Land that has no buildings on it is not necessarily in a natural state… there are grades to “undeveloped land” with some having much more ecological value than others. If I look at the side of the road by the local interstate yes there is technically a “forest” but it’s mostly like loblolly pine plantation with the trees densely packed to each other to maximize the amount that can be cut and invasive privet growing in what little space remains between them. All those leaves trunks and stems in close proximity choke out the sun reaching the ground (preventing forbs, legumes and grasses that need that sun from growing and making food for the rest of the foodchain) and puts impassable woody thickets between the pine trunks that block most anything from moving though the area unless they can fly or climb above it.
Looks wild enough to the uninformed but ecologically useless to the majority of animals adapted to what was once open and parklike easily navigable longleaf pine savanna with insanely diverse groundcover supporting many animal diets and providing shelter.
Uselessness can be useful for a different context. For example, the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge is flourishing today in part because on account of the sand it was considered agriculturally useless land that farmers struggled to do anything with during the Great Depression. So it was easy for the government to buy out the stakeholders and begin protecting and recovering that special ecosystem.
In the case of pine plantations, they are quite useful to people because they fairly passively produce a vast amount of wood that the owner of the land can sell at their leisure.
However, in the course of optimizing the pine plantations for economic benefit, the benefit to the wildlife is reduced. More densely packing the trees means that you have more wood growing in the same area rather than leaving unused space. But in doing so that means less sunlight hitting the ground. That energy goes to making more wood rather than to supporting the groundcover, and the groundgover is the more important of the two for most animals.
Land that has no buildings on it is not necessarily in a natural state… there are grades to “undeveloped land” with some having much more ecological value than others. If I look at the side of the road by the local interstate yes there is technically a “forest” but it’s mostly like loblolly pine plantation with the trees densely packed to each other to maximize the amount that can be cut and invasive privet growing in what little space remains between them. All those leaves trunks and stems in close proximity choke out the sun reaching the ground (preventing forbs, legumes and grasses that need that sun from growing and making food for the rest of the foodchain) and puts impassable woody thickets between the pine trunks that block most anything from moving though the area unless they can fly or climb above it.
Looks wild enough to the uninformed but ecologically useless to the majority of animals adapted to what was once open and parklike easily navigable longleaf pine savanna with insanely diverse groundcover supporting many animal diets and providing shelter.
Lao Tze had good things to say about uselessness. It’s one of many qualities what helps people give you the space to grow
Uselessness can be useful for a different context. For example, the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge is flourishing today in part because on account of the sand it was considered agriculturally useless land that farmers struggled to do anything with during the Great Depression. So it was easy for the government to buy out the stakeholders and begin protecting and recovering that special ecosystem.
In the case of pine plantations, they are quite useful to people because they fairly passively produce a vast amount of wood that the owner of the land can sell at their leisure.
However, in the course of optimizing the pine plantations for economic benefit, the benefit to the wildlife is reduced. More densely packing the trees means that you have more wood growing in the same area rather than leaving unused space. But in doing so that means less sunlight hitting the ground. That energy goes to making more wood rather than to supporting the groundcover, and the groundgover is the more important of the two for most animals.