newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ANTHONY P. MAURO SR.

COMMENTARY

Jersey forests need our intellectual honesty and stewardship

Not too long ago the prevailing wisdom of American surgeons was to prescribe bed confinement for most surgery patients. It was ultimately discovered that the prescription of bed confinement not only caused life threatening complications it also delayed the physical recovery of patients. The medical community soon replaced a “passive management” approach with treatments of early ambulation. As a result patient outcomes improved markedly.

Similar to the experience of American surgeons, there are some who have prescribed “passive management” for our forests over many decades and the effect has been equally injurious to forest health. The prevailing thought has kept woodlands from being managed by both humans and Mother Nature. We have learned that “passive management” is conspiring against forest health through degradation by aiding invasive plants and insects, and other wildlife to overtake forests.

Mother Nature manages forest health by making use of fire, wind, disease, insects, and other forces. Judicious doses of forest destruction are her way of regenerating forests and guaranteeing sustainability. Destruction and regeneration are performed in varying areas and at differing levels and intervals, which provides forest age classes that are well distributed. This in turn creates biodiversity – a foundation for forest vigor and the health of dependent flora and fauna.

Efficient disturbance created by fire, wind, disease, and insects not only provides for the long-term well-being of the forest and its dependent plant and wildlife communities but also reduces the susceptibility of the landscape, as a whole, to catastrophic damage. Disturbance is as crucial to forest health as early ambulation is to surgery patient health.

Although it appears counterintuitive, when humans prevent Mother Nature from managing forests by suppressing her natural forces we act to compromise her immune system. Passive management creates severe imbalances in the ecosystem, which allows insects, disease and deer, to intensify beyond the ability of nature to manage these forces efficiently. It causes overstocking of bio-fuels. The result is forest susceptibility to massive insect and disease outbreaks, devastating crown fires, and increased vulnerability to wind.

The evidence of a compromised immune system in New Jersey forests is found in overpopulations of deer preventing forest development by browsing seedlings and saplings, and ruinous infestation to the Pinelands by the southern pine beetle.

In the Highlands the hemlock woolly adelgid has infested eastern hemlock forest trees. Also, gypsy moths have caused defoliation, with oak forest types being the most affected. Over the years continued defoliation has made trees susceptible to insects and diseases that can eventually cause their death from other agents. As a consequence there might be a reduction of the larger mature oak species in certain areas.