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 conditions will be needed to sustain plant and animal habitat associations in the South?"
  1. Recent research shows that a corridor system, natural areas left between intensively managed forest stands, attracts over 100 species of breeding birds. Research shows that overall small mammal abundance is not affected by timber harvesting. In herptofauna (reptiles and amphibians) studies in South Carolina, 61 out of 63 coastal plain species use intensively managed forest landscapes.
  2. What animals utilize woody debris? To what degree does woody debris help control erosion and nutrient cycling?
  3. The amount of lands which are in forest but are not available to provide our nations wood supply (parks, greenways, refuges, etc) should be broken out into a separate category.
  4. The Assessment should use caution defining "conditions…needed to sustain plant and animal habitat association." It should recognize the dynamic nature of healthy plant and animal habitats. The idea of a "balance of nature" is a myth. New scientific evidence suggests healthy ecosystems thrive on change. The Assessment, therefore, should not assume the existence of some ideal static conditions needed to sustain plant and animal habitats. Also, the Assessment should recognize forest lands that are already engaged in habitat programs, such as the State Natural Heritage Programs, the SFI Special Places Program, formal agreements and Memorandums of Understanding between large forest landowners and government agencies and nonprofit organizations to conserve habitats for endangered, threatened and nonthreatened plants and animals.
  5. The second question in the Landscapes/Terrestrial Ecosystems section should include plant communities (Wildlife Habitat). Many of the Landscape scaled ecosystems have size requirements, in terms of viability, for the community and the wildlife dependant on that community, (e.g. Carolina Flying Squirrel).
  6. What long term plans or management conditions are needed to maintain the current biodiversity of the forest? How can this be balanced with recreational and timber product demands?
  7. Conditions needed to sustain plant and animal habitat associations is obvious, old growth with its matrix of disturbance affected areas. Natural disturbances should be allowed to play their natural ecosystem process functions. These natural disturbances are signs of a healthy forest, not a sick one. The provide the matrix of mature forest with patches of younger forest and diversity of plants and animals. We need coarse woody debris (large diameter), snags (large diameter), den trees (large diameter), multi-storied canopy (herbaceous layer, grass layer, shrub layer, understory layer, midstory layer, overstory layer), untouched reparian zones (ephemeral, intermittent, and perennial streams) that are wide and act as corridors, other wildlife corridors, protection of seepage areas, wetlands, shorelines, bottomlands, flatwoods, and protection of native grasslands that occur as inclusions like the blackland prairie that is found in SHNF.
  8. Identify regional corridors and reserves, evaluate benefits of these areas to herpetofauna and evaluate threats to these areas.
  9. Evaluate habitat threats across existing preserve boundaries. Monitor distribution and continuity of habitat and impacts on herpetofauna.
  10. Consider the cists that would materialize if forest-management decisions should lead to catastrophic outcomes, such as a marked increase in flooding or in the risk of a species' extinction.
  11. What is the ideal carry capacity of each of these associations, how may they be intermingled without conflict, ad what limits to growth should be placed on these associations?
  12. At what scale should wildlife habitat types and plant and animal habitat associations be delineated for the purposes of sustaining ecosystems and diversity?
  13. Assessment should document the acreage in State Natural Heritage Programs, the SFI Special Places Program, Fish and Wildlife Service Refuges, state and national parks, private conservation areas, etc. These reserved areas provide important habitats for species of special concern.
  14. Moreover, we suggest that the baseline used to determine future sustainability include lost or degraded habitats that could be restored, as well as currently existing forested acreage. We are particularly concerned about the preservation of large, contiguous tracts of late-successional natural forest linked by forested corridors.
  15. Accord special consideration to the protection of sensitive areas and important habitat thereby reversing the trend towards an increasing number of threatened and endangered species.
  16. What conditions will be needed to promote ecologically sustainable ecosystems incorporating the plant and animal habitat associations that they contained at the time of European settlement.
  17. What conditions will be needed to sustain the plant and animal habitats uniquely associated with the longleaf pine ecosystem?
  18. The Assessment should document the acreage in State Natural Heritage Programs, the SFI Special Places Program, Fish and Wildlife Refuges, state and national parks and private conservation areas. It should also look at areas set aside within National Forests and other public lands.
  19. The Southern Assessment should recognize and document the acreage in State Natural Heritage Programs, the SFI Special Places Program, Fish and Wildlife Service Refuges, state and national parks, private conservation areas, etc.
  20. The Assessment should document the dependence of many forest species on disturbance. In addition, the Assessment should report the relationship between many species and the presence of early successional stages of forest development.
  21. Though there is great concern by some individuals and non-governmental agencies that the southern landscape is loosing "old growth" forests, there appears to be little evidence that there are species obligated to old growth southern pine, mixed pine-hardwood habitats. The Assessment should critically assess the needs of threatened and endangered species to determine actual habitat and management needs.
  22. Include documentation of State Natural Heritage programs, Sustainable Forestry Initiative program, fish and wildlife refuges, state and national parks, private conservation areas, etc. These areas provide habitat for wildlife and plants.
  23. What conditions are required to sustain plant and animal habitat associations in the South?
  24. You should examine and document the acreage set aside in state natural heritage programs, the SFI Special Places program, US Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, state and national parks, and private conservation areas, etc. These areas provide important habitats for species of special concern.
  25. What habitat changes will occur and what conditions will be needed to restore and sustain species on public and private land, and what incentives exist or could be created to encourage the restoration of species?
  26. In the first year after clearcutting, there is a drastic reduction in total numbers of birds and a nearly complete turnover in species. Neotropical migratory songbirds, such as the warbler and wood thrush, depend on interior forest ecosystems for their survival.
  27. Studies of salamanders have confirmed that dramatic changes result from even small clearcuts. Soil moisture is altered. Full exposure to sunlight kills certain soil biota, earthworms, flora and microflora that have developed over generations in symbiosis with the forest. Scientists now realize that the ubiquitous subsoil fungi are essential for the daily survival of higher plants. Countless fungal filaments are in close symbiosis with plant roots, making essential minerals available, without which the plants would perish.
  28. An unexpected finding from the experiment, however, is the even large forest patches are less sturdy than might be imagined. The reason is the so called edge effect. Habitats deep in the forest enjoy a degree of protection from external perturbation, whereas those at the boundary between forest and grassland, for instance, are exposed to winds, dramatically varying microclimates over short distances, incursions by nonforest animals and human hunters, and other inimical circumstances. The result: species of animals and plants are vulnerable to extinction for as much as a half a mile into the forest. The edge effect is therefore important even for large tracts of forest. When an ecological community becomes isolated, through habitat fragmentation, the species most at risk are those which are least mobile, that is, the well adapted species. Trapped in isolated patches, these small local populations become vulnerable to occasional catastrophes such as disease, fires or a shortage of nutrients. One by one, the isolated populations become locally extinct, until eventually they disappear from very large regions or vanish completely in the slow march to oblivion. "Because extinctions occur generations after fragmentation, they are a debt that becomes due in the future."
  29. Some authorities claim that clearcutting is beneficial to wildlife. Others say that 1) only a few species such as deer and gamebirds are encouraged by clearcutting; 2) that many others, especially endangered ones do not fare well in clearcut environments, and 3) that five years after a clearcut, it becomes a brushy thicket, a "virtual desert for wildlife" for the next twenty-five years. Is it fair to say that clearcutting is beneficial for wildlife?
  30. Is there a point at which the cumulative effects of industrial cutting have adverse effects on certain species? Or on the entire southern ecosystem? Is it possible that today's actions--i.e. increasing areas of industrial harvesting--will have effects that will not be visible until 20, 30, or 50 years later?
  31. We believe that the most resolute conservation practices on all public lands would not be enough to ensure viable habitats that would sustain vigorous populations of native species in the future. We need well thought-out conservation plans that will include conservation easements on private lands to stem the tide of urban sprawl. We need far-sighted sustainable development planners in urban areas.
  32. If "sustainability" is to be used ecologically, then something like a "no net loss" of habitat types will have to be considered.
  33. Study should include wildlife impact from forest fragmentation through logging at many sites (i.e. increased edge effect and loss of interior forest), loss of habitat types (i.e. of distinct communities: hemlock groves, fir-spruce forest) and loss of mature (old growth) forest with its diversity/richness of understory and herbaceous vegetation.
  34. What conditions will be needed to restore and sustain species to their rightful and suitable habitats on public and private land?
  35. A determination of minimum species habitat, both in terms of quality and quantity, required for the long-term of healthy populations of existing fish and wildlife species, including habitat necessary foraging, reproduction, and migration. This information should be used to determine the amount of lands (acreage) that, in the absence of the implementation of constraints on the harvest of timber on private lands, needs to be incorporated within federal ownership (i.e. National Forests, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, Wilderness Areas, or other types of federal public lands) to ensure healthy populations of existing fish and wildlife.
  36. Because it is the vegetation which maintains nutrients in the soil it is important to assess how different types of foresting have on reducing the amounts of these important nutrients in the soil. If an area is clear-cut, how much soil, and important chemicals, like nitrogen, is lost to that area? What water systems will they go into? How long does it take for them to be replenished? How will the reduced amount of nutrients reduce future growth rates? And what effects does this have on the surrounding water sources, and populations?
  37. I think that forests are valuable in their natural states and efforts should be supported to increase natural areas. Keeping forests healthy is beneficial to our local economies, as well as our air and water qualities.
  38. The effects on habitat, native animals and native plants will almost always be negative, i.e., long-term population declines. We need a renewed commitment to land preservation through fee acquisition and other preservation methods; we need a new commitment to closing and revegetation roads; and we need a renewed commitment toward managing forests not to create and maintain more edge habitat, but for maintaining healthy populations of forest-interior species. Edge habitat may greatly benefit a few weedy species such as skunks and white-tailed deer, but area-sensitive species such as ovenbirds and wood thrushes need large, unbroken blocks of habitat. Expanding urbanization and its associated road-building and strip malls will only hurt native animals.
  39. Areas of exceptional beauty such as glades with a tumbling trout stream or with exceptional flora should be spared for the public's enjoyment.
  40. Areas of excetional watershed and or aquifier value should not be cut in any way.
  41. What conditions will be needed to restore and sustain species to their rightful and suitable habitats on public and private land?
  42. The federal government should acquire more land.
  43. True sustainability can only be measured when all of the facts are measured accurately. I know that the factory forestry industry is exerting tremendous financial pressures on your department and it's scientists. Design a study that will expose the waste and the mining of resources to the detriment of our grandchildren.
  44. What are the impacts of loss of mast production on deer populations who then must eat woody browse affecting regeneration of hardwoods. What are the impacts of the loss of understory diversity on browse demands of deer and other species. Is the problem of deer browse on seedlings even greater because of ecosystem simplification? What is the cumulative regional impact of declining age classes of hard mast producing species on wildlife populations?
  45. Because it is the vegatation which maitains he nutrients in the soil it is important to asess how different types of foresting have on reducing the amounts of these important nutrients in the soil. If an area is clear cut, how much soil, and important chemicals, like nitrogen, are lost to that area? What water systems will they go into? How long does it take for them to be replenished? How will the reduced amount of nutrients reduce future growth rates? And what effects does this have on the surrounding water sources, and populstions? Obviously selective foresting is a much better option that clear cutting that allows for this type of dedragation.
  46. Many of the best scientiscts are working on these issues. I see the best way to ensure healthy genetic exchange is to create core wilderness areas surrounded with graded buffer zones(graded least intensive use to most as you move away from the cores). Along with substantial cores, we need then to create corridors based on ecological not political boundaries. The South has the potential to be on the cutting edge of sustainable forestry practices but the way we see profit must change to recognize the true cost of continuing with the destructive methods currently in use - destructive to the people and the biotic communities to which they belong.
  47. As land is taken out of production to be conserved, is there any measure of how many acres are affected? What are the impacts of this shift? Are any invertebrates listed for examination or consideration?
  48. Is the number of state natural areas and timber industry special areas decreasing or increasing? Will the assessment team be looking at this?
  49. Number of acres owned by protection groups such as TNC, state Heritage agencies and their objectives.
  50. Document acres of land that are set aside as natural area. Show a picture – GIS.
  51. Critical habitat designations of T&E species - how does it fit into forest scenario?
  52. Examine impact of tax law on fragmentation.
  53. Can the number of acres that are being conserved be determined in order to look at the affect on future harvests?
  54. Number of acres set aside for rare/endangered species.
  55. Management of all natural resources is negatively affected by an increase in the human population.
  56. Effects of easements and legacy programs to connect public and private lands for a more contiguous ecosystem.

red oak leaf as separator

Question as revised in response to these comments

Previous Question | Next Question

Public Input Home | Methods | Assessment Home

 
  modified: 1-MAR-2000
  webmaster: John M. Pye