Mrs. Sealy - APES

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• Mrs. Sealy - APES

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Importance of Forests

• Economic
• - housing, fuelwood, paper, medicines, resins,
  gums, dyes, lumber, jobs, recreation
• - lands are used for mining, grazing, timber
  extraction and recreation
• - one tree about 600-900

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Importance of Forests

• Ecological
• - support energy flow and chemical cycling
• - reduce soil erosion
• -absorb and release water
• -purify water and air
• -influence local climate
• -store carbon
• -release oxygen
• -wildlife habitats

The forest provides 4.7 trillion per year in
ecological services
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Old Growth vs. Secondary Growth

• Old growth virgin (uncut) forests or regenerated
  forests untouched for several hundred years (22
  world)
• Secondary Growth forests that result from
  secondary ecological succession after cutting
  (63 worlds forests)
• Tree farm and plantations managed tracks of
  uniformly aged trees (5 - mostly in China, US,
  India, Japan)

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Ecology of Old Growth Forests

• Takes 350 years for forest to reach its prime in
  terms of biodiversity
• Functions - large accumulation of snags, which
  slowly decompose and recycle nutrients
• -Unusually rich in biodiversity
• -Act as sponges to recharge streams and aquifers

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What is happening to the worlds forests

• In the last 8,000 years 50 of the forests have
  disappeared
• The worlds forests are shrinking by 54,000
  square miles per year (90 in the rainforests)
• 6 forest loss per decade
• Those remaining are disappearing at rate of 129
  football fields/day
• If current rates continue, 40 of the worlds
  remaining intact forest will be gone.

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Effects of Deforestation

• Decreased soil fertility
• Run-off of eroded soil into aquatic ecosystems
• Premature extinction of species
• Habitat loss
• Regional climate change
• Release of CO2 in atmosphere
• Acceleration of flooding

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Forest Management

• Even-aged trees in a given stand are maintained
  at the same age and size. All one type of tree
  seedling planted after an old growth forest is
  clear cut grow and slash deforestation
  depletes the soil so growers are forced to move
  onto and destroy new areas of forest

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Forest Management

• Uneven-aged management a variety of tree species
  in a given stand is maintained at many ages and
  sizes to foster natural regeneration. Biological
  diversity, long term production, high quality
  timber, reasonable economic return

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Tree harvesting

• Logging Roads cause erosion, sedimentation of
  waterways, habitat fragmentation, expose forests
  to exotic pests and non-native species, open
  forests to farmers, ranchers, off-road vehicles,
  hunters
• and miners
• 400,000 miles of logging roads have been cut
  through national forests at taxpayers expense.

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Tree harvesting

• Selective Cutting middle-aged or mature trees
  are cut singly, selection reduces crowding,
  encourages growth of younger trees and allows for
  natural regeneration

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Tree harvesting

• . Clear-cutting cutting everything in a single
  cut, then reforesting with monocultures.
  Fragments wildlife habitats and destroys
  ecological integrity. Destroys soil, leads to
  severe soil erosion. This can be done responsibly
  with some trees

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Clear Cutting

• Advantages

• Disadvantages

• High timber yield
• Maximum profits in short period of time
• Can reforest with fast growing tree plantations
• Needs less skill and planning
• Good for species who need full sunlight

• Reduces biodiversity
• Disrupts ecosystems
• Destroys, fragments habitats
• Leaves large openings
• Increases water pollution, flooding, and erosion
  on steep slopes
• Eliminates recre4ational value.

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Tree harvesting

• Strip Cutting only removing trees in corridors
  small enough to allow natural regeneration

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Sustainable Forestry

• Using fiber from fast growing plants like kenaf
  to make paper
• Growing timber on longer rotations 100-200 years
• Selective cutting
• Minimizing fragmentation
• Use of logging and road building practices that
  minimize soil erosion
• Banning clear cutting on slopes
• Leaving most standing dead trees and fallen
  timber to recycle nutrients
• When evaluating economic value take into
  consideration ecological and recreational
  services that forests provide

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How Pathogens Affect Forests

• Dutch Elm, Bark Beetle, White Pine Blister Rust
• Happens when the trees become unhealthy because
  of drought and pollution
• To reduce the impact preserve biodiversity, ban
  imported timber, remove infected trees, treat
  infected trees with antibiotics, develop disease
  resistant trees, apply pesticides, Integrated
  Pest Management

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How Fires Affect Forests

• Intermittent fires set by lightening are a
  natural part of the ecological cycle
• Fires are a natural part savanna, grasslands,
  chaparral
• Burn away flammable ground material
• Release valuable nutrients tied up in leaf litter
• Stimulate the germination of certain seeds
• Help control pathogens and diseases

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Old Growth Deforestation in US

• - There are more forests now than in 1900, which
  is mainly secondary growth and tree farms.
• - More wood is grown than is cut
• -In the east old growth forests have grown back
  naturally.
• - On the other hand an increasing area of old
  growth forest on public land is being clear cut
  and replaced with tree plantations. (what
  environmentalists care about)
• - Most old-growth forests are fragmented and are
  in WA, CA and Oregon

Good news
Bad news
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The Logging Controversy Logging in national
Forests

• Advantages

• Disadvantages

• Helps meet our timber needs
• Provides jobs
• Increases timber company profits because they pay
  very little to take logs off of public land
• Promotes economic growth

• Provides only 4 of our timber needs
• Has little effect on timber and paper prices
• Degrades biodivsersity
• Damages nearby rivers and fisheries
• Creates fewer jobs than recreation
• Has cost taxpayers 6.7 billion dollars over the
  last 10 years
• Lost money for taxpayers in the last 97 out of
  100 years

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Why should we cut old growth forests?

• Provides 100,000 jobs, If it were stopped it
  would effect regional economics and cost 52,000
  jobs
• Forest service supplements its budget with timber
  money
• Elected officials in local communities push for
  increased timber harvesting because the
  communities get 25 of money from logging
  National Forests

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Why should we save the 5-8 of Virgin forests on
public lands?

• The Spotted Owl only lives in two hundred year
  old Douglas fir and it is on the endangered
  species list. So it is used to protect old growth
  forests and that is why the timber industry is
  pushing to end the endangered species act
• The remaining ancient forests are a national
  treasure whose ecological, scientific, aesthetic
  and recreational values far exceed the economic
  value of cutting them down for short term gain
• This land is owned by all citizens, not just
  residents of the region, it is a global issue.
• If logging is allowed on Public lands it will
  only save a decade or so of logging jobs
• The Salmon industry is linked to old growth
  forest and provides jobs for 62,000 people and
  1.2 billion.

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How can you protect jobs and conserve old growth
forests?

• Stop export of raw logs from public land
• Tax exports of raw logs from private land, but
  not finished logs
• Subsidize revamping sawmills to cut smaller
  secondary growth logs
• Federally funded reforestation
• Make tourism a revenue source for the forest
  service
• Provide job retraining
• Protecting half of all old growth forests
• Sharply reduce new roads on public land
• Selling tax deductible easements to conservation
  groups
• Adopting a user pay approach for timber companies

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Canada

• Canada has 10 of the worlds forests, but it has
  lost 60 of its old growth forests, less than 20
  of protected
• British Columbia supplies half the countrys
  timber and pulp, more than half of British
  Columbia has been clear cut
• More than half the world's temperate rainforests
  are in B.C. and are slated to be logged
• Canada provides massive subsidies, but most of
  the profit goes to Japan

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How fast are Tropical Forests Disappearing

• Estimates from satellite mapping range from
  19,300 square miles to 65,600 square miles
  (estimates vary due to difficulties in making
  measurements and countries lie)
• Haiti has lost 98 of its forest
• Philippines has lost 97
• Madagascar has lost 84
• Brazil has lost 47 (93 of Brazils coastal
  rainforest is lost.)

Brazil loses 11 football fields a minute of
rainforest due to logging, ranching and
farming!!!!
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Why should we care about Tropical deforestation?

• Biologists consider the plight of tropical
  forests to be the worlds most serious
  environmental problem
• These forests are home for 50-90 of the worlds
  terrestrial species
• They supply half the worlds hardwoods
• Supply hundreds of food products such as mango,
  coffee, chocolate, bananas
• Supply latex, resins, dyes and essential oils
• 25 of worlds medicines supplied by rainforest
  plants - 100 billion a year industry
• 70 of 3,000 plants identifed to treat cancer are
  from the rainforest
• Possible new food sources only 1 of 125,000
  plants has been examined as possible use for
  human resources

Aerial View of Sediment Run-off Caused by Massive
Amazon Deforestation. This entire area has been
stripped bare of forest, so there are no longer
any plants, bushes or tree roots to hold
soil...which runs off into rivers and streams,
killing marine life, even after the animals on
land have been killed due to deforestation.
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Cultural Extinction in Tropical forests

• One person in 20 are indigenous to the
  rainforest, they have been living in and using
  tropical rainforests for centuries
• Many of the worlds tribal peoples are seeing
  their homes cut, mined, contaminated, burned etc.
  
• Those who resist are killed by miners, ranchers
  and farmers
• It is a loss of cultural diversity and a loss of
  earth wisdom

At least 52 people have been killed in 24 hours
of violence between indigenous protestors and the
Peruvian army in a dispute over land rights in
the Amazon rainforest.
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What causes tropical deforestation?

• Governments grant title to the land that peasants
  clear in Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia, so
  peasants logging roads where they clear land to
  try to grow food to survive
• Governments subsidize farming, logging and
  grazing making lumber relatively cheap
• International banks lend huge sums of money for
  unsustainable projects such as mines, logging
  operations, oil drilling and dams.
• Loggers use selective cutting to remove logs, but
  fail to cut the Liana vines first causing
  extensive damage. Most logging is done by foreign
  companies under government concessions.

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• In Brazil, governments subsidize 5.6 million per
  ranch, allowing them to claim large tracts of
  land and the mineral rights below
• Often these ranchers sell the land for a quick
  profit, half the ranches in Brazil have never
  sent a single head of cattle to market
• Central America has lost two-thirds of forest for
  cattle grazing to meat to the US and Canada.
• Mining, oil extraction loss of trees and toxic
  pollution
• Large sections of land are cleared for soy beans,
  biodiesel, palm oil, sugarcane etc.
• Burning of the forest has lead to patchy remnants
  of forest that dry out, thus converting the areas
  to grassland this is called savannization.

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What causes tropical deforestation?

• Dams in the Amazon flood large areas of tropical
  forest, There are 76 dams planned in the next 20
  years that will flood an area the size of Georgia
  to supply power for smelting and mining
• Fuelwood extraction not a problem in tropical
  forests, but a problem everywhere else

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How can we reduce tropical deforestation

• Protect Hot spots areas of critical habitat
  that are in imminent danger
• Reduce poverty
• Reduce the flow of landless poor to the
  rainforest
• Establish programs to help settlers in the
  rainforest practice sustainable agriculture
• Phase out government subsidies and charge user
  fees
• Encourage governments to protect it by setting up
  preserves and parks
• Debt for nature swaps
• Label sustainable lumber
• Reduce illegal lumber cutting
• Cut canopy vines before harvesting trees
• Concentrate peasant farming on land already
  cleared
• Discourage overconsumption
• Transfer control of forests from federal
  government to local communities

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Managing Rangelands and Grasslands

• Rangelands are unfenced grasslands in temperate
  and tropical regions that supply vegetation for
  grazing animals
• Moderate grazing is healthy for grasslands
• Overgrazing is when to many animals graze for too
  long and exceed the carrying capacity of the area
  which causes damage.
• Cows also should not be allowed to graze near
  riparian areas
• Overgrazing causes compaction of the soil and
  kills young grass

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Establishing Reserves

• Large reserves are needed to help sustain all the
  worlds major types of terrestrial ecosystems
• Reserves should be set aside to protect
  endangered species
• Reserves should be in areas with a high
  biodiversity
• Create reserves in hot spots

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U.S. Public Lands

• Multiple Use Lands
• - National Forest System 156 forests, 20
  grasslands, run by the department of forestry
  according to sustainable yield and multiple use
  such as mining, logging, grazing, wildlife, soil
  and water resources
• - National Resource Land deserts, scrublands,
  prairies. Managed by BLM (Bureau of Land
  Management), resource reserves for domestic
  supplies of energy and minerals

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U.S. Public Lands

• Moderately Restricted
• - National Wildlife Refuges 508, run by Fish
  and Wildlife to protect habitats and breeding
  areas for waterfowl and big game for hunters and
  to protect species from extinction. Allow
  logging, mining, grazing, and military if the
  Department of the Interior allows it.

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U.S. Public Lands

• Restricted Use Lands
• - National Park System managed by National
  Park Service, goals are to preserve natural
  landscapes, historical and cultural heritage,
  includes parks, recreation areas, monuments,
  memorials, battlefields, historic sites, rivers,
  trails and seashores

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Managing and Sustaining National Parks

• How are parks threatened?
• - too many visitors
• - pollution created outside the park
• - too small to sustain viable populations of
  endangered animals

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How Parks are being threatened in developing
countries?

• 99 of protected areas in other countries are
  protected in name only
• Problems with poachers, loggers, miners
• Not enough money or manpower to protect them

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Designing Reserves

• The best shape is circular
• It is better to have a large single reserve than
  several smaller ones
• It is better to have one reserves with many
  different habitats
• If smaller reserves are created there should be
  wildlife corridors linking them together