Hello friends,

I wasn't sure where to put this topic, so I slapped it here. I am a huge fan of bushcraft and think it's a beautiful and precious skill that everyone should teach their kids. To a certain extent, my father and grandfather taught me some stuff when I was little, but never intentionally. It was more a part of just spending the hot summer days near the river at our villa in the mountains. We made some bows, wooden swords, benches and whatnot.

I don't want to sound like a doomsday preparations guy, but I feel like the skill to survive in the wild by oneself with as little resources as possible will start increasing in value in the future

Unfortunately, I really got into this hobby only as of lately, in preparations for my Amazon journey, and I don't have much experience in it. I know a lot of stuff theoretically, and I can light a fire, but that's about it.

Some months ago I stumbled upon THIS fantastic youtube channel of a Danish dude that does bushcraft in the wild for a few days, makes permanent shelters, tools, and whatnot.

I've told it to him many times - his videos are not just bushcraft, but they're more than that. All the effort he puts into making them results in a beautiful work of art. From the camera angles to the complete lack of music or talking and just raw bushcraft presentation, this man does it all with a fiery, but composed passion. He's got a portable blacksmithing station and does everything he does with a constant half-smile on his face which transfers to the viewer.

I wish all youtube creators put in as much effort in their videos as he does. It's just a work of art and I look forward to every next video he makes. There are other great channels, like MCQ Bushcraft, and TA Outdoors, and while they're crammed to the top with very good videos on all things survival, none of them make me feel as calm and good as the ones Rune makes. A lot of people say they have therapeutic effects on them, and once you've watched a few of them you can clearly see why.

Enjoy watching, and share other amazing bushcraft channels you might've come around!

Cheers!

Hello Nydex,

Thank you for sharing the videos. My experience with buschcraft is as a child, as you explained to us it was the same with my father and my grandfather, we did the same things as other street children.

A few years ago I had to use my skills while living in the mountains and during my stay I had to survive for months while taking care of the reintroduction of endangered bird species.

I also watched videos of Bushcraft for fun and enjoyed it until a moment when I realized that these people were cutting trees for pleasur аnd this is another consumerism.

Yes, it is beautiful and really these people have tried to make it beautiful as a video as a work of art. Yes, I suppose there are therapeutic effects on their psyche and physics, but how many trees have they destroyed and how many animals have they killed? Is there no more humane way of satisfying consumerism and their desire to kill. But their lives do not depend on it.

I noticed that in the vast majority of people making video for Bushcraft they use wet fresh cut wood, not dry wood. Sick dry trees can easily be found in a large forest. This means that they cut healthy trees to make 1 video clip and something they will use 1-3-5 times in their lives. Then they make a new clip and cut a new group of trees.

Also, anyone who has worked in the woods or worked with wood knows that wet trees bend, which means that over time the structure will sag because of the bending. To do something really stable, it must be dry wood.

All the work seems a little too much for me to go to a clean place, clean forest and to cut down dozens of woods that are several years old to make a video to scratch your ego. The same efforts can put them into much more constructive work.
How many of these people have planted trees?

That was the reason I stopped watching these videos. Because I no longer want to give them viewership or clicks, I don't want to support what they do.

I understand you are preparing for your Amazon journey and it is completely clear to you why you are looking at them. Because they will be extremely useful to you.

I have to say I expected a different reaction to this, especially from you my friend. If you sit down and run the numbers carefully, you'll find out that the average human being consumes exponentially more non-renewable resources and creates more waste/pollution in a week that those few bushcraft practitioners do for the few videos they shoot.

And the difference is not slight. On the contrary - it's massive. You might have a sustainable farm that does absolutely no harm to the environment, and you can spend all your time there. That is great, and I admire your hard work to keep it up. But not all people have this at their disposal. Actually very, very few people have it at their disposal.

So when a guy like Rune goes in the Danish Northwoods and spends a week there, fishing and just enjoying nature, the resources and energy he consumes are a mere 5% at most of what he would consume if he had to spend that week in the city, where most of us do. 80% of the wood he uses is for his fire, and it's all dead, dry wood. The remaining 20% is put into a tiny shelter that occupies a few square meters, which when abandoned will decay and turn into soil in a month, as all things in nature do. Absolutely nothing is wasted - you take what you need from Nature, and then you give it back where it belongs.

The way you put it seems like you can apply the same accusation to the indigenous people that live in tribes in all jungles of the world. They cut down living plants all the time - to build huts, tools, medicine, food and many other applications. When you prematurely end the life of a few trees in a forest of a few hundred thousand trees do you really think you're "destroying" forests and the dwellers therein? Is the damage really that big you think? Is it bigger than spending that week in the city, with constant lights, processed food, gasoline and whatnot? If anything, I can assure you that the ratio of indigenous people using living plants to that of bushcraft practitioners around the world is (and that is a sparing estimation) 1000000 to 1.

I think you're missing a few variables and relations in your calculations of those people's impact on nature. You are also missing an important aspect of this whole thing - the goal of these videos. Their sole purpose is to educate people on how to survive in nature. So let's say that hypothetically I start digging deep into bushcraft territory and I find myself in love with the craft and I decide to completely shift my mentality and way of life. I sell all of my stuff and move to the Rhodope mountains. I cut down 20 trees and build a cabin, and I live off entirely by foraging the plentiful forests and land in this area.

As a direct result of this, I have completely turned my back to the filthy, polluting and consumeristic way of life I had previously pertained to. I no longer buy products from the big stores (80% of which are packaged in plastic bags). I no longer drive my car and pollute the air or contribute to the oil industry. I no longer require electricity, gas heating or recycling. My negative impact on the planet has shrunk down a thousandfold. All my resource usage has been limited to a few trees and plants in a forest that has millions of them. Sure, I can return from time to time just to do some stuff I need to, but I can spend 80% of my time there, living clean.

As you can see, there's really no point in taking this example to the absolute extreme by saying that you're almost sponsoring the destruction of our planet because a handful of people have decided to cut down a few trees to make a shelter. Just for a slight comparison, in the last 15-20 years, the average rate at which trees are cut down yearly has been growing from 3.5 billion to more than 7 billion trees. 85% of this is for human needs, and the other 15% is due to human actions.

Everything in the modern world is consumerism, my friend. You watering your gardens during the dry season is consumerism as well. You can't run from it. But consuming from nature in a responsible, adequate and considerate way has next to no negative impact on the scale it currently is happening. And suppose that all people on the planet switched to a bushcraft way of life, in nature and off of nature. Do you still think the destruction that humans cause would be bigger than what is currently going on? I think not.

Be well.

Bushshits! To create my garden I have lost a lot of things. Including business career, city life, friends, cool living and many other things, but what I got in return is priceless.

These video people are consumers. How many of them have planted a tree? How many anDo they sow at least 1 new tree for every tree cut? These people, how many animals have raised and released them in the wild? What have they helped to develop the habitats and arenas in which they are located? What have they done differently from consuming ready-made resources? As a person who sowed over 100+ trees this year, I will tell you that we with my wife are not able to cut even 1 tree because we know how slowly it grows.

Man, I reuse and recycle my trash, I use second-hand clothes, a second-hand computer, I use second hand old model phone only with flash light, i don't fly by a plane, I grow my food, my wife sews most of our blankets and stuff, we take care of the forest. I do campaigns to reduce plastic in rivers. Restore local bird species to extinction. Restore local plant species near to extincion in our country. And with a hand in my heart, I'm telling you that these people in the videos are spoiled consumers.

Because a man who respects the forest otherwise touches nature.

And you say on this tiny shelter ?

Believe me, the processes of composting in the forest are much better known to me than to you. How many tons of compost did you make? How much different compost did you have? How many cubes of wood did you compost? Just asking. But a cut down tree is a cut down tree and it will take years to replace it new one.

Indigenous people that live in tribes in jungles they are not like bushcrafters from youtube. Wild tribes have been brought up in the tradition of respecting nature and they are associated with nature and plant medicine.

These Bushcrafters are a pale copy of what tribes are.
For Bushcrafters It's all about having fun and caressing they are ego by the number of followers, like, subscribe and so on.

There are so many ways to teach someone how to survive in nature without destroying nature, but by teaching people to respect it. You can walk with your child or friend in the woods and tell him/her what plants he is seens and for what can be used for. You can do the same with mushrooms and bugs, as well as practice a bunch of things in the forest without destroying it.

What nature? In a few years, there will be no nature for you or our children. Then the ones with the axes, whats the heck? Pollution, tree cutting, consumerism, human greed and many other causes are destroying Nature. So after 5-10 years there will be no Nature for wild animals ... what about bushcrafting...


You don't know me at all. I have been in the logging business and cut down a lot of trees for which I am guilty, but then I compensate for my actions by constantly planting new trees even after i stop cut trees.

Not to mention that I grow industrial hemp to replace my timber, oil and medicine needs.


How many of these people have planted a tree? How many trees have been cut down and how many have they been sown?

Since complete consumerism, I have changed my life 180 degrees in the process of creating and building in the creation of the forest. And that didn't happen, because I went to cut trees in the forest to play and shoot videos.

You talk about my garden all the same and how I water it like you have visit it. My friend, I'll just tell you don't know anything about my garden. I collect rainwater, and I also capture natural sources of water and Sun without harming or consuming anything. I would say that I use far less water and electricity than all the farmers in the area because I use mulch (live plants and dry compost material), fungi, my method of producing water is the most harmless of all in the area and i planted a lot of plants so my place is a green area. I don't have a fridge, I don't have a TV, I don't have electricity heating and electricity consumption is kept to a minimum, such as light bulbs, cooking, a router for internet, laptop, phone charge and laundry (we try to eat raw food). Not using pesticides, fungicides or herbicides, but using organic fertilizers produced by me and organic repellents produced by me.


I also consume very little of food that i buy from the store, as much of my food is produced by me and in most cases I have more than I use. I distribute much of my production to friends. I don't sell it, I give it away. Despite the abundance I have, I regularly eat 1 per day. (as my food does not include any meat)

Bushcraft people this is their hobby and these people are soft in comparison and have nothing to do with the local tribes people, because the bushrafters do not realize that where they are going and what they are doing is damaging the area they are in.



If I caught someone bushcrafting in the Rhodopes, I would kick him out from the forest. I have lived in the Rhodope Mountains and I love the Rhodopes and I hate cutting trees. I watched a few shows of "Surviving in the Rhodope Mountains" and every time I laughed at them and I was crying about what they did in the woods. There were even videos of Bear and other squabbles making "survival in the Rhodope Mountains," "survival in the Rila Mountains," including killing an animal in a protected area and injuring endangered plants. Then the state fined them, and the survival teachers (Bear Grills) said "I don't care I won't pay the fine, I'll come again and do it.".

The other one that makes me laugh is that these survivors "Survive Where I Walk". Their whole shows are a travesty, and I'm telling you, like a man whose life depended on his skills.

Bushcraft people and Indigenous people that live in tribes are totally different and learning a different value system.

Bushcraft people do not live there in the forest. They have made one vacation 1-3-5-8 days and this house is not for them to survive permanently. Things are very different from what you describe. These people make it fun and do it for fun. The clip art of the bushcrafters is extremely similar with slight variations. After watching 6-7 videos, the rest are variations of similar content that are not worth watching and wasting time.

My greatest respect to all, but I see a lot more sense in the energy of 1-3-5-8 days to build a forest (garden) instead of cutting it and destroying it.

Be well,

IIYI

OK, we get it man, you're opinionated and don't like bushcraft. No need to get super defensive and act like you've been accused of a crime against nature. I would be up for a discussion on it, as I can drown you in arguments and evidence to counter what you claim, but based on the adamant assumptions you made for people you don't know anything about, and the way you twisted my words to take your chaotic point across, make me feel like I can have anything but a sensible, composed discussion with you on this topic, so I'll end it right here and now by agreeing to disagree.

Thank you for sharing your opinion. Take care.

I'm sorry if I offended you.

I admire this man's dexterity. But the things he does are pointless. Nobody will use them. It would make sense if someone took advantage of them. Otherwise it is a waste of resource. It is also really important what he gives to the place, not just what he takes from it.

You didn't offend me. Not even my closest friends and family have this ability anymore because I understood that being offended is a defensive reaction of the ego that yields nothing of use to the mind.

The whole reason why I prefer not discussing it anymore is that you jumped straight into assumptions about the people who make those videos, and tried to weigh them against the noble deeds you have done in an attempt to balance out the damage you feel has been caused by your past occupations.

Then you assumed nobody has use of those videos, and this entire thing is pointless.

You see, it's assumption after assumption, so let's not take this discussion any further as it's starting to feel like a chore. As previously suggested - let's just agree to disagree and bask in the beauty of this world so rich in contrast and polarity.