Blog Archives

TREES OF LIFE UPDATE!

10/24/2018

We just posted a new video that was produced by PBS out of Harrisonburg, Virginia. The video is now on this website and youtube. It is a brief interview to call attention to the need for changing the way we manage our remaining forestlands. The number of page reviews the blog has been getting has been encouraging and has given us the interest to continue our efforts to communicate our concerns. We are grateful for your support and hope you will help spread the word. It was suggested that we consider publishing a children's book to help reach our youth. We decided to undertake this task and are working on a book entitled, "I am Just a Tree". The book will focus on the elements trees contribute to the sustenance of life on Mother Earth.
We have a meeting this week with the video producer, to discuss other options for advancing our communications efforts. If you have any thoughts or ideas, please contact us. I am sure you were aware, we considered working with a film company that has been producing documentaries for worldwide distribution. The company thought the topic worthy of a one hour documentary entitled, 'Tree of Life", however we would require financial support of about $200,000. It is still an option, if we could find the support that is necessary. Again, please share you ideas!

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October 21st, 2018

10/21/2018

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                                 MANAGEMENT FOR THE FUTURE PART II
    First, I must admit, I am primarily focusing on public forest lands. Individuals and corporations that own forested lands, obviously, have the right to manage to meet their goals, which will obviously focus on profitability. This is the reason the management of public forested lands will become ever increasingly important, with the passing of time. Remember, we have already lost over half of the acres of forest cover that once occupied the land base of our planet and, the expanding world population will intensify the demand to clear forested acres for food, shelter and other human needs.
    Since the 1960’s, there has been a great deal of pressure, from folks that support the principles of “Preservation”, which has resulted in significant reductions in timber harvesting on the 193 million acres of National Forest System lands. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting we need to increase harvesting of forest wood products but, I believe it indicates a lack of management and degradation of forest community health. Shifting management responsibilities to nature is no longer an option. With our expanding population, proper management of our remaining public forestlands is essential but, requires major adjustments. I just cannot accept tree farming as a desirable management process for public lands, particularly when they almost always involve non-indigenous species. I am reminded of Peter Walenben’s book, “The Hidden Life of Trees”, where he describes how the social life of plant communities is destroyed when we domesticate plants by converting them to row-crops for the production of food. The same thing happens to trees when we grow them in nurseries, and plant them as row-crops in plantations. Forest management is certainly, much more than a simple agricultural process. Individual forest stands are complex living communities with a multitude of organisms, going about their daily duties required to support the relationships that sustain the many life systems on this planet.
    We recently made a trip to Michigan where we had the opportunity to observe acre after acre of non-indigenous plantations, visible from the inter-state highways through Ohio and Michigan. Most were Norway Pine, Austrian Pine, Scotch Pine or Colorado Blue Spruce. A few, I am sure, were planted for Christmas tree production and have out grown their use. Some were on private lands where they may be meeting the land owner’s goal but, the majority were on public lands following clear-cutting operations or regenerating abandoned agricultural lands. I was reminded of feelings I have had, when walking through these plantations, feelings of a dark dense enclosure where life has disappeared or is dying. Everything is in orderly rows, uniform size, deadly quite and I feel alone in a biological dessert.
   A couple weeks before our Michigan trip, we took a leisurely drive through southwestern Virginia and northwestern North Carolina where we were treated to a very different experience. Several people told stories about how their ancestors passed on pictures and tales of how the mountainsides were mined for the timber required for homes, farms and communities. Pictures from the 1800’s presented a devastating vision of the mountainsides nearly void of the larger hardwood trees that once existed. I call it the Extraction Period. The United States population was only 11% of our current population and the science of forestry was non-existent, so the barren land was ignored and nature was allowed to do the job of reforestation. Today, we observe second growth central hardwood stands of indigenous species exhibiting similar diversity to the original old growth. Since the physical site properties have not changed much and local seed sources were relied on, it is fortunate that today’s communities are very similar to the original forest communities. Yes, there is an occasional conifer plantation but, they are the exception not the rule. The major changes we did observe, were the increased population density and significant increase in the number of people living in the area. Our country has gone from 3.8 million in 1790 to 330 million today, and human impacts on the natural world, have grown to the point nature can no longer do the job without help. If our natural world is to continue to provide the life sustaining elements for our future, it will require human assistance which means proper management, far more intense than previously provided.
I see an exciting future for natural resource managers! Are we able and willing to accept the challenge? NATURE’S WAY requires reading the land, identifying the forest communities, preparing scientific management objectives, prescribing management treatments to encourage diversity and copying natures regeneration processes using local seed sources. To put it a different way, the ecological concerns and considerations must out weight the demand for what we can take from the forests. What path will we choose, spirituality and balance or materialism?

Natures Way

Humans Way

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October 03rd, 2018

10/3/2018

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   MANAGEMENT FOR THE FUTURE!

    Diversity, diversity, diversity! It is accomplished by recognizing and managing individual forest communities and using techniques that rely on local natural seed sources! Silviculture is the application of harvesting treatments designed to keep forest communities healthy and vigorous. Carl Schenek went to work for George W. Vanderbilt about 1895, to manage the 120,000-acre, Biltmore Estate near Ashville, North Carolina. In 1898, he started the Biltmore Forestry School which offered a one year-course focused on silvicultural theory. Basically, each silvicultural treatment is humanities way of applying a harvesting technique to copy various ways nature might re-establish vegetation, as the tree stands mature and individuals begin to die. I have previously discussed how forestry has been considered an agricultural process since Gifford Pinchot defined forestry in the 1890’s, and later became the first Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service in 1905. I have also presented my opinion that forestry is far more complex then a simple agricultural process, due to the complexity of the unique communities and the important elements provided by our natural world, which sustain life on our planet.
    About 1963, the U.S. Forest Service research branch published a report suggesting that even-aged management, using clear-cut harvesting techniques, would increase productivity and help provide a sustained flow of products from the remaining forested lands. I personally, remember some very heated discussions over the scientific support for this conclusion. I can confirm that timber harvesting was the driving goal of the Agency at the time, and I can confirm the recommendations by the research division were fully accepted and implemented. Even complex central and northern hardwood stands were to be managed using even-age principles. It was a bitter pill to swallow, as I believe it seriously limited the scientist in meeting site-specific objectives for individual communities and worked to accelerate the destruction of bio-diversity. Educated professional forest scientists need to be able to read the land and developing management objectives and treatments for individual forest communities, and they need a full tool box to accomplish these objectives. We simply cannot dictate treatment methods prior to establishing management objectives. The development of site-specific management objectives is where the public participation process must start, and we must realize our public forested lands are going to play an increasing role in providing the required elements from the natural world in the future.
   My life time of observation and experience has convinced me that even-aged management may be desirable in maximizing wood fiber production but, results in major destruction of critical bio-diversity and will have devastating effects on Earth’s life systems. Once again, I believe diversity is the single most important element that has been incorporated into the natural world and the complex story of “Creation”.
    Even-age management, clear-cutting, tree plantations and efforts to maximize wood fiber production, I believe, are humanities efforts to dominate and manipulate the natural world, and will eventually lead to disastrous results for life on our planet! The management philosophy that I call “Nature’s Way”, relies on first reading the land to identify the physical features that define a forest community, followed by a scientist establishment, with the public, of management objectives for the individual forest community. Once these objectives are defined and accepted, the scientist must have the flexibility to prescribe the proper treatment to accomplish the objectives and must exercise close over-sight of the implementation process. The over-riding goal must be to maintain or improve diversity and health of the treatment area, which usually will involve natural regeneration by local seed sources. If Nature can do it, we can to! I have seen Nature’s Way and it is far better than Human’s Way!

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