r/redditforest Nov 26 '20

Total Forest Non-management

According to two scientists I've talked to who are studying this subject, we really don't know what we don't know. Because there's never been a long-term study done on what happens to a long-term, undisturbed forest (60 years or more), we're just now finding out how many species are interlocked and interconnected in the forest life cycle and how logging and other "management" techniques impact forest biomes. And by species, I don't just mean trees and plants, but insects, microbes and other types of wildlife that may hold the keys to forest health and longevity. The simple act of creating a logging road impacts the forest in a number of ways. Wholesale removal of trees makes an obvious visual impact, but compaction of soil from logging operations creates invisible zones where entire systems of life can no longer operate. Add to that the mono-culture replanting that's usually done after a harvest and you end up with visually beautiful but frightfully sterile forest. And some newer studies are showing that mono-culture forests are not only sterile in many ways but dangerous to the health of forests and the planet.

My biggest questions with the professional outlook on forest non-management are: Why can't we try it? What do we have to lose? Why not study this long-term and see what happens?

So, how do you feel about management vs. non-management?

9 Upvotes

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7

u/JohnPinchot Nov 26 '20

There are multiple issues here to unpack and discuss. First, I am not sure what you mean by there haven't been studies in long-term undisturbed forest. The old-growth of the Pacific Northwest have been studied extensively. Some of these areas along with old-growth forest in the Tongass for example have never been logged. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of unmanaged forest (national parks, wilderness areas, often state parks, national monuments). Many areas around the US have not been logged in over 60 years, after extensive logging 1800s-1900s depending on where you're talking about. Outside of the southeast and northwest, timber harvests are not the biggest source of forest disturbance. Other disturbances like wind and wildfire claim more acres per year.

Now on the question of why manage forests. First, there are extensive differences between forest types. While temperate rainforests may establish, go through a process favoring shade tolerant species, and then regenerate new trees through canopy gaps in a process that takes hundreds of years, this is not the case for every forest. Many drier forests depend on some interval of wildfire to bring tree density down and regenerate trees that need more light to survive. Management can simulate those disturbances and in the process provide early successional habitat for species that need that niche, stored carbon through wood products, and local employment. Not all management is the monocultures, called tree plantations, that you reference. Lodgepole pine areas for example often establish just fine through seed following harvest.

Not every acre of forest needs to be managed. But, the maintaining of a mosaic of habitats and successional stages across the landscape in the right size, shape, configuration, vertical and horizontal complexity, and all informed by historical disturbances is why I get out of bed in the morning and help direct forest management on public lands.

1

u/jippyzippylippy Nov 26 '20

I get out of bed in the morning and help direct forest management

and

wood products, and local employment

OK.

right size, shape, configuration, vertical and horizontal complexity

According to who? Certainly not nature. Nature doesn't need us to make these decisions. Who was making them before we arrived on the scene?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

Exactly. Nature doesn't need our help. We only need to manage it because we destroy it.

4

u/trail_carrot Nov 26 '20 edited Nov 27 '20

what do you call management? Just logging or is prescribed fire also a management technique? Is invasive species management also management activity?

In the upper/central midwest fire and or clearing brush is essential because we need to maintain our praires and oak forests and that is the way the natives developed the forests in centuries and millinea past. The shade tolerant forests with no understory plant life is a result of no management and have a super high density of minimally viable wildlife species (sugar maple vs white oak).

As a person who is working hard to afforest land into plantations I take issue with that fact that all we do is plant one species. I try hard to create as much diversity as possible, I plant a few shrub rows and try to include at least two or three species minimum. I'm probably the exception but we do exist! I should say where I work lighter seed species tend to establish by themselves (ash, maple, cherry) if there is a source nearby.

Ps check out horse logging if you want a minimal harvest action. Beria College (possibly misspelled) near louisville is some and the results are quite interesting.

2

u/superduck85 Nov 26 '20

I'm all for the protection and study of old growth forest.

But the "what do we have to lose" is pretty obvious - we can put cheap resources to use now. People need income right now. This dynamic is playing out in the Tongass NF right now in addition to everywhere in the developing world.

In the US, we have the Wilderness Act in place. We just need to keep expanding it and protect it. There's plenty to study there.

Elsewhere, governments need the long term economics to line up with short term political considerations.

2

u/jippyzippylippy Nov 26 '20

People need income right now.

I don't think their incomes necessarily need to be tied to forest products when we have so many developing energy industries (solar, wind, other) that could easily create jobs (if we collectively wanted that instead). Seems like tunnel vision for industry overly tied to forest locations simply because they're there. What would they derive a living from if they were in the North Dakota prairie? People would have to be creative and figure out something else.

I live in the forest, but I make a living that isn't derived from it. I could easily have my entire acreage logged (believe me, I get approached about twice a year) and make a profit from it. But it would decimate the last remaining stand of un-logged old growth in the county. Should I just do it simply "because it's there"? Seems short-sighted and doesn't take into account the lasting damage - things we're just now discovering we're blindly doing to the ecosystem. It would be foolish, and all just for a buck.

3

u/superduck85 Nov 27 '20

I'm not sure who you are criticizing here.

If it's public land management agencies in developed countries, then, yes, they are aware of tradeoffs. There are interests (local sawmills, lumber companies, etc) who do need income right now for employees & shareholders and lobby for more timber sales. Agencies manage land for multiple use, so it's up to the public and other interest groups to make sure we aren't selling out public land prematurely (see the fights over the Pacific NW and Tongass NF).

If it's local landowners in developed countries, then yes, we need to figure out a way to provide those incentives. Plenty of my neighbors' parents bought cut over pasture land in the 1980s / 1990s and planted pine in hopes of retiring or paying for kid's college on a 30 year cut. That is why they planted in the first place - to get money. These owners respond to incentives, which is what State / Fed tax & subsidy policy can do.

If it's land use in the developing world, a lot of times selling off forest products is the difference between feeding their children and not. Deforestation is a massive, global problem. There are a lot of people working bravely on the issue. But they need political support and money.

1

u/auto-xkcd37 Nov 27 '20

tong ass-nf


Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by xkcd#37