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Comment by caio1982 | Hacker News Reader

caio1982

Just a small anecdote: in southern Brazil there are a bunch of protected tree species and there used to be people collectives which dropped mud seed bombs around city gardens (I don't know if they were the same kind of manure/soil India is using, but I am pretty sure they were actually semi dry mud balls to resist winters). The trick here is that protected trees cannot be cut down, never, no matter where they grow. The fee you pay if you chop one down is abdurdly high. Wherever the bombs germinate you will have permanent reforestation. I wish/hope there is something similar in India :-)

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In Brazil reforestation is also used for criminal purposes. If you plant a certain kind of pine, it will, over time, completely overtake local species. In the course of a decade or two, you can transform protected areas into whatever you wish.

Sandalwood and a few others are protected across India. Growing sandalwood without a permit was recently legalized in India, but cutting it is still illegal. Though it mainly grows in the south of India (not sure if its because of climate or happenstance). Other states occasionally maintain their own smaller lists of protected trees.

That's fascinating. I'd like to know more. Do you have any links? I do speak Portuguese.

Search for the words: araucária, corte, licenciamento ambiental, árvore nativa.

For ex.:

http://licenciamentoambientalmunicipal.blogspot.com/2013/01/...

http://licenciadorambiental.com.br/licenciamento-ambiental-d...

> The trick here is that protected trees cannot be cut down, never, no matter where they grow.

Yes, and people die because of that.

How do they die?

I've heard of environmentalists being murdered while trying to stop loggers from cutting down protected trees. Not sure if that's what they mean.

Wikipedia page of Brazil Nuts tree says this:

In Brazil, it is illegal to cut down a Brazil nut tree. As a result, they can be found outside production areas, in the backyards of homes and near roads and streets. The fruit containing nuts are very heavy and rigid, and they pose a serious threat to vehicles and people passing under the tree. Brazil nuts sink in fresh water, which can cause clogging of waterways in riparian areas.

Wikipedia page for Brazil Nuts tree says this:

Trees fall. When you can't cut down trees that grow on cities or near rural houses, trees fall on people.

Can't you still prune branches and the like?

After you follow some bureaucracy you get your answer. It's almost always "no", but the government can decide to prune (but not cut) them by themselves.

My city has many trees, and tree related deaths got within an order of magnitude of the big killers (transit, violence) a few years ago. The local government got a special case permission to cut the most dangerous trees, but some stupid greens made some vocal protests, so it lasted only for about two months. Anyway that was enough to improve things for a while.

I wish/hope there is something similar in India :-)

Be careful what you wish for. If you can do something sneaky with biological tech for justice, others can do bad things with it too. When I saw the headline with "drone" in it, I immediately imagined an evil plot where some organization genetically engineers a plant to produce pollen with a tailored allergenic effect on one particular ethnic group, then seeds a particular area with it. What's more, they slowly ramp up the level of allergenic effect over the space of a decade, so that the effect looks natural. This will probably be within the reach of billionaires and smaller governments in a decade.

Wow... I am amazed that this is where you "immediately" thought to go...

What I thought about was drone-bombing marijuana on all private residences and public buildings of government.

Imagine seeding the whitehouse lawn with pot!

Naturally growing marijuana is common in the US. It's possible there's "ditch weed" growing all over DC. (And no, you can't use it to get high.)

More: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3tz1ym/does_mari...

I'm pretty sure that you don't want to violate the white house air space. :-O

However, I'm sure there are a lot of soft targets, and this is a genius idea. Does the DEA have some nice lawns? Maybe state capitols?

Back in my carefree days of youth, I would save the seeds from all the pot I smoked, sprout them in wet paper towels, and plant the sprouts in poorly-maintained landscaping around government buildings. It grows quickly, so it was always amusing to see a couple of obvious marijuana plants springing up by the shrubs and juniper bushes.

Wow... I am amazed that this is where you "immediately" thought to go...

My brain has been on a Tom Clancy "evil plot" kick.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14361500

Just remembered: A long time ago, I imagined a "magical realism/sci-fi" fantasy-textured story with a "race" analogous to the fae folk or the "Children of the Forest" from GoT, but instead of disappearing into hills, they disappeared into impassable hedges. These weren't impassable due to magic, however. Instead, the hedges were suffused with plants similar to Poison Oak, and the natives of the land had simply developed an immunity to it.

> tailored allergenic effect on one particular ethnic group

Happily, this is impossible.

I've read that it's not impossible. You can't make something work with 100% accuracy, but that is not needed for this purpose. If you're going to reply there are no genetic racial differences, then consider sickle cell anemia and differences in alcohol metabolism.

I've also read a lot of stuff on the Internet, that doesn't make it all true. Source?

There are genetic racial differences, but the lines are so fuzzy and inconsistent that this couldn't work.

Nice to see you're still at it Agent Mulder ;)

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