Exploitation of the Nation’s Forests
Biology Senior Seminar
Melissa Barnes
11/26/07
Thesis: The nation’s forests are a valuable commodity and sustainable practices need to be employed to avoid overexploitation.
Outline
Introduction
The nation’s forests are a valuable commodity and sustainable practices need to be employed to avoid overexploitation. The term exploitation is often misunderstood and must be clarified before any further discussion. Exploitation simply means to make use of a certain resource, often for one’s own benefit. This is not to say that the use is damaging. In contrast, the purpose of this paper is to look at how the nation’s forests are used, the economics of their use, the governing bodies caring for them, and to question whether they are being overexploited. It will also look at who should be managing forests, and what is being or should be done if they are being overexploited.
Definition of a forest
A forest is more than trees; it is an ecosystem covering a considerable area with trees shrubs, plants and organisms. It utilizes oxygen, water, and soil nutrients to maintain itself. The health of a forest is often measured by the quality and quantity of water it exudes as well as the biodiversity that it supports. The value of a forest is both intrinsic and extrinsic. (Hendee, et al. 2003)
A forest is intrinsically valuable in its own biodiversity and overall complexity. Organisms are built to work symbiotically with and for one another in systems that keeps the entire community functioning. This implies no relation to humans, just the organisms living within the ecosystem. However, when it is said that a forest is extrinsically valuable, this is in relation to human use and appreciation. This means the products and services we use as well as the satisfaction that we receive from interaction with it. “We need nature, and particularly its wilderness strongholds…. It offers choices our spirit was designed to enjoy.” (Wilson 2005)
Land Use and Management
Aside from pure enjoyment, humans have been dependant on forest throughout their history. Forests provided necessities such as: safety, food, fuel, clothing and shelter. Other historical uses have included weapons, fortifications and concealment. In addition, countries were highly dependant on high quality naval timber for ships up until the advent of iron ships in the mid-nineteenth century. (Hendee, et al. 2003)
One of the greatest uses of today’s forests is recreation and the aesthetic pleasure of tourists. In areas that are set aside solely for this purpose, one might believe that nature can be left to take its own course without intervention, to be truly natural. This is the picture in the minds of the American public. Splendid, un-spoiled wilderness: an area protected from development. In truth, wilderness management is somewhat of a necessity depending on the usage. In the text “Forest and Renewable Resources,” management is called “nature’s helper,” while natural processes remain the principal architect of the landscape. (Hendee, et al. 2003) Later, this same book outlines five principles of wilderness management as described by Hendee and Dawson. These include: maintaining wilderness thresholds (maintaining solitude and division of area that defines it as wilderness), managing wilderness for nondegradation of individual areas (maintaining and restoring environmental conditions), managing wilderness as a holistic resource (focus on entire environment and interrelationships between organisms), favoring wilderness-dependant activity (encourage only recreation in which satisfaction is directly dependant on wilderness), and using minimal tools (do only what is necessary). (Hendee, et al. 2003)
The major wood resources include lumber, paper, plywood, and engineered wood products such as particle board. All of these result from logging. Other products include fuel wood, Christmas trees, ornamental crops, and maple syrup.
One use of forests involves the removal of the forest in its entirety or clear-cutting. This practice is done for development, crop land, and ranching. In the past, logging has been more prominent in producing clear cuts. A newer harvesting technique called silviculture has become mainstream in the last decade, and will be discussed further. While it is possible to design clear cuts to follow the landscape around them, this is still massive habitat destruction especially when it comes to development. (Hendee, et al. 2003)
The resources that are not easily measured should remain seen as the most important ones. These are the ecological services provided by forests including: clean air, water, soil, and biodiversity. In response to these services and looming climate change, people are prioritizing conservation. New sustainable practices are becoming mainstream in large corporations all the way down to individual homes. Individuals are embracing the green living movement, buying more recycled products and reducing their own waste. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines green living as “making sustainable choices about what we eat, how we travel, what we buy, and how we use and dispose of it.”(http://www.epa.gov/region2/sustainability/greenliving.html) Individuals can go to this website and many others to calculate their carbon footprint and ecological footprint as well as to learn more about specific ways to implement greener practices in their own lives. This movement is quickly becoming a trend and leading to a greater demand for ecologically produced products, and therefore forcing change within larger corporations. (Cambell & Reece 2002)
What are corporations and lumber companies doing? Silviculture is a “science of reproducing and manipulating a forest in order to fulfill stated management directives”. (Hendee, et al. 2003) This is to say that they are involving themselves in responsible harvesting techniques. There are forest managers employed by most companies to lay out specific harvesting plans that help the remaining ecosystem function. This can help lessen competition for moisture, light, nutrients and space. Active management of forests is in fact a necessity, especially in the absence of natural processes such as fire that has been suppressed over the last several decades. The effects of fire suppression are broad. Fuel buildup is a major cause of declining forest health, making areas more vulnerable to insects and disease. Fuel build up creates somewhat of a “tinder box” in which any fire is made much more dangerous and costly than it would have been had it not been suppressed in the first place. Fuel build up also makes wildland-urban interface much more dangerous as it puts homes and buildings at risk. In turn, wildland-urban interface is a cause of fire suppression. It is now necessary to turn to policies of fire management instead of fire suppression. The United States has made this shift, which has included prescribed fires, timber harvest, grazing, and other methods to avoid fuel accumulation.
In addition to employing forest managers and using harvest and management plans, logging methods are becoming more efficient. They are using more of the wood that they harvest, and reducing the transportation distances for equipment. This is not only helping the environment, but it is economically efficient as well. (Hendee, et al. 2003)
Economic Implications
Forests can be seen as renewable resources if they are managed well, but as replacement takes time, it is a much more sensitive product. As in most industries, looking into supply and demand can tell us simple things about how forestry can be affected by levels of exploitation. If forest resources are overexploited in response to excess demand, this could eventually lead to an economic lull in which there is not enough resource to fulfill a demand making prices increase. Too much production could also flood the market for a short period, decreasing the demand and over all the price of timber. If forest resources are underexploited, prices for wood products will remain high. As in most production fields, foresters need to regulate themselves based upon the economy and the demand, but with the long term in mind. When mitigation is necessary, this is additional cost to the entire market.
Other factors that determine the supply include the cost of transport and processing, the degree of completion, recycling, and the social costs. (Enger & Smith 2004) There are also extraneous factors that pose financial hazards such as natural disasters. One last factor to consider is the concept that an unhealthy or damaged ecosystem will not produce as efficiently as one that is properly managed.
The Ecological Cost
Overexploitation is harvesting beyond the ability of a population to rebound. In this case, we are looking primarily at trees. (Cambell & Reece 2002) Causes range from clear cutting to too much tourist traffic. This leads to the loss of forest services, resources and habitat. Habitat destruction leads to massive loss of biodiversity in that region and possibly endangerment or extinction of species on a larger scale.
Restoration is difficult, especially in forests. Most trees take years to reach full maturity and are not ready to sustain populations until years after that. Succession shows us that disturbance will bring about new species that out-compete the others depending upon the conditions. Pioneer species will be more adapted to the resulting conditions of a clear-cut than will the trees that were previously in a climax community. An example of this is seen by observing how early settlers in Michigan logged with zest, marveling at the “endless” supply of wood in those pine forests. That endless supply was almost completely decimated in a period of two decades. Today, there is second growth, but it is of aspen, birch, balsam fir, and some pine. (Opheim 1993) Entire ecosystems are affected when one organism or population is adjusted because of each organism is dependent upon the next.
Course of Action
Currently, the United States’ forests appear to be remaining consistent or growing at a rate 0.05% of net increase in forest area per year. This is an improvement considering that in some areas of the United States up to 95% of original forest has been destroyed in the last two centuries. (Cambell & Reece 2002) This is still a lot of area that should be reforested.
The national government, as will be covered in the next section, is beginning to give more ecological decisions to the state governments. This may in turn cause inconsistency and possibly break up future and current wildlife corridors necessary for prolonged biodiversity.
Renowned conservation biologist, E.O. Wilson turns to two main groups of people to save the hotspots of the world (hotspots being areas with the most species at risk of extinction. (Wilson 2005)), in his book “The Future of Life”: Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) and Christians/people of faith. The same should apply for saving this nation’s forests. Additionally, land owners, corporations, and the government at both the state and federal level should play major roles.
Wilson (2005) turns to each group for specific reasons, NGO’s have money and resources ready to be aimed at the right cause, and Christians and other spiritual people have the influence and drive to play as activists in a movement. Wilson hopes to draw spiritually minded people who feel connected and obligated as stewards to the environment. These people may include land owners who can work with government programs and implement green practices to manage their land. The general population has the power to persuade and control the government through voting and activism. The government has the power and lots of resources to put towards managing and expanding the National Park Service. People in the science and conservation field need to be responsible for further research and furthering technology as well as being a main proponent in helping to educate the public about what state that the world really is in and things that they can do to help. Current technology has already proven to be beneficial in increasing the efficiency of society and reducing waste specifically in the logging process. Most times, this technology is only able to advance further through government policies and funding.
Political
In comparison with previous decades, the government has been relatively dormant in the last ten to twenty years when it comes to environment-oriented acts. There are two departments of the US government who oversee different forest-regulating units. These are the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior.
The National Forest Service, managed by the US Department of Agriculture, controls the largest forestry system in the world, today spanning over approximately 191 million acres (Hendee, et al. 2003). The National Forest System that was originated by the Forest Reserve act of 1891. This act was followed by another act in 1897 which advised the management of the system, the Forest Management Act. The National Forest was relatively unaltered politically until the 1960’s when more acts were signed updating the 1897 act, the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield act and the National Forest Management act. These together require the secretary of agriculture to submit resource management plans for the national forests and declares them for multiple use and sustained yield. The Department of Agriculture also oversees the Natural Resource Conservation Service who works with and helps private land owners to manage and conserve their land. (www.fs.fed.us)
The Department of the Interior, in turn, oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs who manages the land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives (55.7 million acres), The Bureau of Land Management who manages public lands (264 million acres), the National Park Service who preserves the National Park System (84 million acres), the Bureau of Reclamation manages water resources, and the Fish and Wildlife service who is responsible for fish, wildlife, and plant conservation.(http://www.doi.gov/bureaus.html) Each of these departments has evolved under central governing bodies to specialize in these areas, dealing with specialized issues.
One recent issue impacting forest management addressed roadless areas. The Clinton administration issued an executive order that no new roads would be constructed in federally held forests as of December 2000. Many states including Idaho filed injunctions against this rule. This was followed by the Bush administration putting the order on hold in December 2001 for 18 months and finally re-opening the 58.5 million acres in question to road building, logging, and other commercial ventures in May 2005. At that time, Governors of each state were given 18 months to submit petitions on whether to stop development in their own state. This put the deadline in November 2006, one year ago. This, in a sense, made the previous act optional to each state. States were given the option to not petition as well if they did not desire. Many states did file petitions and subsequently protected the roadless areas in their state. Most complaints about the original roadless rule came from states citing inflexibility of the rule and legislative process as their concern. Many state petitions involved flexible forest management. http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/ with each state managing forests in its own way, the question that is reiterated is “Who is holding the states accountable?”
Conclusion
There is a balance that must be reached in this country and throughout the world for sustainable exploitation of resources. While this has not been happening in this country over the last two centuries, the citizens of the United States are gradually opening their eyes to these issues through the green movement and the threat of global warming. Forest depletion has come to somewhat of a standstill that will hopefully convert to an upturn in reforestation in the next several years. This is possible with the help of advancing technology and the cooperation of religious groups, the government, NGO’s, large corporations, scientists, and all citizens in their respective roles. Responsible management is currently being practiced in many areas and is the future of the nation’s resources.
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Wilson, E.O. (2005). The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf