The areas nearest the roads are the most deforested, not surprisingly. The bucolic pasture landscape is actually fairly attractive but a few lonely trees stand as silent witness to the forest that was lost. You can see in the pictures what I mean. The trees are beautiful against the sky, but they are doomed.
You can tell that they grew in thick forests by their lack of lower branches. They grew in an environment where they had to race to the light way overhead. This is not where they live today. These are impressive specimens. The trees are around 150 feet high with massive trunks. Most of them are Brazil nut trees. You recognize that that Christmas-time favorite that is nearly impossible to crack w/o crushing the nut inside too. There is a law against cutting them, so they remain after everything around them flattened. The owners of the land are not allowed to cut them even when they are dead and cannot use the wood even if the tree falls down on its own. It is not a very useful law.
The trees often do not survive long without the sheltering forest and they stop producing seeds, since they require a specific type of pollinating bee. It gets to be a complex story. The bee depends on a type of orchid Coryanthes vasquezii. The orchids produce a scent that attracts small male long-tongued orchid bees. The male bees need that scent to attract females. Without the orchid, the bees do not mate. So no forest means no orchids, which means no bees, which means no seeds, which means no new trees. It is an example of the complex ecological web. But the simple ides is that these are not seed trees that could be expected to spawn a future forest. Beyond that, by making these trees economically not valuable, you shut down any economically motivated endeavors to grow and preserve them.
It gets even more complex. Even if there were seeds, there might not be reproduction. The Brazil nuts are housed in a very thick and heavy shell. It would hurt a lot to get hit with one falling from that distance at the top. The shell does not break easily, but rather requires a type of squirrel to bit it open. These relationships have been building a long time. It is co-evolution. Pull out one thing and they others don’t work anymore. But let me add even one more permutation. The baby trees do not grow well in full sunlight. They germinate in the shade and then wait years for an opening, all the while establishing roots systems. A seedling in full sunlight will die.
As I said, the pastures are attractive and if you didn’t know the story, you would think someone had produced a grassy park with some really big and beautiful trees to provide contrast and shade. It made me sad. We drove out two hours and never passed through an intact forest. I know the road is not the place to look for these things and I sometimes saw trees in the distance that I think were part of intact forests, but there are lots of former forests within shooting distance of any asphalt.
I was figuring out the rotation on 107 acres of twenty-eight year-old loblolly pine we just got. We will clear cut in five years, let it idle for a year or two, maybe put a few goats on it, and then apply biosolids and replant. You have to plan ahead. As I was thinking about it, however, I realized that my chances of seeing this cycle through are small and if I am still around, I probably will be unable to take part in the operation. I will be compost before this next generation of trees matures on that tract.
The funny thing is that older guys plant the most trees. Of course that might just be because only older guys can buy or inherit forest land. I got the land from a guy in his eighties. He planted (actually directed they be planted) the trees when he was about my age. He gave me a good deal on the land and it seems to me that one reason is that he wanted to give the land to someone who would take care of it. His kids evidently are not much interested in forestry. Sometimes people ask why I plant trees when I am reasonably certain that I will not see them mature. I am not sure. It is just what I do, a kind of habit. Some people say that you plant trees for the next generation. I don’t know if it’s all that true. The little trees are a joy for today too. How does the song go? “A promise for the future and a blessing for today.”
Forestry can be a good investment, provided you have the time. In the long run, reasonably managed pine forestry produces bigger returns than the average stock portfolio. But you have to love it too. I imagine that land management could be an unpleasant chore for some people.
One of the things I like best about forestry is the “diplomacy.” I get to work with local farmers, hunters, foresters, loggers and paper and pulp firms. I find that a lot of people want to use my land and many are willing to help. Local hunters have been very helpful in establishing quail habitat and native warm season grasses. Our interests coincide. They want a healthy wildlife habitat to produce animals they can hunt. I am happy to have my land kept in a healthy state. A guy from a local paper mill helped me get locally grown longleaf pine and bald cypress. We have established an area of “Virginia heritage forest.” Of course this is another forest I will never see mature, but I can picture it in my mind.
Forestry is a good example of cooperation between individuals, government, business and NGOs. The State of Virginia sent a wildlife biologist who gave us advice on which types of vegetation to establish to encourage wildlife and protect soil and water resources. The state gives us training in things like fire management and we get advice on forest health from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).
Virginia Tech holds all sorts of seminars on things like timber management and biosolids. We get advice from the Tree Farm System, America’s oldest sustainable forestry NGO. Dominion Power paid us to manage our land that lies under their power lines. We keep the land in grass and forbs. Wildlife loves it and it doesn’t bother their transmission lines. A local paper mill helped me write a management plan for one of my tracts. We are thinning to different densities. They want to show clients how different management regimes produce different results. The Boy Scouts came down to cut trails and build bridges. The local hunt club maintains the roads and shoots the local varmints. Their presence discourages vandalism and dumping. It is a pretty good system, an integrated social web.
I try to take the kids along when I go to visit the farms. They comment about how happy and friendly everybody seems. That has also been my experience. I don’t really know why that is, but I have a theory, actually it is two-fold. I think forestry generally attracts people with a long term perspective and forestry teaches a long term perspective. It has a calming effect that brings joy in many things. You know your place and can be both active and passive. Forestry is subject to natural laws that cannot be rushed, but if you think ahead, understand the limits and work with the natural systems you can have remarkable achievements. Trying to rush the process produces no good and often a lot of bad, but a little leverage properly informed and a lot of time can make produce big results.
You just won’t live to see most of them. In the long run we are all dead. Once you understand that, you are free to be happy with the life you have.
Fire is an important part of ecology of savanna and grassland biomes. I described my visit to the Texas arboretum. That is the kind of place I would like to visit over and over, since I am sure lots of things are happening, seasonally and in terms of management. Fire management is a big part and I was interested in looking at the results of different fire regimes. The three pictures show different fire management. The top picture was burned in the summer. The middle picture shows a winter burn and the bottom was burned in the fall. They should also have an unburned section for comparison.
I don’t know how long ago they were burned. The sign did not say and it is harder to tell than you might think. This sort of Savanna vegetation grows back very fast when the fire is not too hot. I would contrast that with a big burn I saw along Hwy 71. There were acres of dead trees and devastated land. I looked it up on the Internet and learned that there was a big fire here in 2010 that destroyed 600 homes and 30,000 acres. It was a hot and destructive fire. It obviously jumped a big highway, so a fire break would not have worked.
I am certified by the State of Virginia as a fire manager. I would not trust my skills on the ground w/o lots of help, but I did take the certification course. I wrote about fire here, here, here, here, here, & here, among others. I just love the subject of ecosystem management. Below is a Virginia forest that had big understory burn. The ferns you see in the picture are “fire ferns”. They often come after the burn. This is two years after the fire. This was not a planned fire. It scorched the needles and some people thought the trees were dead. They were not.
The trees have lots of new growth. Loblolly pines grow throughout the summer. In that, they are different from white pines and many others that throw up new growth only in the spring. But the spring time is the big growth spurt for the loblollies too. The trees on CP are now nine years old. I recall how barren it used to look with a few pine springs barely visible among the weeds. It is good to recall this, since I have five acres of newly planted longleaf, which are looking even more desolate. The picture above shows how trees have grown. Below is the new longleaf plantation. Longleaf seedlings look like clumps of grass. Of course some of the green you see in the picture really are clumps of grass or weeds. It will look good in a couple of years. Eric Goodman also planted some bald cypress in the wet areas and third generation loblolly at one end.
Below is the closeup of a longleaf seedling. We did good site preparation, with brown and burn last winter. This should give the little pines a head start.
Below is a “vernal pond”, i.e. a big mud puddle, with lots of tadpoles. Amphibians need these sorts of things. If the pond is permanent enough to have many fish, the fish eat the eggs and tadpoles. If it is too small, the pond dries out before the amphibians are through with their development. These kind of ponds are not attractive, but they are a necessary part of the web of life.
Below the hunt club planted various wildlife food and warm season grasses to encourage wildlife, especially animals like Bobwhite quail. Dominion Power, which owns the power lines, is paying us to offset the costs. It saves them the trouble and money of maintaining the cover. I have 8 acres under those lines and not using it would be a waste.
Below shows Boy Scouts clearing some paths. I guess they win merit badges for woodsmen skills. They need land to practice and I have the space.
Below shows my new sycamores. They are growing fast along the watercourses. They volunteered a couple years ago. I have been cutting out the box elders and other brush. The sycamores do well in moist soils and send down a thick network of roots that holds the banks. They are not much use from the forestry profit point of view but they are beautiful trees and they get really big. I am a little allergic to them. I cough when I cut a lot of branches. Sycamores have a very distinctive smell. I suppose there is some relation. They always remind me of the brief time I lived in Indiana, on the banks of the Wabash far away.
This is my contribution to the next issue of Virginia Forests. It is based on some earlier posts, but is arranged in a different way. I have the joy of writing the article for the Tree Farm in each issue. Below is my article.
If you want to grow longleaf pine, you need fire. Longleaf is a fire-dependent species. And we want to grow longleaf pine. That is why we clear-cut five acres when we did the thinning winter last year. After that, we sprayed to get at the poplars, which had grown from roots. In December we burned. One of my friends got some longleaf seedlings that went in this spring. Other friends made fire lanes with their tractor. I say “we” but I really mean them. All this happened while I was working at my “real” job outside the country.
I am the luckiest man in the world. People always help. Together we are creating a demonstration forest in Brunswick County. It will showcase best forestry practices for this part of Virginia. The land includes already a wonderful stand of loblolly. We will apply different silvicultural practices (various thinning densities, fire, herbicide treatments etc.) to show the different results.
The longleaf are near the edge of their range in southern Virginia, so it is less certain. If the climate changes, however, the range may move north. Longleaf once grew all around the South. Today they are less common because they are harder to grow than loblolly. That is why the State of Virginia is helping us grow them. Longleaf require fire to grow well and are hard to establish. Once established they are great trees. The caveat is the long needles (hence the name long leaf). Ice storms can weigh down the branches and cause damage. Individual longleaf are beautiful trees and a vigorous stand of longleaf is even more beautiful. I won’t live long enough to see my trees mature, but I hope to enjoy their vigorous adolescence.
My experience with forestry in Virginia has greatly exceeded my expectations. Owning forest land had long been one of my dreams and forestry fits well with my full-time job working as a Foreign Service Officer. I move from a lot. I started in Brazil and worked in Norway, Poland and Iraq during the war. Now I am back in Brazil. Forests provide roots – literally – in my nomadic existence. I move; my forest abides. I would have a place to come back to, where I could watch developments over the years. This was my dream, at least, but I never thought it would come true. I finally managed to buy some land on my fiftieth birthday, back in 2005. I thought I knew more than I really did. I read a lot of books. This was not enough. I was also a little out of my element in rural southern Virginia. I was born and raised in the urban environment of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When I think back on my land “adventure” it seems pretty dumb. I clearly was in over my head. I was saved by the kindness of strangers who became friends.
Local people gave me advice; hunt clubs assisted with land management; forestry officials were helpful; Boy Scout troops wanted to make trails; Tree Farm gave me management goals and there were lots of inexpensive seminars on everything from timber selection to wildlife management.
All I had to do was let people share my dreams and they contributed time and more importantly local knowledge and forestry expertise. Sophisticated people say that people like me are naïve, maybe so. I believe in win-win outcomes and I don’t care if it sounds cliché. The secret of joy is finding ways to give people what they want in the framework of what you want. Maybe I don’t “maximize profit”, but I am morally certain that I get more than I would in other ways. I find that joy in my forestry and in the friendly people of Virginia.
I just could not do forestry without all the help I get. I am neither smart enough nor rich enough to make it happen alone. My friends get to use my land for hunting and other recreation, but they use it in ways that I want it to be used. What is important to me is that my trees are growing robustly; that the water that runs off the land is clear; that the soil is getting better; and that wildlife abounds. I get all this. I get to watch the trees grow as long as I live and leave it to the kids. Is there anything else anybody could reasonably want? Maybe a horse when I get too old to walk around comfortably, but that would be another story.
The story is big the news, the retraction, not so much. Consider this news story – “The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking water in Texas, the third time in recent months that the agency has backtracked on high-profile local allegations linking natural-gas drilling and water pollution.” reference
I think that the unlocking of our vast natural gas reserves is the best ecological & environmental story in years. Yet it has drawn heavy criticism, sometimes justified, often ignorant, mostly based on outdated narratives. Consider the wildly inaccurate documentary “Gasland”. It won all kinds of awards and is very compelling. Scientists think it is bunk and research has disproved most of the claims, but – hey – it makes a better drama when you can light water on fire.
It seems to me that very much of the mythology centered on environmental extremism is based around the keystone myth that nature w/o humans is somehow clean, benign and perfect. It is not. Many toxins appear in the natural world. Arsenic is present in natural water in many areas. Gas and oil have seeped out of the ground since before the ancestors of men (although Chrissy informs me perhaps not women – no logic there) descended from trees.
The idea of perfect nature apart from man is not merely wrong; it is pernicious because it impedes decision making based on sound & practical ecological principles. The attack on gas is a good example. Natural gas extraction and use is more ecologically benign than any of the alternatives currently available at the scale that it could currently replace. Yet purists reject it because it is not perfect. They make the perfect the enemy of the good. Purists are pains in the ass.
This is not a new problem. A century ago, various revolutionaries argued the efficacy of reforming capitalism. Some radicals fought against measures that would improve life for ordinary people on the theory that conditions had to become so bad that they would provoke the world revolutions predicted in Marxist theology. When the Marxist nightmare ran out of steam, people with a puritan/revolutionary bent had to look for other causes. The environment was a perfect home for them.
One of the big weaknesses of Marxism was that they claimed to speak for the workers, but the workers could speak for themselves. What they said, usually contradicted Marxist mythology. The advantage of “speaking for nature” is that nobody can really ask trees, rocks or animals what they really think. Unlike Marxists, environmental revolutionaries have no ostensible constituency that can contradict them.
We don’t need an environmental revolution, but we could use a reformation. As with most things, real progress is achieved in the middle ground, where we can be pragmatic enough to make compromises. A sound environmental policy requires – not allows requires – that we sometimes kill animals, cut trees and even pave land. If done correctly, it can create benefits all around. And if we don’t make it possible for honest people to make a profit doing these things, the field will be left to dishonest operators acting outside the law.
There are a few things we need to understand in our reformed environmentalism. – Sustainable does NOT mean preserved unchanged. It means reasonably predictable and beneficial change. o Sustainable is better than natural and many natural systems are not sustainable. – Renewable is better than recyclable, although both have their place. o The cost for most things in environmental terms is usually mostly concentrated in the energy it takes to move it. If you use less paper, it doesn’t really “save trees” but it may save energy. o It may require more energy to recycle than to throw out and renew. – Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes we just need to let go. Panda bears, for example, are doomed. They may survive in zoos, due to the kindness of humans, but they are not fit (in the Darwinian sense) to survive in the wild. – There is no environment in the world that is not influenced by humans. If we think we can “return to nature” we are abdicating our responsibility to be good stewards.
One more thing – natural gas is as good as it currently gets as a fuel we need at the scale we need to use it. It is not THE answer, since there is never a final answer, but it is the one we should be using for the next decade at least. That would be good environmental policy and good economic policy too.
This is a draft of what I will send for my quarterly article in “Virginia Forest” magazine.
Illegal loggers steal from us in many ways. Sometimes they are literally stealing our trees, but it goes way beyond that. Illegal logging is rarely done according to good procedures that protect the environment and preserve the forest for future generations. The public views the scenes of destruction left by illegal loggers and jumps to conclusion that this is how logging is done. That means that illegal loggers also steal the reputations of honest loggers and landowners who are good stewards of their land and often have been for many generations.
Addressing the problem of illegal logging, however, is not as simple as enacting stronger laws and harsher penalties. In fact, worldwide it is often the theoretically strong laws that are the problem. Of course, in Virginia we still have timber theft. This is a type of illegal logging but at the levels and ways it is done, it is more akin to ordinary crime like burglary or grand theft auto. There are no cases of widespread deforestation caused by illegal logging in the Old Dominion. Unfortunately, this is not the case everywhere. In some countries the illegal timber harvest can reach as high a 60-70% of the total. What accounts for the difference?
The easy answer is that countries where illegal logging is rampant simply lack strict laws or the ability to enforce them. The first part of this statement is often not true. Many developing countries have – on the books – much stricter preservation laws than we have in Virginia. In some places it is just plain illegal to cut down native forests on a wide range of land types. These are often the places most likely to be deforested, as illegal logging targets them first. They understand that government authorities probably cannot protect them and that the off limits status has removed the incentives for local people to pay much attention. The second part of the statement – that they lack the ability to enforce the good laws – is true in areas of deforestation but it is not as remarkable at it seems because it is true everywhere.
Logging is almost always done in relatively out of the way places. Laws are never enough. Even the most active authorities cannot effectively police large areas of forest land. In Virginia, they really don’t have to. Landowners, loggers and foresters have incentives to preserve and enhance the forests on their land because they can use and benefit from them. They also know that everyone around suffers if forests, soils, animals and water are wantonly destroyed. It is obviously true that the authorities protect my forest land in Brunswick County. But the first lines of defense are my neighbors, friends and even strangers who know that we are all in this together. Virginians protect their own land and those of others because they own the land. We have centuries old traditions of protecting property rights and we all are in the same boat. We protect each other’s stuff.
We also enjoy the use of our land with fewer restrictions than in most other places. We can harvest trees and other forest products within reasonable rules. We can hunt that animals that inhabit our forests and, again within reasonable limits, we can change the way we use our lands. In the final analysis, what most protects the forests of Virginia is the effort of thousands of Virginians who have a stake in the management and use of the forests and the products they produce. In Virginia, hunters, loggers and landowners are preserving and enhancing our forests. Laws work when they are reasonable and when people see the benefits. If you want to preserve and improve forests, you have to let people cut some trees and kill some animals. You have to let them have a stake.
Places that suffer widespread deforestation because of illegal logging often find themselves in this unhappy situation not in spite of but because of strong laws, albeit misapplied. Laws and regulations meant to preserve forests often end up destroying them if they make it difficult or impossible for the people who live in or near the forests to make an honest living from them. If strict rules make it impossible to make an honest profit, some people will make dishonest ones. Even worse, as honest people leave the business and dishonest ones take their place, the whole respect for law as well as the whole idea of stewardship disappears. The field divides between preservers and destroyers. Neither is the right way to go. We need stewards.
If I can be permitted a little immodesty, in America we got it right. That is not to say challenges have disappeared. There is no perfect system and everything must always adapt. But we should never make the quest for the perfect the enemy of the good. The methods of stewardship that have grown up in the United States during the twentieth century work well. The American Tree Farm System and other independent certification systems are doing their jobs.
Most landowners want to do the right thing on their land. People I talk to not only want to take care of the land during their own lifetimes. A major motivation is to leave the land in better shape for future generations. People are willing. We need information and guidance both to do the right things and to do things right. What we don’t need is strict, sometimes incomprehensible, rules that make it difficult for honest people to make honest profits. We have created a wonderful and sustainable system of forestry in Virginia. We can be proud of it and we should all work to protect it and try to spread the word as far as we can.
If you want to grow longleaf pine, you need fire. Longleaf is a fire-dependent species. And we want to grow longleaf pine. That is why we clear cut five acres when we did the thinning last winter. A few weeks ago we sprayed to get at the poplars, which had grown from roots and now we are burning. This procedure is called “brown and burn” BTW. My friend Eric Goodman got some longleaf seedlings free. which will go in next spring. Our friends at the Department of Forestry made fire lanes with their tractor. My friends Larry Walker and Frank Meyer did the burning. I am the luckiest man in the world. People always help. Together we are creating a demonstration forest in Brunswick County. It will showcase the best forestry practices for our part of Virginia. It includes already a wonderful stand of loblolly. We will apply different silvicultural practices (various thinning densities, fire, herbicide treatments etc) to show the different results.
More about the forest plan is here & here. Pictures of the thinning are here .
The longleaf are near the edge of their range in southern Virginia, so it is less certain. If the climate changes, however, the range may move north. Longleaf once grew all around the South. Today they are less common because they are harder to grow than loblolly. That is why the State of Virginia is helping us grow them. Longleaf require fire to grow well and are hard to establish. Once established they are a great tree. The only caveat is the long needles (hence long leaf). Ice storms can weigh down the branches and cause damage. Individual longleaf are beautiful trees and a vigorous stand of longleaf is even more beautiful. I won’t live long enough to see my trees mature, but I hope to enjoy their vigorous adolescence.
My experience in forestry has greatly exceeded my expectations. My land has attracted help like a magnet. All I have to do is let people share my dreams and they contribute time and more importantly local knowledge and forestry expertise. Sophisticated people say that people like me are naïve, maybe so. I believe in win-win outcomes and I don’t care if it sounds cliché. The secret of joy is finding ways to give people what they want in the framework of what you want. I don’t know if I get as much as I could, but I am morally certain that I get more than I would in other ways. I find that in my forestry, I find it in my work and I find it generally in life.
I just could not do forestry the way I want to do it w/o all the help I get. It would be simply impossible. They get to use my land, but they use it in ways that I want it to be used. What is important to me is that my trees are growing robustly; the water that runs off the land is crystal clear; the soil is getting better; wildlife abounds. I get to watch the trees grow as long as I live and leave it to the kids after I die. Is there anything else anybody could reasonably want? Maybe a horse when I get to old to walk around comfortably. Mariza can teach me to ride it.
I took the Virginia fire course a couple years ago, so I am officially “qualified” to set fire to the woods. Of course, I wouldn’t dare do it w/o somebody with boots on the ground experience. Information about using fire in forestry is below.
Part of my job I do for duty; this one is about the part of my job I do for joy. This joy category is much larger, BTW, and even the duty part is usually fun. I really enjoyed the seminar and I only had to pay for it with a ten minute speech – sweet.
As I have written before, I have learned that a big part of public affairs is showing appreciation for the things your hosts value, praise the things they are proud of. It helps if you are really interested and I am passionately interested in forestry and ecology. I mentioned this and the State of Bahia came through with something they are proud of. They have a sustainable forestry initiative and I think that the person telling me about it took as much joy in the telling as I did listening. It was a true shared interest.
They took me to the Reserva Sapiranga, an area of secondary growth of the Mata Atlántica or Atlantic forest. This is the rain forest that once covered coastal Brazil. Most of the Brazilian population and the big cities are in the biome of the Atlantic forest and most of the original forest was cut long ago. This was also the case with the area now included in the Sapiranga reserve. This land was plantation and cow pasture only a fee decades ago, but like our eastern forests in U.S., it grew back.
You can still see the coconut palms, gradually succumbing to old age. Coconut palms live around fifty years. They require sunny conditions to regenerate naturally. The encroaching forest shades out potential new coconuts. Soon there will be none.
Only 7% of the native Atlantic forest remains in Brazil. As I mentioned, the Atlantic forest biome is the one most affected by human settlement. The State of Bahia contains three general biomes. Near the coast is the Atlantic forest. It is a type of coastal rain forest, with diverse species of plants and animals. Farther inland is Caatinga. This is semi-arid, with the thick skinned and thorny plants you find in deserts.
The Caatinga is less immediately attractive than the Atlantic forest and has attracted less attention, but it is in fact more in danger. The Atlantic forest will grow back if given a little help or even just left alone. It is similar to the forests of the Eastern U.S. in this respect, which regrew during the 20th Century. The Caatinga runs the risk of desertification. This can happen if the climate changes to become drier, since it is already near the edge, but it can also happen with simple bad land management. It takes a long time for the vegetation in the semi-arid soil to grow and when it is removed of even stepped on a lot it can lead to significant soil loss. And dirt, in the final analysis, is the basis of everything.
Farther west the Caatinga yields to the Cerrado. This is the grassland/savannah we have also in Brasilia or Goiás. Western Bahia has become a thriving agricultural area, with the introduction of new strains of plants and new agricultural techniques. Not too many years ago, it was generally thought that the soils of Western Bahia could not be made productive over large areas and that any attempt to do so would result in more or less permanent damage. This was incorrect. What was needed was a better understanding of the dynamics of the natural systems as well as better genetics and technologies. As I mentioned in other posts, the Brazilians are building railroads to link the region with ports along the coast. They are also working on massive projects along the Rio São Francisco, which flows through Bahia to Pernambuco. This is a vast reclamation project, which may change the face of Bahia as much as Hoover Dam changed the Imperial Valley in California.
These are things I want to see, but have not yet seen with my own eyes. I am waiting for my car to be released onto the road.
What I saw on this trip was the resurgent rain forest in coastal Bahia. There is a local project, sponsored by Petrobras, to restore the forest while protecting the livelihood of the current inhabitants. Of of the challenges will be actually knowing what to restore. Nobody is sure what the forest primeval really looked like. Nobody has really seen it for hundreds of years and even at that early date the ecology was heavily impacted by the activities of Native-Brazilians, especially through their use of fire. The forest restorers are seeing what old books tell and trying to ask the local inhabitants what seems to grow. I suspect that it will be something like what the forest looked like in 1500, but certainly not the same. Too much has changed.
They are calling the project sustainable forestry or agro-forestry. It is not exactly as I envisioned it given the terms.* What they are doing is more like restoration and preservation. Since there are no plans to harvest timber in the newly forested places, I don’t think the term forestry applies perfectly. The agro-forestry has similar caveats. What they have here in more of agriculture of small clearings. It is a valid form of agriculture, but it is not an integrated agro-forestry operation.
They also are trying to phase out hunting. People who like animal and grew up in cities tend to dislike hunting. I can understand that in the early stages of ecological development, but I believe in the longer term sustainable hunting must be part of any sustainable forest-agricultural community. If you really want to sustain nature, you have to cut some trees and kill some animals and humans need to be integrated into the system, not just squatting on top of it.
I don’t mean to sound critical. In fact, I am sharp precisely because I believe this project is important and valid. It should succeed but will require some modification. I would not presume to dictate, but I do presume to have an opinion based on what I saw develop in the U.S. over my lifetime and what I studied that happened before.
The organizers understand that humans cannot be excluded from the environment and there are lots of people living in and around the reserve. But it still seems to me to have too much of a demarcation line, with preserved areas out of bounds. I tried to explain (it was hard in Portuguese, since the concept is very subtle and nuanced) how we use stream management zones in Virginia. They are managed for healthy forest growth, but they are by no means off limits. I can do silvicultural practices in the SMZ. As a result of our activities, the forests are healthier and MORE robust and the water is cleaner than it would be if we were not acting. And, of course, our lands are heavily used by hunters. Hunters are the best conservationists because they want to keep on hunting. Foresters maintain forest ecosystems with similar motivations. These are examples of man in and of nature. Some things need to be preserved; most things need to be well-managed. We all love nature. I think it is better to be actively part of it than just looking across the fence.
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* Agro-forestry is the sensible practice of mixing forest and agriculture. It is best applied in relatively small scale, since it often precludes the use of big machinery. It is not appropriate everywhere. In large flat fields where no-till agriculture can be used, for example, agro-forestry is not always the best environmental solution. But it is a good option where it works.
Agro-forestry allows a more complete use of the land. Trees complement crops or pasture. There is some competition, especially for sunlight. But the trees tend to draw from a different level of the soil. The tree roots can do a kind of clean up, absorbing water and fertilizer that would pass through the first layers of vegetation. They can also form a sort of nutrient pump, with their leaves bringing nutrients back to the surface where they are again available to surface vegetation. Even the shade can be useful in some cases.
Coffee, for example, is a kind of bush that evolved in the shade of larger trees. Plants like coffee can be more productive in the filtered sunlight than they are in full sun. The key is balance and knowledge. The challenge of agro-forestry is exactly that. The farmer-forester needs to be more involved in his land and understand the sometimes complex and changing relationships among plants.
The key to the forestry part of the equation is that you have to manage and eventually cut the trees. Forestry has three generalized parts. (1) You plant or allow trees to regenerate; (2) you take care of them (3) with the eventual goal of harvesting timber and forest products. If you leave out the last step, you are not really in business and I do not believe it can be sustained over large areas for a significant time. The profit is the price of survival. Sustainable means that you can do it again and again. If you never cut, it really is not sustainable. It is just preserves.
We (Alex, Espen & I) went down to the farms. I needed to discuss wildlife plots with the hunt club. I signed an agreement with Dominion Power about the eight acres on our Freeman property that run under their power lines. Dominion will cost share with us, i.e. they will pay for part of the seed, fertilizers, lime and labor that goes into making the land under the wires into a productive non-forest habitat.
Trees fill in very quickly in Virginia and power companies spend fortunes keeping them down under the power lines & they tend to do it in ways that annoy people with herbicides. It is much better for them to partner with landowners and hunt clubs who can provide local knowledge and a love of the land. It is a win all around. Dominion pays less to us than it would have to pay spraying or mowing crews AND it can brag about the ecological correctness of the results. We have a total plan for the tract too, BTW
The hunt club guys, many of whom are farmers who own equipment, have agreed to plant and maintain the wildlife areas, according to a plan made for me by a wildlife biologist. I cut & pasted the basic plan at the end of this post.
I wanted to see what kind of damage the recent hurricane had done. We are far inland but Hurricane Irene still dumped a lot of rain and engendered high winds. My newly thinned pines were vulnerable to this sort of thing. We suffered little damage, however. A few trees were knocked down, but not so much that you would comment if you didn’t know already.
Finally, I wanted to see the place where we will plant longleaf pine. The picture below shows the clear cut we did last January. Things grew back really quick. The yellow poplars were already about six feet high. To make sure the longleaf get a good start, we sprayed from a helicopter.
My pictures – up top shows the right of way where we will install wildlife plots. Below that is an existing wildlife plot on the CP acreage for reference. The next picture shows rabbit dogs. These little dogs chase the rabbits out of the brush for the hunters. Some of the local guys train their dogs on our land every week. There is an art to this. The owners know all the dogs by name (they look the same to me) and they know their lineage. When the dogs chase the rabbits, the younger, faster dogs go first. Older ones follow. They are slower but have more experience to pace themselves. Who knew it was so complex?
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Dominion Virginia Power Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Program
John Matel Property (T-5727, N36.74 W77.74)
Brunswick, VA
Area: 8 acre Dominion Virginia Power right-of-way to be planted into a mix of native warm season grass, forbs and wildflowers
-10ft wide firebreak will be established along one side of right-of-way (not under cost share program), will be used for understory burning of planted pines
Species Mix:
Species Rate (lbs of pure live seed/acre)
Big Bluestem 2lbs/acre
Virginia Wild Rye 2 lbs/acre
Partridge Pea 1 lb/acre
Black-eyed Susan 0.05lb/acre
Butterflyweed 0.5lb/acre
Seeding Date: March 1st to April 15th (May 1st at latest)
Site Preparation:
• See attached NRCS fescue spray chart
o Mow existing vegetation in late summer (late August/early September)
o Spray existing mix of fescue vegetation in fall 2011 (September/October) with glyphosate (follow all label instructions)
o May need a second spray in spring 2012
o Sow seed mix between March 1st and April 15th (May 1st at the latest) with a no-till drill (1/4 inch depth)
OR
o Lightly disk planting area, follow with cultipacker or drag a cedar limb to create a smooth, firm seedbed, sow seed with broadcast spreader (use carrier of pelletized lime to help disseminate seed) and follow with cultipacking or dragging to lightly place seed in soil (sow at ¼ inch depth)
o Leave at least a 15ft buffer on all drainage areas (2 low areas), do not spray or plant in these areas
Maintenance:
• Starting in year 3 or 4 after establishment being a rotational burning or disking regime
o Burning: Burn 1/3 of the area each year between January and early April (not recommended due to transmission line)
o Disking: Disk 1/3 of the area each year between November and mid-March
• Spot spray as needed if competing vegetation becomes a problem
