VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

VALUABLE LESSONS FROM THE FOREST HISTORY SOCIETY

In FOREST HISTORY TODAY FALL 2000, FHS’s publication, is a long article entitled “Conservation Lessons & Challenges from Ecological History” by David R. Foster, Director of the Harvard Forest, Petersham, MA.  With permission of FHS’s editor, we’ve added a link to the Society’s web page, where the Foster article will eventually appear on-line. 

The activities of those of us who make money growing trees, usually over periods of less than 30 years, are frowned upon by others who bemoan the cutting of the virgin timber and would have us restore the healthy “original forest.”  Dr. Foster has news that will surprise them:

“Regardless of the geographical setting, historical studies almost invariably yield a pattern of long-term, ongoing dynamics in which multiple factors drive population, ecosystem, and landscape changes in complex ways…Historical results also require us to acknowledge the absence of established baseline conditions (e.g., unchanging ‘primeval’ or ‘natural’ conditions)...

“Well before European arrival, our forests were changing in composition; two major species began declining about 500 years ago – hemlock and beech.  These same species continued to decline after settlement.  We now attribute the early change to the Little Ice Age, a relatively cold period extending from approximately 1450 to 1850 A.D. that was marked by highly variable weather and growing-season length…Post-settlement changes were clearly a consequence of multiple factors: ongoing climate change, the loss of Native Americans who had undoubtedly altered landscape patterns, and new European activity…

“The larger message is that there was no fixed ‘original’ landscape and that some portion of the post-settlement vegetation change was probably driven by natural factors…For restorationists and conservationists this means that there are many alternative models to use, a strong need to expect future change, and no true ability to re-create or preserve the past.”

The article includes ten photographs and occupies ten full pages of the magazine, so we have merely scratched the surface.  You’ll find it very interesting.