The need for planted forests and the example of radiata pine

Ten thousand years ago our 5 million hunter-gatherer ancestors used, over the period of a year, about 200 species of local food items. Now, the nearly 6 billion global population gets 70 percent of its food from nine species of plants, one species of bird, and two species of mammals. This is despite global access to about 50,000 edible plants, as well as large numbers of bird and other animal species. We have concentrated our agricultural efforts on those species which are the most desirable, the most convenient, the most productive, and the most easily stored. Of equal importance, the species must be responsive to both genetic improvement and to management manipulation (i.e., domestication). Globally, very little of our food, except fish, now comes from wild sources.