"However, they are like closed systems, everything that is produced by the forest is used by the forest."
No, they are not. It depends on the type of forest of course, but in general forests produces excess.
We get oxygen out of them. Wood. Meat. Mushrooms. Berries. Herbs .. and recreation.
Also forests grow with the right conditions and they can even create the right conditions to grow, if not bulldozed down, or dried up, or set on fire.
But I agree very much with the point, that it is a very annoying idea, to suddenly be able to feed all the people of the earth with ancient methods, that were not at all able to feed so much people.
(my bet is on highly automated intensive greenhouses, btw.)
With the exception of oxygen (where a forest is definitely not a closed system, since the light from the sin and the co2 we breathe go back to the forest), the amount that we remove from forests through foraging and hunting is trivial compared to the amount of resources we demand from agricultural land. And when we continually harvest wood, well, forests don't do well. Managed forests are basically just farms. Nutrient cycles are pretty slow - as we remove minerals amd nutrients from a forest (and dump those nutrients into oceans via sewage) - we are depleting forests. Forests can't produce excess minerals.
No, they are not. It depends on the type of forest of course, but in general forests produces excess. We get oxygen out of them. Wood. Meat. Mushrooms. Berries. Herbs .. and recreation.
Also forests grow with the right conditions and they can even create the right conditions to grow, if not bulldozed down, or dried up, or set on fire.
But I agree very much with the point, that it is a very annoying idea, to suddenly be able to feed all the people of the earth with ancient methods, that were not at all able to feed so much people.
(my bet is on highly automated intensive greenhouses, btw.)