Eastern Old-Growth Clearinghouse: FAQ

The Louisiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and Weyerhaeuser have agreed upon a conservation easement for 322 acres of Longleaf Pine . . .

Barry and Carolyn Knapp have donated a conservation easement on 430 acres of their Loess Hills farm to the Iowa chapter of The Nature Conservancy. The acreage, which will be protected from development and gravel mining, connects the Conservancy's 3187-acre Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve to the Big Sioux River. Broken Kettle, which provides habitat for the prairie rattlesnake and a host of other wildlife, is the largest contiguous native prairie in the state. The Conservancy reintroduced bison to the preserve in October. Rising above the Missouri Valley, the Loess Hills are formed of windblown silt. The Knapps have placed conservation easements on a total of 2300 acres.

Sources: The Nature Conservancy [Magazine], winter 2008, p. 67; and the Web site of The Nature Conservancy.

In September Governor David Paterson signed into law the Bruce S. Kershner Old Growth Forest Preservation and Protection Act, which protects from logging, old-growth forests on state land outside the State Forest Preserve, where old growth is already protected. The act defines old growth as land at least ten acres in extent, which includes "an abundance of late successional tree species, at least one hundred eighty to two hundred years of age in a contiguous forested landscape that has evolved and reproduced itself naturally, with the capacity for self perpetuation, arranged in a stratified forest structure consisting of multiple growth layers throughout the canopy and forest floor, featuring canopy gaps formed by natural disturbances creating an uneven canopy and a conspicuous absence of multiple stemmed trees and coppices." The state owns some 900,000 acres of land outside the Forest Preserve. Bruce Kershner whom the law honors, worked tirelessly to identify and protect old growth..

Brian Nearing, "New Law Safeguards Ancient Trees," Times Union [Albany], September 13, 2008.

The foliage in the Northeast this fall was spectacular, with maples in brilliant red and gold, but an infestation of Longhorned Beetles . . .

A team of scientists headed by Don Cameron, ecologist with the Maine Natural Areas Program, has examined Big Wilson Stream Forest in Piscataquis County, Maine (see Alert 5/16/08 below) and confirmed that it is, as forester Roger Merchant had suggested, a late successional forest with little sign of past management--only a "few rotting cut stumps in several limited areas and a small pile of debris." Cameron describes the upland portion of the 360-acre forest as "an exemplary Spruce-Northern Hardwoods Forest Natural Community" and the floodplain portion as a "Hardwood River Terrace Forest, a rare natural community type." Plum Creek Timber Company, which owns the floodplain forest and 215 acres of the upland forest, has taken the forest off its logging schedule, and there is hope that, now that the forest's condition has been formally evaluated, conservationists will purchase it. (See additional details in the Maine chapter of the Old Growth in the East.)

Sources: Don Cameron, Maine Natural Areas Program. "Big Wilson Stream Forest," A Summary Report, July 14, 2008.

Roger Merchant, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Personal Communication.

A study published under the above title in the journal Nature suggests that old-growth forests generally absorb more carbon dioxide than they give off. Researchers from six nations, who studied 519 different plots, found that forests continue to sequester carbon for many centuries. When individual trees die, shorter trees, which have waited for greater access to light, replace them and maintain productivity. Logging the forests causes an increase in the release of carbon dioxide for five to twenty years, until re-growth is sufficiently mature to take in more carbon than it gives off. The study is based in part on data from the AmeriFlux and CarboEurope programs.

Beverly Law of Oregon State University, director of the AmeriFlux Network states, "If you are concerned about offsetting greenhouse gas emissions and look at old forests from nothing more than a carbon perspective, the best thing to do is leave them alone." The article concludes:: "Because old-growth forests steadily accumulate carbon for centuries, they contain vast quantities of it. They will lose much of this carbon to the atmosphere if they are disturbed, so carbon accounting rules for forests should give credit for leaving old-growth forest intact."

Sources: Sebastiaan Luyssaert et al., "Old-Growth Forests as Global Carbon Sinks," Nature 455 (11 Sept. 2008): 213-15; and "Old Growth Forests Are Valuable Carbon Sinks," EurekAlert!, Oregon State University, September 10, 2006.

The Flomaton Natural Area, a fifty-eight acre tract of never-logged Longleaf Pine, with trees more than 300 years old, was clear cut . . .

The question as to whether the green fields of Kentucky’s horse country were preceded by closed-canopy forest or by savanna has been convincingly answered by Ryan McEwan and Brian McCarthy . . .

June 24, 2008 the State of Florida and U.S. Sugar reached a tentative agreement under which the State will buy the company and all its assets, including 292 square miles of farmland, for $1.75 billion. U.S. Sugar's land lies between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. If the deal goes through as it is expected to do, the state will protect the land from development and will construct on it a network of reservoirs and marshes to collect and purify water and direct it south to the Everglades. U.S. Sugar's land is not all contiguous. Exchanges with other companies will have to be arranged to consolidate the state's holdings. The company will be able to continue farming the land for six years in order to meet current contracts. The deal was made possible in part by the fact that the sugar industry in the United States has been suffering financially because of imports of sugar. For a perceptive commentary on the purchase see "Deal Recalls Big, Bold Roots of Conservation," by Emily Badger in the online Miller-McCune Magazine, July 31, 2008, <http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/540>.

Ironically and sadly a few days before the agreement was announced a researcher who would have been thrilled by the news was killed in the crash of a small plane. David Maehr, a conservation biologist and associate professor at the University of Kentucky died while making an aerial survey of black bears in Highlands County, Florida. He was serving as a visiting scientist at Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid during a sabbatical from the university. He cared deeply about protecting Florida's bears and panthers and had in the past worked to protect the panther for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.

Sources: Brian Skoloff, "Florida Buys Part of Everglades," Lexington Herald-Leader, June 25, 2008 and Jillian Ogawa," Plane Crash Kills UK Professor," Lexington Herald-Leader, June 22, 2008.

Michigan legislators have filed the Beaver Basin Wilderness bill, which would set aside as Wilderness 11,739 acres at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Establishment of the Beaver Basin Wilderness is one of the components of the general management plan for the Park, which was decided upon in 2004. So far this year only one Wilderness bill has passed Congress and been signed into law, the Wild Sky Wilderness Act for Washington State.

Sources: The Wilderness Society, Wilderness Report #215; and The Mining Journal, May 15, 2008.

5/21/08 Alert: Prevent Development of Back Country in Nantahala National Forest

The Western North Carolina Alliance asks readers to help prevent development in the now-intact Fires Creek Watershed in Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina. Developers planning to construct houses on a fifty-acre inholding, have asked for permission to access the site by road. The US Forest Service is currently considering the proposal for a road. According to the Alliance, the scoping notice falsely implies that Phillips Ridge Trail already provides road access almost to the inholding. Phillips Ridge Trail, the Alliance says, is just what its name implies, a trail for hikers and horseback riders. The trail is too close to creeks to be suitable for cars, and trying to allow it to carry cars would require major construction. The watershed is a treasure, with a trail system allowing multi-day hikes away from roads and with relatively intact streams, harboring rare aquatic species. Comments can be sent, before June 6, to Steve Lohr, District Ranger, Tusquitee District, 123 Woodland Drive, Murphy, NC 28906 or by e-mail to <comments-southern-north-carolina-nantahala-tusquitee@fs.fed.us> . For further information, call Ryan Griffin of the Alliance at 828-258-8737 .

5/16/08, rev. 6/8/08 Alert: Preserve Threatened Old Growth in Northern Maine

Maine forester, Roger Merchant, reports that Plum Creek Timber Company plans to log an isolated, likely old-growth, forest north of Big Wilson Falls in Piscataquis County this summer. The forest is more than 220 acres in extent and includes White Pine, Northern White-Cedar, maple, and hemlock well over 200 years in age. There are no signs of logging, Merchant reports. The land is located on the east side of Big Wilson Stream, north of Camp XII and south of the AT corridor. To reach the old growth, Plum Creek plans to construct a temporary bridge across Big Wilson from the south side adjacent to Big Wilson Cliffs. Plum Creek owns more forest in the United States than any other company, and may be responsive to public pressure because of concerns about its image. To help save the old growth write to Rick Holley, President and CEO of Plum Creek, 999 Third Avenue, Suite 4300, Seattle, WA 98104 or call Plum Creek (1-800-858-5347).

To acquire cypress trees for mulch, timber companies logged 80,000 acres of cypress forest in Louisiana in six years. Because of the work of members of the Save Our Cypress (www.saveourcypress.org), the logging has been reduced to "a trickle," . . . .

Neil Pederson will teach a course in the Ecology of Old-Growth Forests at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, in the fall of 2008. The course will be held Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 7:50 pm and will carry two semester-hours of credit.. Neil is dedicating it to the memory of Robert Zahner. A skeleton syllabus is posted at <http://people.eku.edu/pedersonn/classes/ecoOGfor/>.

Southwestern Florida has considerable old growth, in particular in Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, and Big Cypress National Preserve. It also provides habitat for endangered wood storks and endangered Florida panthers, among other wildlife. The area’s streams, wet prairies, and wet woodlands and forests . . .

The North Carolina Wildlife Federation will present its Conservationist of the Year Award to Rob Messick . . .

January 29 the West Virginia Congressional delegation introduced legislation to protect as Wilderness 47,000 acres in Monongahela National Forest. The Wild Monongahela Act would expand the existing Dolly Sods, Cranberry and Otter Creek Wilderness Areas and create four new areas: Spice Run (7124 acres, currently accessible only by boat on the Greenbrier River), Cheat Mountain (7955 acres, including the high falls of the Cheat River and accessible by train), Big Draft (5242 acres), and Roaring Plains West (6820 acres). The Monongahela encompasses a total of 919,000 acres, of which 78,041 are currently designated as wilderness. The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition hopes that additional acreage, in particular the Seneca Creek Backcountry, Roaring Plains East and North, and the East Fork of the Greenbrier will be added to the bill before it passes. For further information see the Coalition's web site: http://www.wvwild.org .

In an article in Geographical Review Susy Svatek Ziegler presents the vegetation history of steep slopes west of Noonmark . . .

The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) is bringing hope that former strip mines in Appalachia can be restored to healthy forest. An estimated 300,000 hectares of land in the Eastern United States on which mature forests . . .

National Public Radio's All Things Considered reported New Year's Eve on a study of the carbon dioxide flux at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts. Researchers have found that the oldest portion of the forest, which was used as a woodlot but never clear cut and which includes trees three hundred years old, removes from the air one ton of carbon dioxide per acre per year. Younger stands elsewhere in the forest capture even more carbon dioxide. Surprisingly the carbon dioxide that is removed from the air is not all stored in the trees; apparently half goes into the soil. Researchers do not know why carbon dioxide goes into the soil, researcher Steven Wofsy told NPR. They also do not know whether this and other forests will continue to sequester carbon indefinitely or will begin releasing it. In recent years the rate of capture has increased.

A report by Josh Kelly on 891 acres of contiguous primary forest on Laurel Knob in Pisgah National Forest has been added to our examples of old growth. Josh Kelly and colleagues mapped Laurel Knob in the summer of 2006. The account is illustrated by photographs by Kelly, Dan Entmacher and Tom Kenney.

As 2007 draws to a close, the Wilderness Society has compiled the status of pending Wilderness legislation. Most bills concern the western United States, but legislation on Virginia and Georgia is also before Congress. The Virginia Ridge and Valley Act (see our April 25, 2007 posting) was passed by the House, but is still in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The Chattahoochee National Forest Act of 2007 (H.R. 707) (see our August 13, 2006 posting) is still in the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands and the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry., 2007

The state of Massachusetts announced July 5 that it has purchased the nine-hundred-acre Spectacle Pond Farm in Sandisfield, Berkshire County. The land connects two other state-owned conservation lands, Otis State Forest to the north and the Clam River Flood Protection area to the south. The land is part of what is known as the New Marlborough Forest Block, 82,000 acres that has few roads and that has undergone relatively little other anthropogenic disruption. The farm includes fifteen to twenty acres of old-growth forest, largely hemlock; and the sixty-two-acre Lower Spectacle Pond, one of only two large ponds in the Berkshires that have an undeveloped shoreline and that were, until the purchase, unprotected. It has been the subject of a family dispute. Certain family members sold half the farm to the Massachusetts Audubon Society last December; other family members sold the balance of the land to a developer. The state, which had been wanting to purchase the land for at least twenty-five years, then stepped in and obtained the entire farm from the two parties for a total of $5.2 million.

Wangness, Lisa. "A Swath of Berkshires' Past Saved for Future." Boston Globe, July 6, 2007.

At Fernbank Forest on International Bird Migration Day, May 12, bird watchers spotted or heard twenty-nine bird species, none of them just passing through although many of them came to the site only for the summer. The sixty-five acre mesic-hardwood, old-growth forest in metropolitan Atlanta is an official banding location, but the number of migratory birds being netted and banded there is dropping. In 1995, ornithologists banded 140 birds; in 2006, only 22. The birds passing through this year have included the Veery and Swainson's Thrush and the Tennessee and Blackpoll Warblers. As for summer visitors, a Wood Thrush has come to the same area of Fernbank from South America for several summers. The biologist who led the bird walk in May pointed out that Wood Thrushes return to the very same tree each year. Thus logging severely impacts them. She suggested that people leave ten to twenty feet of trunk to provide nesting places for bluebirds and other species if they must cut a tree. The article on Fernbank, in fact, has much the same theme as the cover story in the July-August Audubon magazine: "Common Birds in Decline . . and How You Can Help."

Davis, Mary Byrd, Old Growth in the East: A Survey, available online in the supporter’s portion of this web site.

Shelton, Stacy. "All Aflutter at Fernbank: Watchers Look Out for Migratory Birds." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 13, 2007, p. 1D.

Six U.S. scientists, led by James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goodard Institute for Space Studies, have published a paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society arguing that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide could produce a dramatic flip in climate that would raise sea levels as much as several meters by 2100. Intense, planet-wide, efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases within the next decade are essential if we are to prevent the destruction of the natural world as we know it and of civilization, the scientists state. Thoroughly documented, "Climate Change and Trace Gases" implicitly criticizes the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for underestimating the likelihood and the results of the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets in the twenty-first century. The report, with an abstract, are available through the Goddard Institute's Web site: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2007/Hansen_etal_2.html .

Sources: Steve Connor, "The Earth Today Stands in Imminent Peril," The Independent (UK), June 1, 2007 and the report itself.

Minnesota Point, which juts out into Lake Superior, is the longest freshwater sandbar in North America. On the eastern end is an old-growth forest with Red and White Pines and Paper Birch, varied shrubs, and a herbaceous layer, which includes rare ferns belonging to the genus Botrychium. Eighteen acres of the forest are preserved as the Minnesota Point Pine Forest Scientific and Natural Area (SNA). Unfortunately, the city of Duluth's Sky Harbor Airport, which serves seaplanes and other small planes, is also on the point.

According to regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, some one hundred or more old trees at the southern end of the airport runway, many of them in the SNA, need to be cut to clear a safety zone. Old pines have been cut at the site in the past. Logging impacts the "dynamic between the shifting sands and the winds and the vegetation," Steve Wilson of the state's Department of Natural Resources, has pointed out. Furthermore, the area is important for migrating songbirds; and removing vegetation and adding lights will likely impact them.

Because of the protests of conservationists and others, the logging is on hold, while ways to preserve the natural features of the area but make the airport safe are under discussion. John Myers of the Duluth News-Tribune says that the "options include a variance from FAA, moving runway or cutting trees."

Myers, John. "Effort Under Way to Save Trees, Meet Safety Regs," Duluth News-Tribune (MN), January 25, 2007.

Old Growth Threatened in the Daniel Boone National Forest

In the Redbird District of the Daniel Boone National Forest (Clay and Leslie Counties), the US Forest Service intends to log forty-five acres that the agency itself in an action notice identified as Possible Old Growth (POG). The logging will take place as part of a 1459-acre logging project, which will include building five miles of road. M, embers of Kentucky Heartwood hiked to the POG and found slow-growing, dry forest with trees 100 to 125 years old on steep hillsides. USFS wants to convert the area to early successional habitat to support Ruffed Grouse.

Kentucky Heartwood has appealed the decision of USFS. The Redbird District was originally purchased to protect water sheds. Clay County has the highest level of poverty in Kentucky , and USFS has done little to inform residents of its logging project. Heartwood has therefore made environmental justice a basis for its appeal. For further information, contact Kentucky Heartwood, 606-780-1336; kyheartwood@alltel.net

Sources:

Kentucky Heartwood, Newsletter, Spring 1997.

Lovelace, Paul , Kentucky Heartwood. Personal communication.

Osborne, Doug , Kentucky Heartwood. Personal communication.

--Posted May 22, 2007

Zoar Valley : Protection and an Old-Growth Definition

The final management plan for state-owned land in Zoar Valley in western New York (Erie and Cattaraugus Counties) divides the Zoar Management Unit into two management areas: 1) a “’protection area’ comprised of the gorge and a 300’ buffer zone along the rim of both the north and south sides of the main gorge and east and west sides of the South Branch of Cattaraugus Creek” and 2) a Multiple Use Area, comprised of the balance of the unit. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which developed the management plan, promised to ask the state legislature to declare the protection area a Nature and Historic Preservation Trust, which would afford it the highest protection available for state land outside the Adirondacks and Catskills. Both areas will be managed for passive recreation. In the protected area trees will be cut only “to develop access for persons with disabilities, for hiking trails and for maintenance of parking lots.” The use of motorized vehicles “by the public” will be prohibited, “except for safety and emergency reasons.”

In the plan the DEC defines old growth forest. Old-growth forest, DEC states, is characterized by the combination of certain factors, “including an abundance of late successional tree species, at least 180-200 years of age, in a contiguous forested landscape that has evolved and reproduced itself naturally, with the capacity for self perpetuation, arranged in a stratified forest structure . . ., featuring (1) canopy gaps formed by natural disturbances, creating an uneven canopy, and (2) a conspicuous absence of multiple stemmed trees and coppices.” Old-growth forests typically have (1) an irregular forest floor; (2) “show limited signs of human disturbance since European settlement; and (3) have distinct soil horizons . . . . “ They also have well developed and diverse herbaceous layers. This definition, it should be noted, does not equate old growth with primary forest, because of its requirement for old, late successional species and an uneven canopy. In a primary forest trees may all be young because of a natural disturbance regime.

DEC will use the definition to evaluate forest in Zoar Valley . The agency will also use the definition in future management plans. Bruce Kershner and colleagues identified 400 acres of old growth in the Zoar Valley Management Unit and an additional 250 acres on nearby private land.

Sources:

Bonfatti, John F., “State’s Final Plan Keeps Zoar Area Undisturbed” The Buffalo News, February 2, 2007 .

Davis, Mary Byrd, Old Growth in the East: A Survey, available online in the supporter’s portion of this web site.

New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Zoar Valley Multiple Use Area Unit Management Plan: Final, December 2006 (released February 1, 2007 ), pp. 19 and 26. --posted May 16, 2007

In searching a database for articles about old growth today, we were saddened to find obituaries of Bruce Kershner, who died February 16 of esophageal cancer, and Jim Jontz, who died April 14 of colon and liver cancer.

Bruce Kershner was a founding member of the New York Old-Growth Forest Association, an author or co-author of numerous books on old growth, including the Sierra Club Guide to Ancient Forests of the Northeast, which he co-authored with Robert Leverett, and an ardent discoverer and defender of old-growth forest. He played a key role in securing protection for numerous sites, including Zoar Valley in New York and Marcy's Woods in Ontario.

Jim Jontz served in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought for environmental causes, from 1986 to 1992. Protection for the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and the East were among the issues on which he worked there. He later led a coalition of labor unions, environmentalists, and others working against the North American Free Trade Agreement. This writer can attest that without the encouragement of Jim Jontz the book of essays, Old-Growth Forests, Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery , would likely never have been written. When we met at an eastern old-growth conference, he suggested that, using his name, I contact Island Press about their publishing a book on old growth. The press agreed to do so.

Bruce Kershner's and Jim Jontz's enthusiasm and leadership will be greatly missed.

"Bruce S. Kershner, Environmentalist, Nature Author." Buffalo News, February 18, 2007.

The battle by environmentalists to prevent mining under Dysart Woods in Belmont County, Ohio, has ended in defeat. The Seventh District Court of Appeals refused to overturn a mining permit granted to Ohio Valley Coal Company by the chief of the Division of Resources Management in 2003. The permit allows the company to conduct long wall mining to within 300 feet of the fifty-seven acre old-growth woods and to carry out room and pillar mining under the woods. The permit was appealed by Buckeye Forest Council, Dysart Defenders, and Chad Kister, who fear that the mining will cause a chronic water shortage and possibly subsidence. The deadline for filing a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the case has passed. The woods are owned by Ohio University, which did not appeal the permit.

Buckeye Forest Council, "Court Upholds Permit to Mine Ohio Ancient Forest," available online at <www.buckeyeforestcouncil.org>.

"Ohio Valley Coal Applauds Appeal Court Decision to Uphold Dysart Woods Permit," The U.S. Coal Review, March 12, 2007.

The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has before it a bill that, if passed, would designate as Wilderness or Wilderness Study Areas 43,000 acres, and as Scenic Areas, 12,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service Land in Virginia's Jefferson National Forest . The Virginia Ridge and Valley Act of 2007 (S. 570) was introduced February 17 by Senators John Warner and Jim Webb. Representative Rick Boucher introduced the same legislation in the House (HR 1011). The bills are the same as legislation unsuccessfully introduced in 2004. Two new Scenic Areas would be created, Seng Mountain and Bear Creek. The Kimberling Creek Potential Wilderness Area would be created for eventual incorporation in the Kimberling Creek Wilderness. For further information on other land included go to the Web site of the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition. Progress of the bill in Washington can be followed on the GovTrack.us Web site.

Update: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill October 23, 2007. It is in committee still in the U.S. Senate.

Quang-Tuan Luong visited and photographed Congaree National Park in November 2006 as part of a project to publish a book on U.S. National Parks. Many of his photographs of the Congaree, which are spectacular, can be seen at his web site, <<http://www.terragalleria.com>> Luong, a native of France, came to the United States to study at the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. He was so attracted to the U.S. National Parks that he stayed in this country after finishing his work at Berkeley, in order to visit all of them. John Cely guided him through the Congaree.

Sources: Joey Holleman, "Nature Photographer Points His Lens at Congaree," The State [Columbia, S.C.], January 5, 2007; http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.congaree.html>>.

The Kentucky Old-Growth Society (a temporary name) will hold its first meeting June 15-16 at Pine Mountain State Resort Park in eastern Kentucky. Among the speakers will be Lee Frelich, Robert Leverett, and Neil Pedersonn. The conference will include a field trip. Sponsors include the Eastern Native Tree Society and the Kentucky State Nature Preserves. Everyone interested in old growth, whether living in Kentucky or not, is welcome to attend. Additional information can be found at http://people.eku.edu/pedersonn/kyOGentsmeet.html . This site will be updated as plans develop.

The Asian hemlock woolly adelgid has reached the one large area of old growth that has survived in Kentucky, the 2350-acre Blanton Forest in Harlan County. To determine the status of the infestation, the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission has asked hikers to volunteer to search for signs of the insects on February 24. The adelgid has reached a total of sixteen states, was first seen in the state last April. The adelgid kills hemlocks in five to ten years by gradually sucking the sap from trees. Kentucky has treated some infested trees with an insecticidal soap and with a chemical that was injected into the soil. Beetles that are being raised in laboratories to kill the adelgid are another possible means of defense. However, the state lacks the funding and the staff to treat all infected trees. Furthermore, the presence in Blanton Forest of the Blackside Dace (Phoxinus cumberlandensis) a species of fish listed as threatened by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, means that officials would have to be particularly careful not to use any tactics there that could harm aquatic life. Hemlocks in Blanton Forest have diameters of up to four feet and may be well over 100 feet in height. .

Source: Mead, Any. "Help Sought to Find Insect Threat to Trees." Lexington Herald-Leader, Feb. 23, 2007

The Natural Areas Association, in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, will hold its 34th annual conference October 9-12, 2007, in Cleveland. The theme will be "preserving nature in a fragmented landscape." Abstracts of presentations for the conference must be submitted by April 2. For details go to www.naturalarea.org/conference.asp . The Cleveland Museum has an active program of land acquisition for preservation purposes,, and the conference field trips can be expected to be well worthwhile.

In non-profit circles, at least, the more things change the more remain the same. While visiting the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Department's Salato Wildlife Education Center today, I came across a small exhibit on Kentucky old growth which included a letter from E. Lucy Braun as executive secretary of the Save Kentucky's Primeval Forest League. The League was inviting people to a "mass meeting" at the Phenix Hotel in downtown Lexington the afternoon of January 4, 1936. The letter explained that Kentucky's remaining primeval forest should be purchased and protected. In the exhibit, text accompanying the letter stated that the eminent biologist and her sister had organized the society after they found magnificent primeval forest in Perry County, Kentucky, that was threatened with logging. They received support from Governor Chandler and other prominent Kentuckians. Nevertheless, the organization did not succeed in saving the Kentucky forests it aimed to protect, and its name is now known only to historians. Braun did, however, assist the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy in developing the Edge of Appalachia Preserve System in Ohio, a system that is not only alive and well, but still growing.

The National Arbor Day Foundation has posted on the Web a map showing current hardiness zones and an animated map showing the shift of warm zones north between 1990 and 2006. Type www.arborday.org/media/zones.cfm into your browser.

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In "Old-Growth Forests Can Accumulate Carbon in Soils" Guoyi Zhou et al. present the results of their research on the top 20-cm of soil in old-growth forests in southern China between 1979 and 2003. During this period the concentration of soil organic carbon increased "from about 1.4% to 2.35% at an average rate of 0.035% each year." Scientists have taken for granted that the level of soil organic carbon in old-growth forests does not change. Guoyi Zhou et al.state that their research shows the need for further study of below-ground processes and their relation to climate change (Science, vol. 314, 1 December 2006, p. 1417). ( On the growth of trees in old growth, see below.)

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Louisana Preserve Increases in Size

Through a donation and a land purchase, The Nature Conservancy has increased the size of its Persimmon Gulley Preserve in southwestern Louisiana to almost eight hundred acres. The preserve is the site of a wet Longleaf Pine Savanna. Because the wetland is highly saline, the Longleaf are small, but the savanna exhibits old-growth characteristics, with mixed age classes and some trees three hundred years old.

Sources:

Nature Conservancy, vol. 56, no. 4, Winter 2006, p. 56.

Old Growth in the East: A Survey. Online edition. 2003-2006..

--posted November 29, 2006

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New England Wilderness Bill Passes House

November 15 the House of Representatives passed the New England Wilderness Act of 2006, which establishes 34,500 acres of wilderness in two parcels in New Hampshire and 42,000 acres in six parcels in Vermont. The 42,000 acres was a compromise. The bill as passed by the Senate would have set aside 48,000 acres of wilderness in Vermont. See "New England Wilderness Legislation on Hold" below. President Bush is expected to sign the legislation. A compromise based on a compromise, the bill is weaker than conservationists had initially hoped that it would be.

--posted November 19, 2006 _________________________________________________________________________________________

Growth in Old-Growth Forests

In a widely circulated op ed in the Washington Times, January 22, 2006, Patrick Moore, chairman of a company that assists the forest industry with public relations, stated, “Old growth forests often have a large ‘balance’ of carbon that has built up over time in wood and soil. They don’t add much new carbon because they decay at about the same rate they grow.” The implication of the article is that in terms of climate change we are better off planting fast-growing trees than preserving old-growth forests.

Neil Pederson has pointed out to us an article that provides a partial answer to Moore by furnishing data on growth in an old-growth forest. Researchers S. L. Galbraith and W. H. Martin found that at Lily Cornett Woods, an old-growth mixed mesophytic forest in southeastern Kentucky , mean density and mean basal area “significantly increased” between 1971 and 1992. Overstory density went from 284 to 347 trees per hectare and basal area from 26.4 to 29.9 m2 per hectare. The major factor in the increase in density was the “smallest overstory diameter-class (12.5-30.0 cm).” Pederson has observed through his own work in dendrochronology that tree age has little bearing on growth rates and that at present all classes of trees, including the old trees, are accelerating their growth.

Sources

Galbraith, S. L. and W. H. Martin. “Three Decades of Overstory and Species Change in a Mixed Mesophytic Forest in Eastern Kentucky .” Castanea, June 2005, pp. 115-128.

Moore, Patrick, Greenspirit Strategies, Ltd. “Forestry in the Name of Climate Change.” Washington Times, January 22, 2006 .

Pederson, Neil. Climatic Sensitivity and Growth of Southern Temperate Trees in the Eastern US: Implications for the Carbon Cycle. Ph.D. Thesis. Columbia University, New York, NY, 2005.

Pederson, Neil, Eastern Kentucky University. Lecture at the University of Kentucky's School of Forestry, November 8, 2006.

posted November 19, 2006

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Late-Successional Forest in Northern New England

Andrew Whitman and John Hagan at Mahomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Maine have developed an index that foresters can apply in less than half an hour “to quantify the degree to which a stand is in a late-successional condition. Writing of the forests of northern New England, they classify as late-successional, stands that contain “a dominant canopy cohort of trees between about 120 and 200 years of age” and as true old growth, stands around 200 years of age or older. The late successional stands have experienced logging, but exhibit some old-growth characteristics. Whitman and Hagan found that the most important indicator of late successional condition, is the density of large-diameter trees, living or dead. Another, less important indicator, is the presence of easily-identified lichens: Collema and Leptogium species for northern hardwoods and Usnea species for upland spruce-fir. Their index is thus based largely on the diameters of trees but also incorporates the lichens.

They developed the index in the hope that if foresters can recognize late successional stands, they will find ways to conserve them. They judged that as of 2004 when they developed the index, only 4-6% of the forest in northern Maine might be late-successional and that, because late successional stands have grown past their age of greatest financial value, they could be logged out of existence within five years. The situation has not improved..

The loss of the stands would mean a major loss in biodiversity, though scientists do not know enough about biodiversity in late-successional forest to list all the species that would disappear. Species that depend on large trees, living or dead, tend to be small, inconspicuous species such as lichens, mosses, fungi, and insects. Forest continuity, whether large trees have been present in the forest over a very long period of time, is key to the continued presence of these species. (See, under Wildlife Sidelights, “Previously Undescribed Species Reported in the Adirondacks ” for related research.) .

Sources:

Hagan, John M. and Andrew A. Whitman, “ Late-successional Forest : A Disappearing Age Class and Implications for Biodiversity” and Andrew A. Whitman and John M. Hagan, “A Rapid-Assessment Late-Successional Index for Northern Hardwoods and Spruce-Fir Forest” in Forest Mosaic Science Notes, May and December 2004, available at www.mahometmaine.org .

Whitman, Andrew A. Personal communication.

--posted November 3, 2006

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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Doomed?

Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota ’s Center for Hardwood Ecology and an old-growth researcher, predicts that a combination of forces will devastate the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) and other forest along the Minnesota-Quebec border during the next fifty to one hundred years. “Existing forests just aren’t going to be there,” he told reporter Dennis Lien of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. European earthworms are moving into the forests, where they consume the leaf litter and cause the soil to become hard and dry. Overly abundant deer are consuming the seedlings that survive the earthworms and the slugs that accompany them. Global warming threatens to eliminate the northern conifers. Emerald ash borers, Asian long-horn beetles, garlic mustard, and European buckthorn are advancing toward the forest. Meanwhile, fires, needed to regenerate certain tree species and to allow the forest to adapt to changes naturally, are not taking place on a sufficiently large scale.

Alan Ek, head of the University of Minnesota ’s Department of Forestry is not quite as pessimistic as Frelich, but admitted to Lien that changes are going to happen rapidly and is not sure that they can be stopped. Barb Sonderberg of the US Forest Service says that the agency will not take such drastic steps as starting fires to promote tree regeneration, but will let the natural processes prevail.

According to Frelich, the BWCA is the site of more than 400,000 acres of never-logged forest. At present the forest looks much as it did when American Indians inhabited it.

Sources

Davis, Mary Byrd. Old Growth in the East: A Survey. Online edition. 2003-2006.

Lien, Dennis. “Last Stand for Our Forests?” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 1, 2006 .

--posted October 27, 2006

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New Listing of Tree Ages

Neil Pederson , a dendrochronologist and professor at Eastern Kentucky University, has created a listing, on the Web, of the maximum ages of tree species in eastern North America as documented through tree-ring analysis in the last few decades. The list can be accessed at http://people.eku.edu/pederson/oldlisteast . Pederson welcomes submissions of new data.

--posted October 18, 2006

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New England Wilderness Legislation on Hold

September 19, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the New England Wilderness Bill, which combined the wilderness bills for Vermont and New Hampshire . The bill would have designated 34,500 acres of wilderness in New Hampshire and almost 48,000 in Vermont . However, the governor of Vermont inserted a monkey wrench. He wrote to Republican leaders in the House asking them to oppose the bill, because it designated too many acres in Vermont . His letter caused an uproar in Vermont. In an attempt to save the bill, the Vermont delegation, Senator Patrick Leahy (D), Senator Jim Jeffords (I), and Congressman Bernie Sanders (I), proposed removing 6,066 acres in the northern part of the proposed Glastonbury wilderness from the bill. The designated new wilderness acreage would then total almost 42,000 acres. (See Vermont Wilderness Bill below). Governor Douglas accepted the compromise and agreed to write to the people whom he had previously contacted, this time asking them to support the new version of the bill. The damage, however, had been done. Congress has adjourned without the House having passed the New England legislation.

--Posted September 30, 2006

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Inventory Inventory of Limestone Bluff Forests in Vermont

Eric Sorenson and Robert Popp have compiled an inventory of Limestone Bluff Cedar-Pine Forests of Vermont, which was published earlier this year by the Nongame and Natural Heritage Program of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, in Waterbury, Vermont. The community that they trace occurs on "bluffs and outcrops found primarily along the shore of Lake Champlain and is dominated by northern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis)." Trees tend to be "stunted, twisted, and wind-swept." Cedars more than three hundred years old were identified at several locations. Sorenson and Popp mapped seventy-five sites and visited twenty-seven of them. Out of the twenty-seven, they identified twenty-one sites that are significant at the state level. The twenty-one total 360 acres. Many of the sites visited are on private land. The highest quality site on public land is at Kingsland Bay State Park and is ranked "A," indicating little anthropogenic disruption, The report, without the appendix describing the sites visits, is available on the web site <www.vtfish and wildlife.com>,

--posted September 15, 2006

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A Threat to Old Growth in Pisgah National Forest

The US Forest Service (USFS) is currently considering whether to move ahead with plans for the Globe Timber Sale in the Grandfather District of North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest, despite the opposition of environmentalists and many other concerned citizens, in particular residents of Blowing Rock. USFS released its environmental assessment June 30, and ended the period for public comment August 18, after it had briefly extended the comment period because of a request from Senator Elizabeth Dole. The Globe Project involves a large number of stands, totaling more than 231 acres, in two distinct areas : the Upper Johns River (south of Blowing Rock) and along Franklin Branch Road on Globe Mountain .

The Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project hired Rob Messick to take a preliminary look at stands in the Upper Johns River area before USFS released its environmental assessment. He found two stands with old growth in or directly adjacent to them. Environmental organizations asked USFS to drop these two stands from the proposed sale. When USFS failed to do so, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) hired Rob Messick and Josh Kelly to quantitatively verify old growth in or near the two stands. They studied four plots, 20 x 50 meters in size, and found that three out of four had old growth that fit USFS’s Region 8 Guidance for Old Growth (1997). The plots were in Chestnut Oak Forest, Dry Oak Heath, Montane Oak Hickory and a type transitional between the latter and Acidic Cove. Trees up to more than three hundred years old were growing in the Chestnut Oak Forest and Dry Oak Heath in and near the stands. At the request of SELC, four prominent scientists examined and verified Messick's and Kelly's methodology and advocated protecting at least two stands in or near existing old growth..

In 1995 researchers entered the Lower Thunderhole Creek Area four times and made a Best Approximation delineation of class B old-growth forests there. After USFS released its environmental assessment on the Globe Project, researchers re-entered the Thunderhole Creek Area, and doing repeatable plot and core sample work (Greater Precision work), identified within a large stand proposed for logging, ten acres of old growth that fit USFS’s Region 8 Guidance. Apart from its old growth, the Thunderhole Creek area is significant for having high quality trout waters and an unusual occurrence of Montane Alluvial Forest along a significant section of its banks.

USFS states that its objectives in proposing the Globe Sale include providing habitat for turkey, grouse, deer, and bear; using herbicide on exotic species; and creating a network of old growth. The old growth to which the agency refers is future old growth, not existing old growth. One of the stands to be so designated was cut only twelve years ago. USFS refuses to discuss the actual old growth and claims that it is not an issue, since the agency is setting aside forest that it promises to allow to grow old.

If USFS in its decision on its environmental assessment continues to plan to log actual old growth, the decision will be appealed. SELC "will make sure that USFS complies with the law," Gerken promises.

Meanwhile, a move is afoot to obtain permanent protection for the forest from Congress. Residents of the Blowing Rock area have on hand a draft bill to designate a Grandfather National Scenic Area, and are seeking Congressional sponsors for it.

Sources:

Eason, Jeff. “Globe Debate Warms Up.” Watauga Democrat. Available online at www.wataugademocrat.com. Posted August 14, 2006.

Gerken, D. J. Personal Communication. 2006.

Messick, Rob. Personal communication. 2006.

”Old Growth Timber Sale Proposed Just Outside Blowing Rock, NC.” in “Front Porch Blog,” Appalachian Voices. Available online at www.appvoices.org. Posted July 26, 2006 .

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[We have enlarged this story and moved it to Alerts, because we have been informed of a campaign in need of support.

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8/13/06 Old Growth in the Chattahoochee (Georgia) Wilderness Bill

Jess Riddle, who conducted field research on Georgia old growth for Georgia Forest Watch, tells us that the Chattahoochee Wilderness Bill (HR 5612), if passed, will protect at least 700 acres of old growth. The proposed 13,382-acre Mountaintown Scenic Area includes four old-growth sites, two of which, Betty Mountain and Rich Knob, have “large, commercially valuable Tulip Trees and diverse herb layers.” The Betty Mountain old growth is 141 acres in extent; Rich Knob has two smaller old-growth stands: 26 acres and 17 acres. Old growth in the proposed 8,448 acres of additions to existing wilderness areas includes sites at Eagle Mountain and Tate Branch in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness Extensions; Old Rocky Knob and Tarkiln Ridge in the Brasstown Wilderness Extensions; Glade Mountain in the Ellicott Rock Wilderness Extension; and Oak Ridge in the Raven Cliffs Wilderness Extension. Riddle singled out the 137 acres of old growth at Eagle Mountain in the Ben Gap addition to the Southern Nantahala Wilderness as having “exceptional diversity for a Georgia old growth stand.” At the site are “extensive rock outcrops” and “young but apparently undisturbed mixed mesophytic forests,” as well as “more typical dry oak forests.” Riddle and co-workers did not have the opportunity to study several of the proposed additions to wilderness.

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Ben Dobbin in an Associated Press article celebrates the creation of the 14,000-acre Letchworth State Park by William Pryor Letchworth, a Quaker who made a fortune in manufacturing. The park, in Livingston and Wyoming Counties, runs 17 miles along a gorge cut by the Genesee River. Letchworth first glimpsed the gorge in 1858 and by his death in 1910 had pieced together 1000 acres. He bequeathed the acreage to the state, which subsequently obtained additional land. Although the article does not mention old forest, the park has at least 75 and probably about 200 acres of old growth.

Davis, Mary Byrd. Old Growth in the East: A Survey. Online edition. 2006. Available in the supporters' section of this web site.

Dobbin, Ben. "100 Years of Vastitude," Lexington Herald, August 6, 2006. Available through www.kentuckyconnect.com .

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The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has opened several of its Scientific and Natural Areas (SNAs) in northern Minnesota's St. Louis, Cook, and Itasca Counties to recreational activities not normally permitted in SNAs. To combat damage to vegetation by a large deer population, DNR is opening Moose Mountain SNA to regulary archery and firearm hunting during firearms season and Chisholm Point Island SNA to archery hunting. Snow mobiles will be allowed in Moose Mountain along an existing power line right of way. Spring Beauty Northern Hardwood SNA and Myhr Creek Ridge SNA will be open to hunting and dogs to "make them consistent with other SNAs in northern Minnesota. . . ." Hovland Woods and Lutsen, which are already open to hunting and dogs, will be opened to berry picking for non-commercial purposes and picnicking, as will Moose Mountain, Spring Beauty, and Myhr Creek Ridge. The SNAs include old growth. For more information on the sites, see Old Growth in the East in the supporters' section of this web site.

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An article by Janet Eastman in the Los Angeles Times (July 6, 2006) describes the intense competition among companies that salvage, refinish, and sell wood from old structures. As sales increase by as much as 50% a year, dealers scramble to identify and obtain the right to dismantle property with aged timber, in particular paneling, flooring, and framing. "'If you were to try to get wood of that quality from new trees, you would be cutting old growth . . .," Nadav Malin, editor of GreenSource is quoted as stating.

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The state of Illinois has acquired Bohm Woods, 92 acres of "original forest," on a bluff above the American Bottom floodplain east of Saint Louis. The purchase money came from Dynegy, Inc., as part of a settlement of a suit in regard to air pollution from coal-fired power plants. The site will be preserved by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. (See Online Survey for additional details.)

Office of Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General. "Madigan: Environmental Benefits from Landmark Clean Air Settlement Becoming Reality." [Press Release.] May 17, 2006.

Jadhav, Adam. "92 Acres Near Edwardsville Will Become Nature Preserve." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 18, 2006.

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The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released its draft management plan for Zoar Valley Multiple Use Area. Zoar Valley, in Erie and Cattaraugus Counties, is a complex of 630 acres of old growth in four canyons of Cattaraugus Creek. Four hundred of the 630 acres are within the 6000-acre Multiple Use Area. The draft plan would allow no logging in the old growth, a stipulation that environmentalists have fought had to obtain.

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A New Map of Forest Regions

In “Revisiting the Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America,” (Bioscience, April 2006, pp. 341-42), J. M. Dyer publishes a new map of forest regions in the eastern United States based on data from 100,000 Forest Inventory and Analysis plots monitored by the US Forest Service on public and private land. He compares his map with the map of patterns of “original” forest, which E. Lucy Braun based on her field research and published in Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America in 1950.

Dyer’s map splits Braun’s hemlock-white pine-northern hardwoods region into northern hardwoods-red pine and northern hardwoods-hemlock regions; and combines her maple-basswood and beech-maple regions into one beech-maple-basswood region. It groups into a single mesophytic region what are essentially Braun’s western mesophytic, mixed mesophytic, and oak-chestnut regions, plus part of her oak-pine region. To the south, it makes Braun’s oak-pine region a section within a southern mixed region (a renaming of Braun’s southeastern evergreen forest) and it creates a separate Mississippi alluvial plain region.

Nevertheless, Dyer points out, given the differences in Braun’s and Dyer’s methods, the fact that Braun was looking at old growth and Dyer at forest in general, and the many disruptions that eastern forests have suffered since Braun carried out her research, there is a surprising degree of similarity between the two maps.

--posted July 17, 2006

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June 14, Representatives Nathan Deal and Charles Norwood introduced in Congress the Chattahoochee National Forest Act of 2006 (H.R. 5612), which would establish a 13,382-acre Moutaintown National Scenic Area and add 8448 acres to existing Wildernesses in the Chattahoochee. The proposed Scenic Area lies just southeast of the existing 35,000-acre Cohutta Wilderness, the largest and most used Wilderness in the Southern Appalachians. Apart from the Scenic Area, 692 acres of Wilderness would be added to the Cohutta. Brasstown Wilderness, the Southern Nantahala Wilderness, Ellicott Rock Wilderness, Tray Mountain Wilderness, and Raven Cliffs Wilderness would also be enlarged.

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June 21, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns approved petitions from the governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia to begin the rule-making process to set aside permanently the roadless areas in the three states' National Forests. (For background, see "Good News from the Southern Appalachians," posted April 21, below. and the Web site of the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, www.safc.org).

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Minnesota’s North Woods under Attack

Timber and mining companies in northern Minnesota are in the process of selling their forest lands to investment companies that, within a few years, log it, divide it, and sell it in small tracts to private parties. The individual owners are likely to build cabins on their new property and eventually may subdivide it. Ecologically valuable forests are thus being fragmented, causing harm to wildlife and degrading water quality. Also, the new owners usually put up no trespassing signs. Therefore the public loses possibilities for hiking, canoeing, and camping.

Boise Cascade sold 309,000 acres in Minnesota in May as part of a national deal that put 2.2 million acres into the hands of a Timber Investment Management Organization in Boston that sees the land in terms of real estate value. Almost one million acres in Minnesota are currently in danger of being split up and made the site of second homes.

The sale of forest land by timber companies, which began in the north eastern United States and spread to the south east has come as a surprise to Minnesota . The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, and other entities have now joined forces to try to stem the tide by purchasing or putting easements at risk land, but they have catching up in fund raising to do. Forty-six percent of the forest land in Minnesota is owned by private parties, large and small.

Source: John Myers, “Vanishing Forest .” Duluth News Tribune, posted June 14, 2006 .

--posted June 20, 2006

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Battle over Old Growth in Quebec

The government of Premier Jean Charest in Quebec has filed a bill that would put up for sale 600 hectares of the 5200-hectare Mount Orford provincial park. On the land to be sold are a golf course, a ski area, and 85 hectares of old-growth forest. The old growth would likely become the site of between 700 and 800 new condominiums. Money from the sale would be used to buy for the park 4,800 hectares of lowlands, where logging is reportedly taking place. In fact, the proposed legislation, Bill 23, is entitled “An act to ensure the enlargement of Parc national du Mont Orford, the preservation of the biodiversity of adjacent lands and the maintenance of recreational tourism activities.” However, conservationists are not buying it, and objections to the bill have been raised from within Charest’s own Liberal party.

Sources:

“Charest Tries to Stem Anger over Sale of Park Land ,” CTV.ca, Updated May 6, 2006.

Dougherty, Kevin, “Public Hearings Will Be Held by Invitation Only,” The Gazette [ Montreal ], May 4, 2006 , p. A3.

--Posted May 17, 2006

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