seemed more appropriate than
forest as they are not really being managed for harvest.

I could go either way on the National Forest tagging issue.  While
technically they are managed as forests, they are certainly internally
quite heterogenuous in terms of the landuse to the point where many
areas are not actually being managed as tree growing areas.

James

On Mon, 2015-08-17 at 21:06 +0200, Wolfgang Zenker wrote:
 
 Assuming we keep landuse=forest for the National Forests, what would
 you suggest we use to tag the areas that are actually covered by 
 trees?
 And how should we render these so they can be seen as different from
 areas without trees that happen to be part of a National Forest?
 
 Wolfgang
 
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Clifford Snow]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Paul Norman penor...@mac.com wrote:

 No. Unfortunately, all that a data consumer can gather from landuse=forest
 or natural=wood is that there are trees there.


Data consumers should be able to determine how much land is set aside for
harvest with landuse=forest. Besides knowing how much land is used for wood
harvest, it is useful information to know when calculating carbon offsets,
and as Charlotte said, campers and hikers look for green areas to explore.


-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Apologies for length.

Tod Fitch writes:
...there is little or no logging in the forests in the mountains of 
Southern California (in or out of the administrative boundaries of 
the US Forest Service).


I'm not sure you know this to be true:  Cleveland National Forest is 
a big place, publicly owned, and as I make a campfire with downed 
wood, it is a forest.  Its owner (We, the People of the USA) call it 
a forest, where wood is or can be harvested.  This overlaps with our 
wiki definition.  Wood is harvested in our national forests, I think 
it is safe to say every day.  Me using our wood because it is safe 
to gather it for a fire at our camp is not the same as clear-cutting, 
it is true, but both are on of a spectrum of owner using a forest to 
harvest wood.


Yet the OSM wiki says landuse=forest is For areas with a high 
density of trees primarily grown for timber. From postings on 
tagging lists, the timber production seems to be a continental 
European interpretation and appears to be part of our semantic issue.


Timber production happens in national forests.  No contradiction, 
consistent with USFS polygon tagging of landuse=forest.


It seems to me that the landuse=forest tag should go away. For 
timber production it ought to be something like landuse=timber if 
it is being used for timber production. The natural tag has the 
implication that mankind has not interfered with the the ecosystem. 
An area may be scrub or grass covered now because of over harvesting 
of trees in prehistoric times (Easter Island comes to mind). Is that 
a natural thing or the result of a former human land use?


It is as messy as human history has shaped our planet so it is what 
we have.  We utter tags that mean certain things, we strive to do so. 
We write wiki pages and have conversations about what we mean.  We 
should.


Landcover strikes me as a much more manageable tag for describing 
what is on the ground to the average mapper. I see trees, grassland 
or scrub. I can tag that. It may not be obvious if it is or was at 
one time actively managed for timber, cattle or watershed so 
landuse and/or natural are harder for the citizen mapper to tag.


I have hope for a landcover tag to become useful.  It seems one of 
many good places for these conversations to continue.  Free-form 
tagging can build a beautiful syntax if we are precise.  Consensus 
here appears difficult but possible.


For US National Forest boundaries, I'd like to see the 
landuse=forest go away because currently implies logging which 
also implies actually having trees which is often not the case in 
the US West and Southwest. If an area of a forest is actually used 
for timber production then it should be so tagged, but to make it 
clear that forest !== timber, the landuse=forest tag ought to be 
deprecated and replaced with a more specific term.


These are areas which ARE logged (by the casual citizen who builds a 
campfire, an allowed purpose in my/our forest) so it is a forest. 
The implication of logging is muddying, and besides, me picking up 
deadwood in an area owned by the People of the USA and building a 
campfire with it IS logging, in a sense.  A gentle one, yes, but 
logging a forest, yes, too.


It does make sense for a map to show me where I might do this.  This 
is what is meant by a forest, USFSs happen to be more publicly owned 
than a private forest with active logging -- both are forests by our 
wiki definition.  Seeing this accurately is what a map is supposed to 
do.  At least when we are precise when we say what we mean by 
forest.  Seems we used to do that OK around here.  Then again, 
maybe others notice that some do things differently.  There are many 
ways the whole world can and does get along.


Deprecating landuse=forest seems overly harsh; there are a number of 
meanings with this, some held by many to be a firmly etched semantic 
meaning something important and specific in the real world.  Stomping 
on that is done only at the cost of a firm nose-thumbing of 
conscientious semantic rule-following attention-payers.  It seems 
renderers are part of the consensus loop, even as we say don't code 
for the renderer.


While recognizing there is a place for improvement, the renderer 
should be a place where we show what we mean.  It may be correct to 
bring into more public view next versions of Standard rendering. 
Now we have Standard even as new CSS rules are installed:  an 
active zone where Standard changes (some say improves).  Version 
numbers as we share two (Standard and Newer) might make sense.


The tag natural=wood means something, too:  that these are more 
ancient and untouched trees, distinctly not harvested.  In the real 
world, such a this has many names in many localities.  It may be 
private or public ownership.  It might be an area where people 
recreate (especially if public) and/or called a park or preserve or 
monument; sometimes just an unnamed parcel of trees (identified 
with this polygon).

Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Paul Norman]

On 8/17/2015 10:10 AM, Tod Fitch wrote:
The issue, as I see it, is that the OSM landuse=forest means that all 
the land so designated is used for timber production
No. Unfortunately, all that a data consumer can gather from 
landuse=forest or natural=wood is that there are trees there.


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