Then came European settlers, bringing with them livestock which ate the grass that fuelled more frequent fires and a desire to save potentially lucrative trees from being burned.After 1910, a severe fire year, the nascent Forest Service tried to stop the burning.
No farmer will commit to smarter irrigation practices, invest in expensive but lucrative fruit trees or commit to techniques such as agroforestry if they are unsure about their right to their families' land in a year's time.
Some farmers who made the risky decision in past years to plant lucrative pistachio and almond trees, which require year-round watering, have had to bulldoze them.
Mr. Blickenstaff, however, like a growing number of foresters, sees this tree as a lucrative economic plant.
In the experimental plots, some were selectively logged, either to remove bigger trees, to mimic one lucrative logging approach, or to leave a wide range of tree sizes.
The company hopes to produce some 40,000 tons of hazelnuts, giving local farmers a lucrative export product and restoring trees to mountainsides stripped by logging.
When he needed money, he added, he returned to a job he had held occasionally in the past -- the dangerous but lucrative work of cutting down trees that hang over people's homes.
In plots where large trees were removed, timber sales were lucrative enough that the net gain was $1,400 an acre.
Farmers have begun replacing newly planted tea trees with more nourishing — and now, more lucrative — staples like corn and rice.
