Didn’t forests manage themselves for millions of years? Why do they need us? Is this human arrogance, greenwashing, or slick marketing?
Forestry and timber industries, state and federal natural resource departments, and all sorts of building material suppliers will tell you: “Proper forest management leads to better, healthier forests and a sustainable supply of wood products.” Cynically, this seems like slick marketing or greenwashing. How is it possible that forests need to be “managed” when they stretched across the earth on their own for millions of years without human intervention?
The truth is, we humans have to manage forests because:
- We’ve interrupted natural rhythms of forest renewal (by not letting natural fires burn)
- They are the best solution for repairing the climate and ecosystems we’ve damaged
- We’re deep into a system of commerce and global systems that demand wood products
- Our baseline for what constitutes forests has changed
- We know it works! We have more forests now than 100 years ago, thanks to management.1
In other words, humans have so screwed up the natural order that we’re left with little choice but to manage forests. And we’ve shown we know how to handle forestry, at least in Western nations. Some elements of forest management can be poorly executed. Some are greenwashing, but much of it isn’t, and nearly all of it is necessary for the health of the planet and all its inhabitants.
Native American forest management
Our ancestors have been managing forests for millennia in accordance with the land. The Karuk Tribe of Northern California uses forest fires to cultivate tanoaks, acorns, mushrooms, and elk habitat. There are many other benefits, but to cite just one more, the Karuks used fire to help them make baskets. Without fire, hazel grows in tangled brush, but after fire, hazel grows in long, straight stems that make for better basket frames (it’s also helpful for beavers). The Karuks cite cultural norms with burns, and resist restrictions that result in more severe fires that require plane loads of retardants dumped on the ecosystem.
The Menominee Tribe continues to manage its namesake forest in Wisconsin with its own timber industry. Not only does the tribe use the land to support themselves, but they also practice the sort of long-term thinking with their natural resources to ensure their kids and grandkids will, too.
In the eastern U.S., Native Americans used fire to open the forest understory, allowing trees and plants to produce nuts and berries they either ate themselves or brought to animals for food.
Some of the most-protected places we associate with pristine wilderness today, like Yosemite National Park, were considerably different even two hundred years ago. The dense forests were instead full of broad meadows.
Many of us can see some part of all this human impact and necessary management in our own backyards. Anyone with a wood lot in a rural area will notice the absence of almost any brush, bush, or tree that sits near or under the height of a deer. The common whitetail deer was almost extinct in North America as recently as 1900 from human hunting.
The Lacey Act of 1900 outlawed the interstate shipment of illegally killed game. Whitetail deer began to rebound, benefiting from increased ground-dwelling food as land was cleared for human development. But because humans have universally agreed upon removing wolves and other apex predators from our habitat, deer have grown from a few thousand a hundred years ago to over 35 million today. The result is forests that can’t support new growth, more monocultures, and less overall diversity.
Different goals for forest management and “the new natural”
In the modern era, forests face new threats that have largely evolved faster than forests can handle.
- Politically, humans no longer feel comfortable with large-scale clear-cutting because of aesthetic concerns and myriad other socio-political concerns.
- Humans pump vastly more carbon into the atmosphere than at any time in ecological history. Trees certainly “inhale” carbon dioxide, but excess carbon harms the health of soil, insects, and weather patterns that produce severe droughts, floods, and wind storms.
We still want forests to provide recreation, timber, carbon storage, clean water, topsoil production, and habitat.
- Humans continue to consume more land area around the world for housing and farms. Arguing against housing and food is politically impossible in most places.
“Natural is always better” is one argument for a hands-off approach to forestry and ecology. But what is “natural” after 10,000 years (or even 100 years) of human influence? What is natural after the significant influence of humans in just the last hundred years?
Forests indeed managed themselves for millions of years. Globally, they produced habitats, ecosystems, and unparalleled amounts of food, soil, oxygen, and clean water. It is also true that humans have a demand for housing, furnishings, space, and food that must be met today and tomorrow. Humans simply don’t have a better alternative than timber. Wood is renewable, affordable, and, compared to alternatives like oil-based plastics, far more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
To illustrate forest management, see how a forest parcel changes under different management scenarios over 100 years:
Making forests better is possible, but let’s acknowledge the work we’ve already done
We can agree that humans could do all sorts of things to make our ecosystem better. We can work to consume less, waste less, prefer local sources of resources such as timber and food, and set policies that favor denser, smaller housing and land use. We must also recognize that these changes are unlikely to happen in the next election cycle in many, if not most, places. And (hopefully) no one is advocating for mass human extinction.
That’s why smart forest management is our best path forward.
- Yes, plenty of forests are poorly managed around the world, including in Western countries.
- Forests are often left too long to fend against human-altered landscapes that result in more invasive species and sometimes poorer air quality. Or,
- Forests are clear-cut and replaced with monocultures in unnaturally hegemonic rows. Or,
- Forests are left to their natural cycles but face intense overgrazing from deer and other wildlife that have been unnaturally managed for generations, stifling their natural processes.
Humans managed our way into this, and we’ll have to be the ones to manage our way out of it. Just in the U.S., we’ve proven it works. Forest health, birds, water quality, and more have all rebounded after near collapse due to over-mining, hunting, grazing, and other pressures, thanks to smart policies, cultural shifts, and our behavior. Birds were once prized for their colorful plumage to make ladies’ hats. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone supportive of that behavior today. But work certainly remains.
Meanwhile, we can lean on wood as a useful source of affordable, sustainable housing and building materials, better air, soil, and water quality, and even recreation. But we have to be honest about our role, what we’ve done, what we need, and what we will need in the future.
- In 1920, the U.S. had 721 million forest acres and about 106 million people. In 2012, 766 million forest acres and 314 million people. That works out to be about 6.77 acres per person in 1920 and 2.44 acres in 2012. The U.S. population tripled while forest land only increased about 6%. This is both a sign the amount of acres for recreation is figuratively less, but also a stable sign that we’ve become much more efficient with our use of timber. [↩]