Public Inputs on Preliminary Question HLTH-1503

assessment of sustainability of our forests

Southern Forest Resource Assessment

Below is the original wording of one of the preliminary questions and public suggestions or concerns submitted about it--for details see our Public Input or Methods pages

"What factors (insects, disease, fire exclusion, environmental stressors) have and could continue to influence the overall health of the South's forests?"

Once a threatening tree feeding pest encounters a monoculture forest, they multiply quickly and consequently weaken the health of these forests.
How do short cutting cycles impact soil?
Are pine plantations more susceptible to disease outbreaks? What are the potential consequences of such an outbreak? How does intensive pine management impact the composition of soil (microorganisms and nutrients)?
Herbicides and fertilizers are used with increasing intensity in modern pine plantations. The effects have not been properly studies.
What is the effect of herbicide and fertilizer use on ecology of forests? What the state of knowledge of the toxicity of these chemicals? What types of forest use the most herbicides and fertilizers? How has herbicide and fertilizer use changed over time? How is it predicted to change in the future? How does herbicide use effect the availability of food? How does the use of herbicides affect available cover? Are herbicides getting in streams? If so, how does it affect stream life? Are they getting into residential drinking water? Is fertilizer use causing eutrophication? Are other wetlands being impacted? What animals are at particular risk?
In determining what factors have and could continue to influence the overall health of the South's forests, the Assessment should include positive factors, or those that could contribute to health improvement, not just negative factors. Forest management, for example, has been shown to result in improved overall forest health, reduction in the spread of insect attack, and improved vigor of managed stands. Prescribed fire has also been shown to reduce the threat of wildfire and improve wildlife habitat.
Impacts due to air pollution. SPB is a natural disturbance and successional factor which the FS refuses to allow to play its aural role. Too frequent burning is destroying the biological diversity of the Loblolly Pine and hardwood forest. The FS has never researched and determined what the natural disturbance acreage is for SHNF in an average year. The FS needs to do this and then manage to take advantage of natural disturbances so a shifting mosaic with functioning ecological processes is created.
Overlogging is the biggest stressor in SHNF, Sabine, and Angelina NF last year. Important habitats were logged, streamside areas were violated snags and coarse woody debris were destroyed, and soil disturbance was high.
Monitor pollution hotspots over time. Monitor distributional changes relative to climatic change.
Monitor sites both with and without perceived problems.
Climate Change information--local rainfall, local temperatures, hydrology/water levels, relative humidity.
What is the quality of the air for human consumption in urban settings, streets and highways, new home and shopping center developments, agricultural and forest would be of interest. What species and groupings and ages of trees are best suited to give humans the highest quantity of oxygen. Are managed timberlands more or less beneficial to providing good quality air and water for human consumption as compared to unmanaged woodlands?
Include explicitly the biggest environmental stressor of all, timber harvest. It is unbelievable that nowhere in the set of preliminary assessment questions is logging explicitly mentioned as a factor that impacts forest sustainability. It is even absent from the Timber Markets category. How have commercial clearcutting and other types of logging adversely affected forest ecosystems, terrestrial and aquatic community structure and health, water quality, and biodiversity?
The planning process indicates that forest health and productivity varies significantly by land ownership. Poor forest health is one of the major resource management challenges facing forest managers across the South. Assessment should identify how forest management can help maintain and improve the overall health and productivity, and thus reduce the spread of insects and diseases to adjacent forest lands.
How should "harvesting" levels be limited given the serious decline of the health of our forests? We are loosing our forests to air pollution. I think this should be the number one factor in any evaluation of the sustainability of our forests.
The trend toward fire elimination should be reversed.
Given the interdependence of species, maintain some organisms that were once considered pests (fungi and insects, for example) because they are essential to maintaining healthy ecosystem function.
What factors (insects, disease, fire exclusion, environmental stressors, silvicultural practices) have influence, and could continue to influence the ecological sustainability of forest ecosystems?
Active forest management can improve forest health and increase productivity of southern forests.
The RPA planning process indicates that forest health and productivity varies significantly by land ownership. The Southern Assessment should identify how forest management can help maintain and improve the overall health and productivity, and thus reduce the spread of insects and diseases (Southern Pine Beetle) to adjacent forest lands.
Assessment should investigate the improvements made in the detection of wildfires, bug infestations and forest diseases. Assessment should document the annual amount of forestland protected and saved through the use of silvicultural techniques, pesticides and other practices to stop or prevent infestations. "Natural" forest ecosystems, such as Wilderness and forest set-asides, usually must combat insect and disease outbreaks without intervention by man. The Assessment should document some of these cases in order to highlight the trade-off between active and passive management scenarios. In addition, the Assessment should examine the growing problem of exotic plants and animals and their affect on southern forest ecosystems.
Identify how forest management can help maintain and improve the over-all health and productivity, and thus reduce the spread of insects and diseases.
Only active forest management can improve forest health and raise the level of Southern Forests productivity. Without active participation in the management of areas that develop problems whether it be insects, disease or fire hazard, the state of our forest will only decline
What is the present health of the various forest ecosystems, and considering present trends, what is the likely future in 20, 50 and 100 years? There are at least five major categories of influence to consider: 1) Development--population growth and shifts, roads, urban sprawl etc.; 2) Climate trends and changes, whether influenced by humans or not; 3) Pollutant loading, doubtless linked with categories1) and 2); 4) Exotic and invasive organisms; 5) Human "forest management" practices for timber production.
The health of the forest and the diversity of the ecosystems need to be considered, as the acreage of pine farms increase, cutting cycles decrease, the use of pesticides, herbicides, fire suppression, clearcutting, off road vehicles and the effect of ozone increase, and the percentage of hardwoods decrease.
I strongly recommend a thorough investigation of the potential impacts of global warming on our forests, to measure and document changes as they occur, and to research types of forestry management practices which could help mitigate the process of climate change, and provide an overview of resources and information available on those findings.
The frequency and scale of today's clearcutting, along with the vast clearings of modern civilization--highways, malls, cities--are magnitudes greater than those made by nature hundreds of years ago. Today forests face unprecedented stresses.
A complex of parasitic wasps is important natural predators of southern pine bark beetles. These wasps depend on the nectar of certain flowers for food. When human management practices change the forest structure so that these flowers are diminished in numbers, the wasps disappear and the pine beetles flourish.
Potential pests are limited naturally in diverse ecosystems by the high cost (in time and energy) of locating suitable resources.
Perhaps the most profound effects of global climate change will be on the disturbance regimes--frequency, intensity, scale and locale--of droughts, wind and rainstorms, and outbreaks of pests and pathogens. Pollutant loadings of all types, including photoxidants, ozone, acid precipitation, and heavy metals, are increasing. Such pollutants typically behave in concert (synergistically), further accentuating their impact on productivity. Reduced growth, reduced reproduction, and increased mortality due either to increased susceptibility to pests or pathogens or direct induction of disease, are typical at intermediate pollutant dosages, such as occur in Tennessee. Highly elevated levels of mortality and complete elimination of species may result from high dosages.
What changes in forest communities are occurring in response to natural processes or human caused disturbance? How is the health of Tennessee's forests being affected by exotic pests? How is past and current management affecting the health and integrity of forest communities? Factors such as increased carbon dioxide levels and airborne concentrations of ozone and sulfates, sulfur and nitrogen oxides; and the deposition of sulfates, nitrates and ammonia should be considered in the broader context as stress-inducing agents to the forest.
Is there any evidence that clearcutting may be harmful to the long term health of the forest? Have studies been made comparing forest health in clearcut tracts against forests in other cutting regimes? Do mature, mixed age forests tend to be more or less susceptible to drought, pests and pathogens than those under even aged management? How critical are the effects of clearcutting on earthworms, other invertebrates, ants, fungi and bacteria involved in nutrient cycling, seed dispersal and to long term soil fertility? How important are these biota to the health of the forest ecosystem?
Is it possible that in wholesale logging practices, such as pine plantations and large clearcuts, forests are losing some measure of natural protection from disease?
Extreme changes can jeopardize the continuing ability of forests to meet basic needs for material products such as wood, clean water and clean air. What are the limits of our forests, not just in best case of a rosy future, but considering that there are many current and potential problems in forest management? Including global climate change, whether human induced or not, pollutant loadings-including photoxidants, ozone, acid precipitation, heavy metals and other toxins, unprecedented mobility of pests and pathogens, changes in species composition, soil compaction from industrial logging and loss of soil nutrients, synergistic fungi and anthropod populations, tree species, understory ad soil biodiversity.
Ecological Services.
Does the technology exist to create man made facilities to provide basic processes to create clean air and water, carbon cycling, and other ecological and meteorological tempering dynamics. What would it take to secure the long-term provision of these processes through the natural processes of forested lands? What are the costs?
Soil assessments should be incorporated as well.
What are the projected effects on soil fertility? Will there be a growing vulnerability to disease and pests as forests lose their biodiversity and biological vigor in favor of economic simplication? What are the projected effects of climate change when the landscape changes now underway are factored in? Are southern forests now a net carbon source because of harvest levels? What are the ecological implications of reforestation plans that focus on young fast-growing tree farms that can take up carbon quickly? What are the combined effects of projected climate change and continuation or acceleration of the demand pressures currently being put on southern forests.
What are factors through which, and degree to which, increased forest clearance facilitates spread of invasive species and exotic pests?
I am growingly concerned about the state of our air and water.
What is the impact of forest health on climate and climatic changes? Will biological points of view be considered in determining forest health?
The effect of deforestation and various timber management regimes on temperature control (i.e. global warming, carbon sequestration, and the like).
The effects of intensive clearcutting and widespread replacement of native stands with monoculture on the biological health and vigor of forests, in particular on their ability to adapt to projected climatic changes and future pest infestations.
How successful are attempts to sow or revegetate soils after road building or harvesting? Are these generally infertile soils suited to tree plantation agriculture in terms of initial and multi-generational loss or gain in fertility, and erosion? Soil depth, soil fertility, nutrients and biology should be measured in native hardwood forests and compared to pine plantation soil after 1, 2, and 3 harvest rotations.
Are soils suited to clearcutting and hardwood regeneration in terms of initial and multigenerational loss or gain in fertility and erosion? Locate relativity old hardwood forests and compare the soil depth, fertility, nutrients, and biology to soils in hardwood forests that have been clearcut several times and left to regenerate naturally.
What is the long term effect on the soils of using heavy equipment to harvest the forests? Determine compaction and erosion on roads, skidder trails, log landings, and harvest sites that have been harvested with various types of heavy equipment 1,2,3….10 years ago. Determine how much soil loss has occurred because of the failure of these sites to revegetate absorb water.
How important will intact forests become to stabilizing and protecting water quality and volume in the future if current weather changes (warming) and fluctuations continue?
What is the water percolation rates of soils (after heavy rains) in natural stands, vs. regenerated stands where the soil had be sub soiled prior to planting.
What is the rate of carbon sequestration by 10 yr. Old stands of plantations vs. carbon sequestration rates of mature forest stands?
Include invasive exotic species (not just pathogens) in the list of factors considered.
What are the effects of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizing, fire exclusion, on the forest's overall health?
How much of the invasive disease and pest problem is the result of the irresponsible logging and fires suppression practices used in our forests? Which practice destroys more watershed, aquatic/riparian ecosystem: Logging or Grazing?
Intact forests provide environmental amenities that do not currently carry market values, but which we must understand and preserve (like water purification, erosion prevention, and air filtering). I would like to see your study evaluate the extent to which these environmental benefits are being compromised.
Project under various demand scenarios how many acres of native forest will be converted to agricultural tree plantations and the effect of intensive harvest on soil fertility and productivity. Look at the effect of increased fertilization, pesticides, and herbicides required for intensive forest management on aquatic and terrestrial species as well as human health. What factors (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, fire exclusion, human stressors such as clearcutting, off-road vehicles, and human produced pollution like ozone, etc.) have and could continue to influence the overall health of the South's forests?
What effects acid precipitation and ozone are having on South’s forests and their productivity (tree growth)?
Forests are essential for recreation, clean air & water, and responsibly harvested wood.
What will the effect be of increased chemical fertilization, pesticides and herbicides required for intensive forest management on aquatic and terrestrial species, as well as human health. How will these practices effect the overall health of the Souths forests?
Soil ecosystems are virtually ignored in industrial forestry practices. Soils, treated as dirt, are subject to total canopy removal, loss of buffering acidification capacity, destruction of symbiotic michorhizal fungi communities, loss of decomposer arthropod species, increased heat, dryness, and ultraviolet radiation, increased sheet and wind erosion, compaction and subject to increasing toxicity from aluminum. Please address how many times this can occur to forests before there is irreversible damage.
Discussions of forest soils invariable focus on 5 macro-nutrients. Please address the fate of the dozens of other nutrients contained in forest soils that support the plant life and forest community as a whole. How are these other nutrients affected by the assaults mentioned above? How will these nutrients be re-established when washed out consumed by taken biomass, fried, or blown away on the winds?
Please address the conditions that would contribute to the greatest loss of nutrients off-site from clearcuts. Is the time of year, amount of biomass removal or rainfall amounts the largest variable? What conditions that contribute to nutrients flushing would have the greatest overall effects on both site quality of soils and water quality? What are the optimum conditions and optimum least damage forest practices needed to minimize loss of nutrients and soil health.
Please address the causes of Waldsterben, the widespread forest death of Europe and western asia and the potential for such a decline in forest health on a landscape scale here. How many plant species are now suffering significant damage from ozone, acid and other factors in the Great Smokey Mountains? At what altitude is acid/ozone induced forest damage occuring in the southeast's forests? Has the damage ocured substantially below 3000 feet ASL? If not how long before we might expect to see damage to other forests species at lower elevations.
How much can various forest types throughout the southeast be simplified before they become more susceptable to increased disease and pestilence infestations? Address the role of ecosystem diversity in maintaining ecosystem health and resiliency, Can pine farms/deserts be sustained without pesticide inputs to control pine beetles that prey on those simplified systems?
How do pine farms clean air compared to native forests? How much native forest cover can we sacrifice before air quality decline becomes even more noticable than it already is?
How much forest acreage in the study area is affected by invasive plants like honeysuckle, Chinese privit, English ivy, kudzu, an other understory and forest displacing exotics?
The Tennessee River (AKA the Scenic Sewer of the South) has serious problems with nutrient overloads like the 60 million gallon per day sewage discharge coming out of the Moccasin Bend Sewage Treatment Sphincter. How have the Tenn-Tom, Black Warrior, Tombigbee rivers changed in nutrient levels, herbicide levels, turbidity, and siltation.
Please include the findings on soil acidification increasing 38% in just 3 decades, done by researchers at the University of Georgia School of Forest Resources, Duke and North Carolina State.
Are the BE (Biomass Energy) crops that actually fix nitrogen in soils and improve soil health, tilth, fertility and productivity. What BE energy crops could be grown in perpetuity (sustainably) on CRP lands? Since, as a nation, we've lost approximately half of the topsoil present before we broke ground, how are topsoil loss rates doing in this decade compared to previous decades? How do topsoil loss rates from SRWCs compare to other industrial agriculture practices? How do they compare to unmanaged native woodlands? How much time does it take for us to replace just one inch of living topsoil?
Include invasive exotic species (not just pathogens) in the list of factors considered
What is the water percolation rates of soils (after heavy rains) in natural stands, vs. regenerated stands where the soil had be sub-soiled prior to planting?
What is the rate of carbon sequestration by 10 yr. old stands of plantations vs. carbon sequestration rates of mature forest stands?
What are the effects of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizing, fire exclusion, on the orest's overall health?
How much of the invasive disease and pest problem is the result of the irresponsible logging and fire suppression practices used in our forests?
My most immediate concern is the cumulative impacts of chip mills on the forest environment; maintaining diversity of trees and other vegetation in forested lands and impacts to wildlife habitat. Also, the history of chip/pulp mills to extract all commercially viable wood products from large and/or expanding source area then move on to other areas.
Human greed and ignorance, global warming, acid rain, urban sprawl, and lack of consideration for the health of the ecosphere are the most critical factor.
Examine forest health by balance of native species, ages, (what pops. are declining and exploding, their implication for forest health.)
How do varying forest types sequester or produce carbon? Air implications.
Socio-economics. What implications tax policies and various landowner incentives have on forest ownerships and management approaches? How do these effects translate to the community at large?
How might forests change with eroding private property rights over the long-term?
Landowners adjacent to intensively managed land, what are their rights?
To the extent that the study evaluations sustainability, the definitions, criteria and indicators need to have input from the public.
Loss of prescribed burning due to burns in state adversely affects biodiversity and certain species dependent on it.
How does forest health compare in wilderness-like forests vs. actively managed forests?
Is prescribed burning being done in some ecosystems to the detriment of those systems?
Be certain to factor in ownership patterns when evaluating insect and disease control, fire, etc.
Be certain to understand the implications of management actions of one landowner on others. (Southern Pine Beetle Control on NFG and effects on adjacent forests).
Education of landowners can help to keep effects of these factors as positive as possible and minimize negative effects.
What effect will increasing use of herbicides have on the overall health of the forests?
Control burning is an important factor.
Ownership – public lands vs. private lands handled differently.
Eco-region analysis – never been done before.
Availability: landowner attitudes – survey.
Physical availabilities – What is industry answer to availability? Urban-rural interface.
What are estate tax lows/policies (arising in land fragmentation)?
What are the things the public wants – (1) wildlife, (2) recreation?
Fire exclusion – prescribed fire – what are cost benefit ratios?
Pesticides – water quality – watersheds that deal with issues.
Insect and disease controls will need closer monitoring. Fire and controlled burns need to be brought back into the management equation. Environmental stresses like air and water pollution will increase the severity and frequency of storm events will probably increase causing more and more problems.
Past logging practices have had severe impacts on soils in the western North Carolina Mountains. Why is the timbered areas and tree growth continued to grow and improve since this severe logging of the past? Is it because trees are renewable and mother earth can and will continue to heal her?
Management vs. non-management on insects, diseases, fire exclusions, universal stressors (active vs. passive management).
How is the use of chemicals (in lieu of fire) going to affect the forest? Positive or negative?
How is taxation going to affect ownership patterns in health of forests?
How is monoculture going to be affected? How is wildlife going to be affected?
How are experiments and research improving the health of the forests?
How does urban encroachment affect forest health? (Urban use should be added as a stressor.)
Are the stressors manageable or irreversible?

Question as revised in response to these comments
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modified: 1-MAR-2000
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