Forest and Wildlife Management

Chapter 12: Landscapes: Forests, Parks and Wilderness

Botkin, D. B., & Keller, E. A. (2014). Environmental science: Earth as a living planet (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

12.1 Forests

How People Have Viewed Forests

Forests have always been important to people; indeed, for- ests and civilization have always been closely linked. Since the earliest civilizations—in fact, since some of the earliest human cultures—wood has been one of the major build- ing materials and the most readily available and widely used fuel. Forests provided materials for the first boats and the first wagons. Even today, nearly half the people in the world depend on wood for cooking, and in many devel- oping nations wood remains the primary heating fuel.2

At the same time, people have appreciated forests for spiritual and aesthetic reasons. There is a long history of sacred forest groves. When Julius Caesar was trying to conquer the Gauls in what is now southern France, he found the enemy difficult to defeat on the battlefield, so he burned the society’s sacred groves to demoralize them— an early example of psychological warfare. In the Pacific Northwest, the great forests of Douglas fir provided the In- dians with many practical necessities of life, from housing to boats, but they were also important to them spiritually.

Today, forests continue to benefit people and the en- vironment indirectly through what we call public-service functions. Forests retard erosion and moderate the avail- ability of water, improving the water supply from major watersheds to cities. Forests are habitats for endangered species and other wildlife. They are important for recre- ation, including hiking, hunting, and bird and wildlife viewing. At regional and global levels, forests may also be significant factors affecting the climate.

12.2 Forestry

Forestry has a long history as a profession. The professional growing of trees is called silviculture (from silvus, Latin for “forest,” and cultura, for “cultivate”). People have long practiced silviculture, much as they have grown crops, but forestry developed into a science- based activity and into what we today consider a pro- fession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first modern U.S. professional forestry school was es- tablished at Yale University around the turn of the 20th century, spurred by growing concerns about the deple- tion of America’s living resources. In the early days of the 20th century, the goal of silviculture was generally to maximize the yield in the harvest of a single resource. The ecosystem was a minor concern, as were nontarget, noncommercial species and associated wildlife.

In this chapter, we approach forestry as professionals who make careful use of science and whose goals are the conservation and preservation of forests and the sustainabili- ty of timber harvest and of forest ecosystems. Unfortunately, these goals sometimes conflict with the goals of others.

Modern Conflicts over Forestland and Forest Resources

What is the primary purpose of national forests? A nation- al source of timber? The conservation of living resources? Recreation?

How should we handle forest fires? How can we and should we restore forests?

Who should own and manage our forests and their resources? The people? Corporations? Government agencies?

In the past quarter century a revolution has taken place as to who owns America’s forests, and this has ma- jor implications for how, and how well, our forests will be managed, conserved, sustained, and used in the fu- ture. In 1981, there were 15 major forest products com- panies that both owned forestland and processed timber into commercial products. By 2010 all but one had soldoff its forestland, focusing on processing timber grown elsewhere.3

The state of Maine illustrates the change. About 80% of forestland owned by industrial forest companies was sold in that state between 1994 and 2000. Most of it (60%) was purchased by timber investment management organizations (TIMOs). The rest was sold to nongovern- ment entities, primarily conservation and environmental organizations.

Industrial forest companies, such as International Paper and Weyerhaeuser, owned the forestland, harvested the timber and planned how to do it, and made prod- ucts from it. They employed professional foresters, and the assumption within the forest industry was that the profession of forestry and the science on which it was based played an important role in improving harvests and maintaining the land. Although the practices of timber companies were often heavily criticized by environmental groups, both sides shared a belief in sound management of forests, and in the 1980s and 1990s the two sides made many attempts to work together to improve forest ecosys- tem sustainability.

In contrast, TIMOs are primarily financial inves- tors who view forestland as an opportunity to profit by buying and selling timber. It is unclear how much sound forestry will be practiced on TIMO-owned land, but there is less emphasis on professional forestry and forest science,4 and far fewer professional foresters have been employed. The danger is that forestland viewed only as a commercial commodity will be harvested and abandoned once the resource is used. If this happens, it will be the exact opposite of what most people involved in forestry, both in the industry and in conservation groups, hoped for and thought was possible throughout the 20th century.

Meanwhile, funding for forest research by the U.S. Forest Service has also been reduced. Our national forests, part of our national heritage, may also be less well man- aged and therefore less well conserved in the future.

How could this have come about? It is an ironic re- sult of political and ideological activities. Ultimately, the conflict between industrial forestry and environmental conservation seems to have led timberland owners to de- cide it was less bothersome and less costly to just sell off forestland, buy wood from whomever owned it, and let them deal with the consequences of land use. Consistent with this rationale, much forest ownership by organiza- tions in the United States has moved offshore, to places with fewer environmental constraints and fewer and less powerful environmental groups. This change should be all the more worrisome to those interested in environmental conservation because it has happened without much pub- licity and is relatively little known by the general public except where forestry is a major livelihood, as it is in the state of Maine.

In sum, then, modern conflicts about forests center on the following questions:

Should a forest be used only as a resource to provide materials for people and civilization, or should a forest be used only to conserve natural ecosystems and biological diversity (see Figure 12.2), including specific endangered species?

Can a forest serve some of both of these functions at the same time and in the same place?

Can a forest be managed sustainably for either use? If so, how?

What role do forests play in our global environment, such as climate?

When are forests habitats for specific endangered species?

When and where do we need to conserve forests for our water supply?

12.3 World Forest Area and global Production and Consumption of Forest Resources

At the beginning of the 21st century, approximately 26% of Earth’s surface was forested—about 3.8 billion hectares (15 million square miles) (Figure 12.3).2 This works out to about 0.6 hectare (about 1 acre) per person. The forest area is up from 3.45 billion hectares (13.1 million square miles, or 23% of the land area) estimated in 1990, but down from 4 billion hectares (15.2 million square miles, or 27%) in 1980.

Countries differ greatly in their forest resources, de- pending on the suitability of their land and climate for tree growth and on their history of land use and deforesta- tion. Ten nations have two-thirds of the world’s forests. In descending order, these are the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States, China, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Angola, and Peru (Figure 12.4).

Developed countries account for 70% of the world’s total production and consumption of industrial wood products; developing countries produce and con- sume about 90% of wood used as firewood. Timber for construction, pulp, and paper makes up approximate- ly 90% of the world timber trade; the rest consists of hardwoods used for furniture, such as teak, mahogany, oak, and maple. North America is the world’s domi- nant supplier. Total global production/consumption is about 1.5 billion m3 annually. To think of this in terms easier to relate to, a cubic meter of timber is a block of wood 1 meter thick on each side. A billion cubic meters would be a block of wood 1 meter (39 inches) thick in a square 1,000 km (621 miles) long on each side. This is a distance greater than that between Washington, DC, and Atlanta, Georgia, and longer than the distance be- tween San Diego and Sacramento, California. The great pyramid of Giza, Egypt, has a volume of more than 2.5 million cubic meters, so the amount of timber con- sumed in a year would fill 600 great pyramids of Egypt.

The United States has approximately 304 million hectares (751 million acres) of forests, of which 86 million hectares (212 million acres) are considered commercial- grade forest, defined as forest capable of producing at least 1.4 m3/ha (20 ft3/acre) of wood per year.4 Commercial timberland occurs in many parts of the United States. Nearly 75% is in the eastern half of the country (about equally divided between the North and South); the rest is in the West (Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and other Rocky Mountain states) and in Alaska.4

In the last several decades, world trade in timber does not appear to have grown much, if at all, based on the in- formation reported by nations to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Thus, the amount traded annually (about 1.5 billion m3, as mentioned earlier) is a reasonable estimate of the total present world demand for the 7 billion people on Earth, at their present standards of living. The fundamental questions are whether and how Earth’s forests can continue to produce at least this amount of timber for an indefinite period, and wheth- er and how they can produce even more as the world’s human population continues to grow and as standards of living rise worldwide. Keep in mind, all of this has to happen while forests continue to perform their other functions, which include public-service functions, biolog- ical conservation functions, and functions involving the aesthetic and spiritual needs of people.

In terms of the themes of this book, the question is: How can forest production be sustainable while meeting the needs of people and nature? The answer involves sci- ence and values.

As we mentioned, wood is a major energy source in many parts of the world. Some 63% of all wood produced in the world, or 2.1 million m3, is used for firewood. Fire- wood provides 5% of the world’s total energy use,5 2% of total commercial energy in developed countries, but 15% of the energy in developing countries, and is the major source of energy for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and continental Southeast Asia.6

As the human population grows, the use of firewood increases. In this situation, management is essential, in- cluding management of woodland stands (an informal term that foresters use to refer to groups of trees) to im- prove growth. However, well-planned management of fire- wood stands has been the exception rather than the rule.

12.4 How Forests Affect the Whole Earth

Trees affect the Earth by evaporating water, slowing ero- sion, and providing habitat for wildlife (see Figure 12.5). Trees can also affect climate. Indeed, vegetation of any

kind can affect the atmosphere in four ways, and since forests cover so much of the land, they can play an espe- cially important role in the biosphere:

1. By changing the color of the surface and thus the amount of sunlight reflected and absorbed.

2. By increasing the amount of water transpired and evaporated from the surface to the atmosphere.

3. By changing the rate at which greenhouse gases are taken up, stored, and released from Earth’s surface into the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide.

4. By changing “surface roughness,” which affects wind speed at the surface.

In general, vegetation warms the Earth by making the surface darker, so it absorbs more sunlight and re- flects less. The contrast is especially strong between the dark needles of conifers and winter snow in northern for- ests and between the dark green of shrublands and the yellowish soils of many semiarid climates. Vegetation in general and forests in particular tend to evaporate more water than bare surfaces. This is because the total surface area of the many leaves is many times larger than the area of the soil surface.

Is this increased evaporation good or bad? That de- pends on one’s goals. Increasing evaporation means that less water runs off the surface. This reduces erosion. Al- though increased evaporation also means that less water is available for our own water supply and for streams, in most situations the ecological and environmental benefits of increased evaporation outweigh the disadvantages.

Today there is great interest in the potential for trees in forests to take up carbon dioxide. This potential, re- ferred to as “carbon sequestering,” is suggested as one of the major ways to counter the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (See Chapter 20.)

Vegetation makes a much rougher surface than bare soil or ice, but the effect of forest on wind speed is consid- ered to be relatively minor and is little discussed.

12.5 the ecology of Forests

Each species of tree has its own niche (see Chapter 6) and is thus adapted to specific environmental conditions. For example, in boreal forests, one of the determinants of a tree niche is the water content of the soil. White birch grows well in dry soils; balsam fir in well-watered sites; and northern white cedar in bogs (Figure 12.6). (See A Closer Look 12.1 for information about how trees grow.)

Another determinant of a tree’s niche is its tolerance of shade. Some trees, such as birch and cherry, can grow only in the bright sun of open areas and are therefore found in clearings and are called “shade intolerant.” Other species, such as sugar maple and beech, can grow in deep shade and are called “shade tolerant.”

Most of the big trees of the western United States re- quire open, bright conditions and certain kinds of distur- bances in order to germinate and survive the early stages of their lives. These trees include coastal redwood, which wins in competition with other species only if both fires and floods occasionally occur; Douglas fir, which begins its growth in openings; and the giant sequoia, whose seeds will germinate only on bare, mineral soil. Where there is a thick layer of organic mulch, the sequoia’s seeds can- not reach the surface and will die before they can germi- nate. Some trees are adapted to early stages of succession, where sites are open and there is bright sunlight. Others are adapted to later stages of succession, where there is a high density of trees. (See the discussion of ecological suc- cession in Chapter 6.)7

Understanding the niches of individual tree species helps us to determine where we might best plant them as a commercial crop—and where they might best contribute to biological conservation or to landscape beauty.

12 .6 Forest Management

A Forester’s View of a Forest In selective cutting, individual trees are marked and

Traditionally, foresters have managed trees locally in stands. Trees in a stand are usually of the same species or group of species and often at the same successional stage. Stands can be small (half a hectare) to medium size (several hundred hectares) and are classified by foresters on the basis of tree composition. The two major kinds of commercial stands are even-aged stands, where all live trees began growth from seeds and roots germinating the same year, and uneven-aged stands, which have at least three distinct age classes. In even-aged stands, trees are approximately the same height but differ in girth and vigor.

A forest that has never been cut is called a virgin forest or sometimes an old-growth forest. A forest that has been cut and has regrown is called a second-growth forest. Al- though the term old-growth forest has gained popularity in several well-publicized disputes about forests, it is not a scientific term and does not yet have an agreed-on, precise meaning. Another important management term is rota- tion time, the time between cuts of a stand.

Foresters and forest ecologists group the trees in a forest into the dominants (the tallest, most common, and most vigorous), codominants (fairly common, shar- ing the canopy or top part of the forest), intermediate (forming a layer of growth below dominants), and sup- pressed (growing in the understory). The productivity of a forest varies according to soil fertility, water supply, and local climate. Foresters classify sites by site quality, which is the maximum timber crop the site can pro- duce in a given time. Site quality can decline with poor management.

Although forests are complex and difficult to manage, one advantage they have over many other ecosystems is that trees provide easily obtained information that can be a great help to us. For example, the age and growth rate of trees can be measured from tree rings. In temperate and boreal forests, trees produce one growth ring per year.

Harvesting Trees

Managing forests that will be harvested can involve re- moving poorly formed and unproductive trees (or se- lected other trees) to permit larger trees to grow faster, planting genetically controlled seedlings, control- ling pests and diseases, and fertilizing the soil. Forest geneticists breed new strains of trees just as agricultural geneticists breed new strains of crops. There has been rel- atively little success in controlling forest diseases, which are primarily fungal.

Harvesting can be done in several ways. Clear- cutting (Figure 12.8) is the cutting of all trees in a stand at the same time. Alternatives to clear-cutting are selective cutting, strip-cutting, shelterwood cutting, and seed-tree cutting.

In selective cutting, individual trees are marked and cut. Sometimes smaller, poorly formed trees are selectively removed, a practice called thinning. At other times, trees of specific species and sizes are removed. For example, some forestry companies in Costa Rica cut only some of the largest mahogany trees, leaving less valuable trees to help maintain the ecosystem and permitting some of the large mahogany trees to continue to provide seeds for fu- ture generations.

In strip-cutting, narrow rows of forest are cut, leaving wooded corridors whose trees provide seeds. Strip-cutting offers several advantages, such as protec- tion against erosion.

Shelterwood cutting is the practice of cutting dead and less desirable trees first, and later cutting mature trees. As a result, there are always young trees left in the forest.

Seed-tree cutting removes all but a few seed trees (mature trees with good genetic characteristics and high seed production) to promote regeneration of the forest.

Scientists have tested the effects of clear-cutting, which is one of the most controversial forest practices.7, 8. For example, in the U.S. Forest Service Hubbard Brook experi- mental forest in New Hampshire, an entire watershed was clear-cut, and herbicides were applied to prevent regrowth for two years.9 The results were dramatic. Erosion increased, and the pattern of water runoff changed substantially. The exposed soil decayed more rapidly, and the concentrations of nitrates in the stream water exceeded public-health stan- dards. In another experiment, at the U.S. Forest Service H.J. Andrews experimental forest in Oregon, a forest where rainfall is high (about 240 cm, or 94 in., annually), clear- cutting greatly increased the frequency of landslides, as did the construction of logging roads.10

Clear-cutting also changes chemical cycling in for- ests and can open the way for the soil to lose chemical elements necessary for life. Exposed to sun and rain, the ground becomes warmer. This accelerates the process of decay, with chemical elements, such as nitrogen, convert- ed more rapidly to forms that are water-soluble and thus readily lost in runoff during rains (Figure 12.9).11

The Forest Service experiments show that clear- cutting can be a poor practice on steep slopes in areas of moderate to heavy rainfall. The worst effects of clear- cutting resulted from the logging of vast areas of North America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Clear- cutting on such a large scale is neither necessary nor desir- able for the best timber production. However, where the ground is level or slightly sloped, where rainfall is moder- ate, and where the desirable species require open areas for growth, clear-cutting on an appropriate spatial scale may be a useful way to regenerate desirable species. The key here is that clear-cutting is neither all good nor all bad for timber production or forest ecosystems. Its use must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the size of cuts, the environment, and the available spe- cies of trees.

Plantations

Sometimes foresters grow trees in a plantation, which is a stand of a single species, typically planted in straight rows (Figure 12.10). Usually plantations are fertilized, sometimes by helicopter, and modern machines har- vest trees rapidly—some remove the entire tree, root and all. In short, plantation forestry is a lot like modern agriculture. Intensive management like this is common in Europe and parts of the northwestern United States and offers an important alternative solution to the pres- sure on natural forests. If plantations were used where forest production was high, then a comparatively small percentage of the world’s forestland could provide all the world’s timber. For example, high-yield forests produce 15– 20 m3/ha/yr. According to one estimate, if plantations were put on timberland that could produce at least 10 m3/ha/yr, then 10% of the world’s forestland could pro- vide enough timber for the world’s timber trade.12 In the United States today about 8% of the forests are planta- tions, but these provide half of all the softwood (conifers) harvested.13 This could reduce pressure on old-growth forests, on forests important for biological conservation, and on forestlands important for recreation.

12.7 Can We achieve Sustainable Forestry?

There are two basic kinds of ecological sustainability: (1) sustainability of the harvest of a specific resource that grows within an ecosystem; and (2) sustainability of the entire ecosystem—and therefore of many species, habitats, and environmental conditions. For forests, this translates into sustainability of the harvest of timber and sustainability of the forest as an ecosystem. Although sus- tainability has long been discussed in forestry, we don’t have enough scientific data to show that sustainability of either kind has been achieved in modern forests except in a few cases.

Certification of Forest Practices

If the data do not indicate whether a particular set of practices has led to sustainable forestry, what can be done? The general approach today is to compare the actual prac- tices of specific corporations or government agencies with practices that are believed to be consistent with sustainabil- ity. This has become a formal process called certification of forestry, and there are organizations whose main func- tion is to certify forest practices. For example, interest in sustainable foresty grew in the last decades of the 20th century, with the establishment of such organizations as the nonprofit Sustainable Forestry Initiative, which pro- vides, based on its own analyses, certification that a for- est is being managed according to sustainable forestry principles.14

The catch here is that nobody actually knows whether the beliefs are correct and therefore whether the practices will turn out to be sustainable. Since trees take a long time to grow, and a series of harvests is necessary to prove sustainability, the proof lies in the future. Despite this limitation, certification of forestry is becoming com- mon. As practiced today, it is as much an art or a craft as it is a science.

Worldwide concern about the need for forest sus- tainability has led to international programs for certify- ing forest practices, as well as to attempts to ban imports of wood produced from purportedly unsustainable for- est practices. Some European nations have banned the import of certain tropical woods, and some environmen- tal organizations have led demonstrations in support of such bans. However, there is a gradual movement away from calling certified forest practices “sustainable”; in- stead reference is made to “well-managed forests” or “improved management.”14, 15 And some scientists have begun to call for a new forestry that includes a variety of practices that they believe increase the likelihood of sustainability.

Most basic is accepting the dynamic characteristics of forests—that to remain sustainable over the long term, a forest may have to change in the short term. Some of the broader, science-based concerns are the need for eco- system management and a landscape context. Scientists point out that any application of a certification program creates an experiment and should be treated accordingly. Therefore, any new programs that claim to provide sus- tainable practices must include, for comparison, control areas where no cutting is done and must also include adequate scientific monitoring of the status of the forest ecosystem.

12.8 Deforestation

Deforestation is believed to have increased erosion and caused the loss of an estimated 562 million hectares (1.4 billion acres) of soil worldwide, with an estimated annual loss of 5–6 million hectares.16 Cutting forests in one country affects other countries. For example, Nepal, one of the most mountainous countries in the world, is es- timated to have lost more than half its forest cover between 1950 and 1980, and another 25% from 1990 to 2010.17 This destabilized soil, increasing the frequency of land- slides, amount of runoff, and sediment load in streams. Many Nepalese streams feed rivers that flow into India (Figure 12.11). Heavy flooding in India’s Ganges Valley caused about a billion dollars’ worth of property damage a year and is blamed on the loss of large forested watersheds in Nepal and other countries.18 If present trends continue, little forestland will remain in Nepal, thus permanently exacerbating India’s flood problems.17, 18

The good news is that the rate of deforestation has slowed over the last 10 years, according to the United Na- tions Environment Program. How bad is it today? Every year an area about as big as Costa Rica is deforested.

History of Deforestation

People have cut down and burned forests for thou- sands of years. Fossil records suggest that prehistoric farmers in Denmark cleared forests so extensively that early-successional weeds occupied large areas. In the New World, Mayas were clearing tropical forests in what is now Guatemala as early as the first century B.C.19 In the Near East, human-induced forest clearing appears to have occurred as early as 1800 B.C. Removal of forests continued northward in Europe as civilization advanced. In medieval times, Great Britain’s forests were cut, and many forested areas were eliminated. With colonization of the New World, much of North America was cleared.

The greatest losses in the present century have taken place in South America, where 4.3 million acres have been lost on average per year since 2000 (Figure 12.12). Many of these forests are in the tropics, mountain regions, or high latitudes, places difficult to exploit before the advent of modern transportation and machines. The problem is especially severe in the tropics because of rapid human population growth. Satellite images provide a new way to detect deforestation (Figure 12.12a).

Causes of Deforestation

As we have made clear in Chapter 6, forests, like all eco- systems, undergo change, and there are various natural causes of deforestation. During Ice Age maximum, for- ested areas at mid- to high latitudes are covered by ice and destroyed. Fires are persistent in most forests. Lowland and streamside forests are cleared by floods. Historically, the two most common reasons people remove forests are to clear land for agriculture and settlement and to use or sell timber for lumber, paper products, or fuel. Logging by large timber companies and local cutting by villagers are both major causes of deforestation. Agriculture is a prin- cipal cause of deforestation in such nations as Indonesia, Nepal, and Brazil, and was one of the major reasons for clearing forests in New England during the first settle- ment by Europeans. A more subtle cause of the loss of forests is indirect deforestation—the death of trees from pollution or disease.

Mining and fuel extraction clear forests. In the U.S. Appalachian Mountains, strip mining for coal destroyed mountain forests. The mining of iron ore and other min- erals is deforesting parts of the Amazon basin tropical forests. For example, one of the world’s largest copper reserves lies in the Carajás Mineral Province, Brazil, where iron ore, manganese, and gold are also mined (Figure 12.13). In 2007, 296 million metric tons of iron ore were pulled from the mine. The mine is estimated to contain about 18 billion tons of iron ore, plus gold, man- ganese, copper, and nickel. Thus only 2% of the mineral value has been removed. Mining has multiple effects: di- rect removal of trees at the mine site, cutting of wood from surrounding forests for charcoal used in iron and steel production, and damage to forests downstream from mine runoff.21

If global warming occurs as projected, indirect forest damage might take place over large regions, with major die-offs in many areas and major shifts in the areas of po- tential growth for each species of tree due to altered com- binations of temperature and rainfall.22 The extent of this effect is controversial. Some suggest that global warming would merely change the location of forests, not their to- tal area or production.

12.9 Dealing with Forest Fires

Fire is a repeated occurrence in most forests of the world, to the extent that many tree species are adapted to fire and many require fires for regeneration and other functions, as we will discuss in Chapter 13. The recognition of the naturalness of forest fires grew in the 20th century among ecologists and forest scientists, but throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries, fire suppression was the rule. Many in government and the public sphere saw fires as only damaging, thus the then familiar poster of Smokey Bear and his slogan, “Only you can prevent forest fires” (Figure 12.14).

The 1988 fire in Yellowstone National Park was the largest ever recorded there. It burned more than one-third of the park—3,213 km2 (1,240 square miles), four-fifths the size of Rhode Island. The long suppression of fire in the park, part of the Smokey Bear philosophy, had cre- ated a superabundance of fuel that needed only a very dry summer for a large fire to become likely. And that’s what happened.

Looking backward, the National Park Service issued the following explanation in 2008:

“wildland succession. . . . In the first sixteen years of Yellowstone’s natural fire policy (1972–1987), 235 fires were allowed to burn 33,759 acres. Only 15 of those fires were larger than 100 acres, and all of the fires were extinguished naturally. Public response to the fires was good, and the program was considered a success. The summers of 1982–1987 were wetter than average, which may have contributed to the relatively low fire activity in those years.23

An especially fire-prone vegetation is found in the chaparral of southern California. It is dense and mostly shrubland, with scattered oaks and pines such as occur in the Las Padres National Forest and the hills behind Santa Barbara. This vegetation grows in the semiarid climate of this part of the state: hot dry summers and cool winters with some rain, averaging about 18 inches a year, sometimes occurring in a few major storms. The abundant vegetation has adapted to this climate by requiring fire to reproduce; it also increases the chances of fire. Wildfires occur about every half century. When this area was wilder country with- out permanent buildings, towns, and cities, these fires did not affect people seriously. But today in modern Santa Bar- bara, these fires can be terribly destructive. For example, in 1990 a wildfire name the “Painted Cave Fire” started in the hills and burned 5,000 acres in three hours, destroying 500 houses and doing an estimated $750 million damage.24 Another fire near Los Angeles in September 1993 burned 40,500 acres. Attempts to stop and control the fire involved ground crews and aircraft, and fire-fighting costs tallied more than $2 million a day. The cost was borne by state and federal governments, primarily to try to save houses.

Although it is well acknowledged that many kinds of forests require fire and that comparatively frequent light fires are characteristic and least damaging to forests, it has been difficult to manage forests in the modern world with so much human development—houses, towns, cit- ies, farms, and industrial complexes. A project in the Pon- derosa pine forests near Flagstaff, Arizona, illustrates the difficulties. Ponderosa pine woodlands are characteristic of that area. These are beautiful, open woodlands with scattered pines surrounded by grasslands, the countryside often seen in cowboy and Indian movies. Fire had been suppressed in these forests with the usual result—high fuel loads. When a fire occurs in such conditions, it likely kills seed-bearing trees, destroys the soil, and delays forest recovery for a very long time, if it happens at all.

In this project, what the forests were like before Euro- pean settlement was analyzed and the modern forest was returned to those conditions, including the density of trees and the average tree size. Ground cover was also cleared of its large build-up of leaves and dead wood. This is a labor- intensive activity. Once the forest area was reset to its smaller fuel load, fires were lit, and they burned the way fires burned before European settlement—swiftly and lightly, keeping the Ponderosa woodlands open, beautiful, and—with suf- ficiently frequent fires—capable of looking that way in the future (Figure 12.15). Note that this planning was not for a forest that was always the same, not for a perfect balance of nature, but for a forest that changed within a range of condi- tions, that people liked and considered natural.25

12.10 Parks, Nature Preserves, and Wilderness

As suggested by this chapter’s opening case study about the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, governments often protect landscapes from harvest and other potentially destructive uses by establishing parks, nature preserves, and legally designated wilderness areas. So do private organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy, the Southwest Florida Nature Conservancy, and the Land Trust of California, which purchase lands and maintain them as nature pre- serves. Whether government or private conservation areas succeed better in reaching the goals listed in Table 12.1 is a matter of considerable controversy.

In most cases, public parks became established comparatively recently, most since the rise of modern industrial civilizations. (See A Closer Look 12.2.) Parks, natural areas, and wilderness provide benefits within their boundaries and can also serve as migratory corridors between other natural areas. Originally, parks were established for specific purposes related to the land within the park boundaries (discussed later in this chapter). In the future, the design of large landscapes to serve a combination of land uses—including parks, preserves, and wilderness—needs to become more important and a greater focus of discussion.

What’s the Difference between a Park and a Nature Preserve?

A park is an area set aside for use by people. A nature preserve, although it may be used by people, has as its primary purpose the conservation of some resource, typically a biological one. Every park or preserve is an ecological island of one kind of landscape surrounded by a different kind of landscape, or several different kinds. Ecological and physical islands have special eco- logical qualities, and concepts of island biogeography are used in the design and management of parks. Spe- cifically, the size of the park and the diversity of habitats determine the number of species that can be maintained there. Also, the farther the park is from other parks or sources of species, the fewer species are found. Even the shape of a park can determine what species can survive within it.

In the United States, marine sanctuaries are an un- usual kind of park. The National Marine Sanctuary Sys- tem was created by Title III of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It consists of 13 sanctuaries and one national monument and includes areas along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the continental United States, the Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, and the Great Lakes. Similar to national parks on land, these underwater protected areas range in size from less than one square mile to more than 137,000 square miles. In total, the sanctuary system covers more than 150,000 square miles.

Sanctuaries protect thriving ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests, along with important breeding and feed- ing areas for marine life such as whales, seabirds, sharks, and sea turtles. Within sanctuary boundaries lie countless links to our heritage—from historic shipwrecks to tradi- tional Native American fishing grounds. Each sanctuary site is unique, with its own distinct collection of resources and management challenges.

Marine sanctuaries are natural classrooms, cherished recreational spots, valuable commercial industry sites, and places of significant maritime heritage. Research, moni- toring, resource protection, and educational activities across the sanctuary system help us better understand and protect these special areas, so that we can enjoy them now and for years to come.

A good example is the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary found 25 miles offshore of Santa Barbara, California.Itprovidesavarietyofoceanandlandhabitats (Figure 12.18). Offshore from the islands are warm and cool currents, which support forests of giant kelp, which in turn are home to diverse fish and invertebrates. Every year more than 27 species of whales and dolphins visit or inhabit the sanctuary, including the rare blue, humpback, and sei whales. The islands provide seabird nesting areas and breeding habitats for seals and are home to brown pelicans and Western Gulls. Visitors to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary can enjoy recreational opportunities such as tidepooling, diving, snorkeling, and kayaking.

One of the important differences between a park and a truly natural wilderness area is that a park has definite boundaries. These boundaries are usually arbitrary from an ecological viewpoint and have been established for political, economic, or historical reasons unrelated to the natural eco- system. In fact, many parks have been developed on areas that would have been considered wastelands, useless for any other purpose. Even where parks or preserves have been set aside for the conservation of some species, the boundaries are usually arbitrary, and this has caused problems.

For example, Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania, famous for its elephants, was originally established with boundaries that conflicted with elephant habits. Before this park was established, elephants spent part of the year feeding along a steep incline above the lake. At other times of the year, they would migrate down to the valley floor, depending on the availability of food and water. These annual migrations were necessary for the elephants to obtain food of sufficient nutritional quality throughout the year. However, when the park was established, farms that were laid out along its northern border crossed the traditional pathways of the elephants. This had two negative effects. First, elephants came into direct conflict with farmers. Elephants crashed through farm fences, eating corn and other crops and causing general disruption. Second, whenever the farmers succeeded in keeping elephants out, the animals were cut off from reaching their feeding ground near the lake.

When it became clear that the park boundaries were arbitrary and inappropriate, the boundaries were adjusted to include the traditional migratory routes. This eased the conflicts between elephants and farmers.

Conflicts Relating to Parks

Size, Access, and Types of Activities

The idea of a national, state, county, or city park is well accepted in North America, but conflicts arise over what kinds of activities and what intensity of activities should be allowed in parks. These uses include recreation, conservation of scenery, conservation of biological diver- sity (especially of stages of the ecosystem that represent times past), scientific research, conservation of specific endangered species or species of special interest, and more recently, sites with kinds of DNA not found elsewhere that can be of considerable economic value. Any and all of these uses can conflict. In addition, there are uses outside of and under parks, such as mining for oil and natural gas and use of water aquifers.

The 1916 law that created the U.S. National Park Ser- vice, known as the Organic Act, stated that the “purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Often, biological conservation and the needs of indi- vidual species require limited human access, but people want to go to these areas because they are beautiful and desirable places for recreation.

As a recent example, travel into Yellowstone National Park by snowmobile in the winter has become popular, but this has led to noise and air pollution and has marred the experience of the park’s beauty for many visitors. In 2003 a federal court determined that snowmobile use should be phased out in this park.

Alfred Runte explained the heart of the conflict. “This struggle was not against Americans who like their snow- mobiles, but rather against the notion that anything goes in the national parks,” he said. “The courts have reminded us that we have a different, higher standard for our na- tional parks. Our history proves that no one loses when beauty wins. We will find room for snowmobiles, but just as important, room without them, which is the enduring greatness of the national parks.”26

Many of the recent conflicts relating to national parks have concerned the use of motor vehicles. Voya- geurs National Park in northern Minnesota, established in 1974—fairly recently compared with many other national parks—occupies land that was once used by a variety of recreational vehicles and provided livelihoods for hunting and fishing guides and other tourism busi- nesses. These people felt that restricting motor-vehicle use would destroy their livelihoods. Voyageurs National Park has 100 miles of snowmobile trails and is open to a greater variety of motor-vehicle recreation than Yellowstone.27

Interactions Between People and Wildlife

While many people like to visit parks to see wildlife, some wildlife, such as grizzly bears and bison in Yellow- stone National Park, can be dangerous. There has been conflict in the past between conserving the grizzly and making the park as open as possible for recreation.

How Much Land Should Be in Parks?

Another important controversy in managing parks is what percentage of a landscape should be in parks or nature preserves, especially with regard to the goals of biological diversity. Because parks isolate populations genetically, they may provide too small a habitat for maintaining a mini- mum safe population size. If parks are to function as bio- logical preserves, they must be adequate in size and habitat diversity to maintain a population large enough to avoid the serious genetic difficulties that can develop in small popu- lations. An alternative, if necessary, is for a park manager to move individuals of one species—say, lions in African preserves—from one park to another to maintain genetic diversity. But park size is a source of conflicts, with conser- vationists typically wanting to make parks bigger and com- mercial interests typically wanting to keep them smaller.

Nations differ widely in the percentage of their to- tal area set aside as national parks. Costa Rica, a small country with high biological diversity, has more than 12% of its land in national parks.28 Kenya, a larger nation that also has numerous biological resources, has 7.6% of its land in national parks.29 In France, an industrialized country in which civilization has altered the landscape for several thousand years, only 0.7% of the land is in the na- tion’s six national parks. However, France has 38 regional parks that encompass 11% (5.9 million hectares) of the nation’s area.

The total amount of protected natural area in the United States is more than 104 million hectares (about 240 million acres), approximately 11.2% of the total U.S. land area.30 However, the states differ greatly in the per- centage of land set aside for parks, preserves, and other conservation areas. The western states have vast parks, whereas the six Great Lakes states (Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin), covering an area approaching that of France and Germany combined, al- locate less than 0.5% of their land to parks and less than 1% to designated wilderness.31

12.11 Conserving Wilderness

What It Is, and Why It Is of Growing Importance

As a modern legal concept, wilderness is an area undis- turbed by people. The only people in a wilderness are visi- tors, who do not remain. The conservation of wilderness is a new idea introduced in the second half of the 20th century. It is one that is likely to become more important as the human population increases and the effects of civili- zation become more pervasive throughout the world.

The U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964 was landmark leg- islation, marking the first time anywhere that national law recognized wilderness as a national treasure to be preserved. Under this law, wilderness includes “an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or hu- man habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” Such lands are those in which (1) the imprint of human work is unnoticeable, (2) there are opportunities for solitude and for primitive and unconfined recreation, and (3) there are at least 5,000 acres. The law also recognizes that these areas are valuable for ecological processes, geology, education, scenery, and history. The Wilderness Act required certain maps and de- scriptions of wilderness areas, resulting in the U.S. Forest Service’s Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE I and RARE II), which evaluated lands for inclusion as le- gally designated wilderness. Today, the United States has 633 legally designated wilderness areas, covering 44 mil- lion hectares (106 million acres)—more than 4% of the nation. Another 200 million acres meet the legal require- ments and could be protected by the Wilderness Act. Half of this area is in Alaska, including the largest single area, Wrangell–St. Elias (Figure 12.19), covering 3.7 million hectares (9 million acres).30, 32

Where You’ll Find It and Where You Won’t

Countries with a significant amount of wilderness include New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, and Australia; some countries of eastern and southern Africa; many countries of South America, includ- ing parts of the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon basin; the mountainous high-altitude areas of Chile and Argentina; some of the remaining interior tropical forests of Southeast Asia; and the Pacific Rim countries (parts of Borneo, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia). In addition, wilderness can be found in the polar regions, in- cluding Antarctica, Greenland, and Iceland.

Many countries have no wilderness left to preserve. In the Danish language, the word for wilderness has even disappeared, although that word was important in the an- cestral languages of the Danes.32 Switzerland is a country in which wilderness is not a part of preservation. For ex- ample, a national park in Switzerland lies in view of the Alps—scenery that inspired the English romantic poets of the early 19th century to praise what they saw as wilder- ness and to attach the adjective awesome to what they saw. But the park is in an area that has been heavily exploited for such activities as mining and foundries since the Mid- dle Ages. All the forests are planted.33

The Wilderness Experience: Natural versus Naturalistic

In a perhaps deeper sense, wilderness is an idea and an ideal that can be experienced in many places, such as Japa- nese gardens, which might occupy no more than a few hun- dred square meters. Henry David Thoreau distinguished between “wilderness” and “wildness.” He thought of wil- derness as a physical place and wildness as a state of mind. During his travels through the Maine woods in the 1840s, he concluded that wilderness was an interesting place to visit but not to live in. He preferred long walks through the woods and near swamps around his home in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was able to experience a feeling of wildness. Thus, Thoreau raised a fundamental question: Can one experience true wildness only in a huge area set aside as a wilderness and untouched by human actions, or can wildness be experienced in small, heavily modified, and, though not entirely natural, naturalistic landscapes, such as those around Concord in the 19th century?34

As Thoreau suggests, small, local, naturalistic parks may have more value than some of the more traditional wilderness areas as places of solitude and beauty. In Japan, for instance, there are roadless recreation areas, but they are filled with people. One two-day hiking circuit leads to a high-altitude marsh where people can stay in small cab- ins. Trash is removed from the area by helicopter. People taking this hike experience a sense of wildness.

In some ways, the answer to the question raised by Thoreau is highly personal. We must discover for our- selves what kind of natural or naturalistic place meets our spiritual, aesthetic, and emotional needs. This is yet an- other area in which one of our key themes, science and values, is evident.

Conflicts in Managing Wilderness

The legal definition of wilderness has given rise to several controversies. The wilderness system in the United States began in 1964 with 3.7 million hectares (9.2 million acres) under U.S. Forest Service control. Today, the United States has 633 legally designated wilderness areas, covering 44 million hectares (106 million acres)—more than 4% of the nation. Another 200 million acres meet the legal require- ments and could be protected by the Wilderness Act.

Those interested in developing the natural resources of an area, including mineral ores and timber, have argued that the rules are unnecessarily stringent, protecting too much land from exploitation when there is plenty of wil- derness elsewhere. Those who wish to conserve additional wild areas have argued that the interpretation of the U.S. Wilderness Act is too lenient and that mining and log- ging are inconsistent with the wording of the act. These disagreements are illustrated by the argument over drill- ing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a dispute that reemerged with the rising price of petroleum.

The notion of managing wilderness may seem para- doxical—is it still wilderness if we meddle with it? In fact, though, with the great numbers of people in the world to- day, even wilderness must be defined, legally set aside, and controlled. We can view the goal of managing wilderness in two ways: in terms of the wilderness itself and in terms of people. In the first instance, the goal is to preserve na- ture undisturbed by people. In the second, the purpose is to provide people with a wilderness experience.

Legally designated wilderness can be seen as one extreme in a spectrum of environments to manage. The spectrum ranges from wilderness rarely disturbed by anyone to pre- serves in which some human activities are allowed to be visible—parks designed for outdoor recreation, forests for timber production and various kinds of recreation, hunt- ing preserves, and urban parks—and finally, at the other extreme, open-pit mines. You can think of many stages in between on this spectrum.

Wilderness management should involve as little di- rect action as possible, so as to minimize human influence. This also means, ironically, that one of the necessities is to control human access so that a visitor has little, if any, sense that other people are present.

Consider, for example, the Desolation Wilderness Area in California, consisting of more than 24,200 hect- ares (60,000 acres), which in one year had more than 250,000 visitors. Could each visitor really have a wilder- ness experience there, or was the human carrying capacity of the wilderness exceeded? This is a subjective judgment. If, on one hand, all visitors saw only their own compan- ions and believed they were alone, then the actual num- ber of visitors did not matter for each visitor’s wilderness experience. On the other hand, if every visitor found the solitude ruined by strangers, then the management failed, no matter how few people visited.

Wilderness designation and management must also take into account adjacent land uses. A wilderness next to a garbage dump or a power plant spewing smoke is a contradiction in terms. Whether a wilderness can be adjacent to a high-intensity campground or near a city is a more subtle question that must be resolved by citizens.

Today, those involved in wilderness management rec- ognize that wild areas change over time and that these changes should be allowed to occur as long as they are natural. This is different from earlier views that nature undisturbed was unchanging and should be managed so that it did not change. In addition, it is generally argued now that in choosing what activities can be allowed in a wilderness, we should emphasize activities that depend on wilderness (the experience of solitude or the observation of shy and elusive wildlife) rather than activities that can be enjoyed elsewhere (such as downhill skiing).

Another source of conflict is that wilderness areas frequently contain economically important resources, in- cluding timber, fossil fuels, and mineral ores. There has been heated debate about whether wilderness areas should be open to the extraction of these resources.

Still another controversy involves the need to study wilderness versus the desire to leave wilderness undis- turbed. Those in favor of scientific research in the wil- derness argue that it is necessary for the conservation of wilderness. Those opposed argue that scientific research contradicts the purpose of a designated wilderness as an area undisturbed by people. One solution is to establish separate research preserves.

suMMaRy

• In the past, land management for harvesting resources and conserving nature was mostly local, with each par- cel of land considered independently.

• Today, a landscape perspective has developed, and lands used for harvesting resources are seen as part of a matrix that includes lands set aside for the conservation of bio- logical diversity and for landscape beauty.

• Forests are among civilization’s most important renew- able resources. Forest management seeks a sustainable harvest and sustainable ecosystems. Because examples of successful sustainable forestry are rare, “certification of sustainable forestry” has developed to determine which methods appear most consistent with sustainability and then compare the management of a specific forest with those standards.

• Given their rapid population growth, continued use of firewood as an important fuel in developing nations is a major threat to forests. It is doubtful that these na- tions can implement successful management programs in time to prevent serious damage to their forests and severe effects on their people.

• Clear-cutting is a major source of controversy in for- estry. Some tree species require clearing to reproduce and grow, but the scope and method of cutting must be

examined carefully in terms of the needs of the species and the type of forest ecosystem.

• Properly managed plantations can relieve pressure on forests.

• Managing parks for biological conservation is a relatively new idea that began in the 19th century. The manager of a park must be concerned with its shape and size. Parks that are too small or the wrong shape may have too small a population of the species for which the park was estab- lished and thus may not be able to sustain the species.

• A special extreme in conservation of natural areas is the management of wilderness. In the United States, the 1964 Wilderness Act provided a legal basis for such conserva- tion. Managing wilderness seems a contradiction—trying to make sure it will be undisturbed by people requires in- terference to limit user access and to maintain the natural state, so an area that is not supposed to be influenced by people actually is.

• Parks, nature preserves, wilderness areas, and actively harvested forests affect one another. The geographic pattern of these areas on a landscape, including corri- dors and connections among different types, is part of the modern approach to biological conservation and the harvest of forest resources.

Botkin, D. B., & Keller, E. A. (2014). Environmental science: Earth as a living planet (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.