Sandy Blowdowns and Existing Disturbance Destroy Logic of “Forest Stewardship” Bill

 A Mishmash of Competing Forest Management Objectives and Contradictory Evidence

We don’t need a forester to well which way the wind blows

[a] mosaic of different age classes and cover types supports the high species biodiversity of the region, according to the 2002 USDA Forest Service report on the NJ Highlands. (Source: NJ DEP)

[Update below]

According to the proponents of the “Forest Stewardship” bill now on Governor Christie’s desk, NJ’s 1.8 million acres of forests are in poor health and require “active management” and “stewardship”, including commercial logging.

Basically, the argument goes that NJ’s forests are not like the ancient northeastern forests. They emerged from a recent series of human landscape alterations, including clear cuts for timber, farming, and mining. As a result, forests are of a similar “age class structure” and lack sufficient diversity required to promote forest health and wildlife habitat.

According to proponents, there are too many old mature trees and too much canopy cover, and not enough early successional forest edge habitat type. Old tress must be cut to allow young trees to emerge.

Here is a recent example of that logic, according to DEP

The plan seeks to balance the diversity of age classes found on the WMA. The resource assessment found that 99.7% of the upland forest is aged between 85 and 100 years. Such a forest offers almost no opportunity for wildlife dependent on early successional forests, generally aged between 0 and 20 years.  […]

Wildlife dependent on early-successional forest habitat are in serious decline in New Jersey. The most significant example of decline within these species is the golden-winged warbler. Only about 25 breeding pairs of this bird remain within the State. […]

The Division has determined that action is necessary and through the production of this Forest Stewardship Plan endeavors to create habitat for the golden-winged warbler on a suitable scale as to maintain and enhance this and other species dependent on early successional forest.

This logic also suggests that natural means of forest disturbance that tend to help regenerate and diversify healthy forest community structure – like fire – have been suppressed by humans, leading to the current situation that requires active management, i.e logging those forests to simulate the disturbance historically provided by natural events.

Here is the professional foresters’ justification for the need for “active management”, including “forestry”:

By practicing forestry on this WMA, the Division seeks to mimic the natural disturbances that would cause early successional forest to be created, while generating income from forest products to offset the costs of creating habitat and other management activities suggested herein.

In addition to being suppressed by humans, those ” natural disturbances” that replace the canopy and stimulate early successional forests occur on very long time intervals.

According to a NJ Audubon FSC standards based plan for the Pequonnock River – Newark Watershed, for hardwood forests, those disturbances occur on long intervals of 500 – 1,500 years:

So, given Sandy’s “wind event”‘ massive disturbance, I guess we won’t need the loggers in the forests for another 500 – 1,500 years! (Note: an issue now being explored by NJ Audubon and others, but not apparently in the context of this legislation. Why not?)

But, NJ’s forests, prior to Sandy, were already highly disturbed and fragmented by hundreds of miles of electric transmission, gas and oil pipeline, and railroad right of way (ROW), not to mention the miles of road cuts and acres of development that consumed and fragmented forests.

Those recent historical disturbances created thousands of acres of edge habitat and grass/shrub/early successional forest habitat (that’s why NJ forests have deer and invasive species problems).

In addition to all that, Superstorm Sandy – a “natural wind event” – just blew down thousands of trees in NJ’s forests, thinning the forest and “opening” the canopy to even more edge and early successional habitat types.

For example, according to DEP and Essex County (see Agenda item #11), over 1,500 trees were blown down in the 2,000 acre South Mountain Reservation alone.

So, there seems to be an abundance of exactly the type of forest disturbance and habitat type the proponents of “active management” claim is necessary to provide diversity and specific habitat types to support certain rare or threatened bird specie that are in decline, like golden wing warbler.

Perhaps those species are in decline as a result of factors other than lack of adequate suitable habitat type in NJ forests?

And of course, it all could be a smokescreen to justify commercial logging and provide habitat for more game animals.

Or it could be a scheme to promote “biomass” based energy, as DEP forestry recommends:

And of course, if you read the DEP forestry documents closely, you can find flat out internal contradictions, particularly to the low diversity/uniform age class structure argument used to justify logging, stuff like this: (see page 6)

Most of the forests of New Jersey date back to the turn of the 20th century through the 1920’s. At that point, the chestnut and oak forests were growing back after the heavy and widespread cutting for charcoal. However, an exotic fungus known as the chestnut blight would sweep through the region, eliminating the dominant chestnut overstory, leaving the oak-dominated forest present in much of northern New Jersey today. Other forest age classes were created from later abandonment of agricultural lands, and from forest regeneration harvests, as well as from natural events such as severe wind events, fire, and severe insect infestation. That mosaic of different age classes and cover types supports the high species biodiversity of the region, according to the 2002 USDA Forest Service report on the NJ Highlands.

So what is it?

A) High diverse mosaic of age classes and cover types, per US Forest Service, and a surplus of disturbed forest,  or

B) highly uniform age class structure and need for logging to provide disturbancee per DEP?

What are the all factors that are leading to declines in wildlife dependent on early-successional forest habitat?

How many acres of early successional forest habitat does NJ have?

What role is too much forest canopy cover playing in that alleged wildlife decline?

What wildlife species rely on large blocks on intact undisturbed forests? How will they be impacted?

What are the impacts on this kind of “forest stewardship” – which open the canopy and creates more light on the forest floor and edge habitat – on deer populations and invasive species?

The logging driven “forest stewardship” plans I’ve read provide no answers – and don’t even ask – these basic questions.

And yes, I find the DEP claim that cutting mature trees is needed to create “old growth” highly counterintuitive:

Given the manipulation needed to make such a change, it may be necessary to employ forestry techniques of certain types in order to aid in the eventual creation of functional old-growth forest out of the roughly 90-year-old forest that currently exists within this WMA. This may be counterintuitive to many who perceive old-growth forest as a virgin, uncut forest. Consideration has been given to the characteristics of the land being considered for Future old growth forest management area, and its likelihood to develop into functional old growth forest given minimal intervention.

[Update:

In federal studies and documents, there is no special emphasis on the need to create additional early succession forest or the species that require that habitat, including the golden wing warbler.

This raises the question of why the entire NJ forest stewardship effort is being justified on such narrow grounds.

The entire forest and its ecology are being reduced to one bird species, with the primary conservation management objective – cutting trees – tailored to that single objective.

Check it out – and this is just for birds:

Breeding and Migrating Songbirds and Raptors

For thousands of years, the ridges of the Highlands have been used as a visual guideline for songbirds and raptors during spring and fall migrations, with the forests and wetlands providing food and resting places for the migrants. The forests, wetlands, and successional habitats of the Highlands support about 150 species of breeding birds. Many of these species are generally associated with relatively unfragmented, undisturbed forest interior habitats. Examples include wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus), and hooded warbler (Wilsonia citrina) which breed in the mesic forests, black-throated green warbler (Dendroica virens) and black-throated blue warbler (Dendroica caerulescens) which prefer the hemlock forests, Louisiana waterthrush (Seiurus motacilla) which breeds in riparian areas, and barred owl (Strix varia) and red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) which prefer the large wooded swamps. The New York State Breeding Bird Atlas indicates a thriving population of cerulean warbler in the deciduous forests of the Highlands, one of the few concentrations of this species in the state. Golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera), another rare breeder in the region, is locally common in the successional forests of the Highlands. The Highlands support 24 of the 29 middle and long-distance migrant birds whose numbers have declined significantly in the Northeast, as indicated by analysis of the breeding bird survey, and 26 of the 35 long-distance migrants ranked in a recent Partners in Flight study as of highest concern in the Northeast. These migrants include both successional and forest-nesting species.

There are 19 raptor species that utilize the Highlands seasonally or year-round, 10 of which breed in this area, including the regionally rare Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii), northern goshawk, sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus), red-shouldered hawk, northern harrier (Circus cyaneus), short-eared owl (Asio flammeus), long-eared owl (Asio otus), barred owl, common barn-owl (Tyto alba), and, probably, northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus). Hawk watches occur at nine sites in the Highlands: Bearfort Mountain, Bowling Green Fire Tower, Breakneck Mountain, Waywayanda, and Windbeam Tower in New Jersey; and Mount Peter, Whitehorse Mountain, Bear Mountain, and Storm King Mountain in New York. These hawk watches have documented the importance of this region to both spring and fall migrating hawks. Species regularly observed include fall migrations of osprey (Pandion haliatus), sharp-shinned hawks, broad-winged hawks (Buteo platypterus), red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis), and kestrels (Falco sparverius), and spring migrations of the same species along with red-shouldered hawks.

Check out the threats and conservation objectives:

VII. THREATS AND SPECIAL PROBLEMS: The most significant threat to the Highlands is the continued loss and fragmentation of the area’s forests and wetlands. For many of these forest lands, there is no regulatory protection. There are several large parcels of land that are currently threatened by development. The Sterling Forest Development Corporation had plans to develop over 1,619 hectares (4,000 acres) of Sterling Forest for residential and commercial uses and another 324 hectares (800 acres) for recreational areas in the heart of the Highlands. In addition to the direct destruction of habitat, the proposed development would have fragmented the remaining habitat, jeopardizing the maintenance of viable populations of area-sensitive and wide-ranging species.

VIII. CONSERVATION RECOMMENDATIONS: It is critical to the resources of the Highlands that the network of open space within the Highlands be protected and expanded in order to maintain the unfragmented forest core from the glacial moraine north to the Hudson and across the Hudson to the Connecticut border with linkages on forested ridges to the Delaware River to the south. All publicly owned land that is not currently protected open space, such as the Picatinny Arsenal and various city-owned watershed lands in the Pequannock watershed, should be transferred to public ownership for management as preserve areas. Large privately owned parcels that are threatened by development, especially Sterling Forest, should be acquired and transferred to state or federal conservation agencies or protected through conservation easements or other means. In addition to acquisition efforts, there need to be state and local incentives to maintain open space, especially forested areas. Because many of the habitat values of the Highlands are based on its large tracts of unfragmented forests and wetlands, these large areas must be preserved intact. Protecting only the small and localized rare communities will not be sufficient.