For Monday, April 4th: read Nancy Langston, Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares: The Paradox of Old Growth in the Inland West (U. of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 3-200, 247-264, and 296-306 (the first 6 chapters, the fire chapter, and the conclusion).
BLOG Due 11:30: QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How did different sides in the 1990s old growth debates deploy different versions of forest history to support their positions?
OR:
Explore the ways that ecological and social processes influenced each other in shaping landscape change in fire-adapted forests of the West.
Changes in fire-adapted forest landscapes in the Blue Mountains were due to a combination of ecological and social processes. Often these processes would magnify another, causing even more confusion and frustration amongst the people using the forests. Ultimately the interaction between these ecological and social drivers would intensify landscape change to the point where it was no longer recognizable to the people who sought to use and manage it.
ReplyDeleteAs Professor Langston said in Forest Dreams and Forest Nightmares, “The history of outsiders in the Blues has been a history of people getting lost – lost in geographical space, lost in their attempts to quickly extract fortunes, and lost in their hopes of reshaping the landscape to fit and American ideal.” In looking at the history and ecological changes of the fire adapted ponderosa pine forests in the Blues, this legacy of the American desire to quickly gain fortune and control is very apparent, as are the impacts on forest composition.
Outsiders came to this region for a particular reason: to mine, trap, log. The goal was to gain wealth through resource extraction. The forest was seen as a place that could be made to fit their desires and visions. These social and political ideas set the framework for which they would interact with the forest. The ponderosa pines especially grabbed the American’s attention. Pine was a valuable for lumbering. However, without an understanding of how the fires interacted with the forest ecosystem, conditions would be created that prevented the regeneration of pine and encouraged the encroachment of fir trees. Fires were seen as a threat to the pines, and suppression of these fires would bring about changes that these people were actually trying to avoid.
The ecological processes involved in the landscape change of fire-adapted forests of the West were very much intertwined with the social processes. Lodgepole pines were particularly fire-adapted. They had the ability to quickly take over areas after fire, and also had cones that would open to release seeds after being exposed to heat generated by a fire. The cycle of these fires would be such that stands could be kept more open, but would also allow for the survival of some young trees for future stands. Pine had this ability to reproduce in forested areas – while the Douglas fir did not.
It was the fear of fire and loss of pines that caused people to create a management system that would keep the fire out. However, suppressing fires in order to control and maintain the pine stands actually produced the opposite effect. On page 24 of Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares there is a map showing the change in forest composition of pine and fir from 1941 and 1991. Pine stands were significantly reduced during this time period. This is just one example of how social and ecological processes influenced one another in this region – many more stories and examples can be discussed on this topic.
Ecological and social processes intertwined throughout the history of the inland west old-growth forests: often, their interactions followed the pattern that social processes didn't realize or account for the full extent of the ecological processes in place, but made significant alternations in those processes. When the impact of that was realized, the ecological change that had taken place in the forest meant that changes in social practice couldn't restore the forest's previous state even if they tried. One clear example of this is fire and fire suppression policy.
ReplyDeleteBecause fire burned valuable timber, fire suppression became an important part of policy. This affected the forest composition, but also physical forest features like the duff layer, the structure of tree roots, and the soil moisture, meaning that reinstating regular fires as part of forest management would have different effects on the forest than the fires did before. A similar phenomenon happened with succession--loggers, for example, cut stands to encourage pine growth, since pine trees liked sun and less valuable fir trees liked shade. But the fir growth accelerated afterwards and choked off any potential pine growth, creating a different forest in composition than they had been trying to manage originally.
There were several social processes driving the actions of the people who influenced the forests. One of the most obvious is the emphasis on agriculture as the proper use of the land, leading to large areas being cut for use as farms or livestock grazing—renewable value, but not part of the forest. Trappers saw the immediate extraction of resources as the guiding principle of forest use, leading to the beaver population being devastated (with accompanying changes in waterways and the surrounding forest) in the wake of an economic race between competing companies. The Forest Service was driven by an emphasis on the renewable economic value of a forest, and the Forest Service's policies were driven by a high cultural value placed on productivity and usefulness. The social process of science carries with it an expectation that in all cases of inquiry science is useful and can provide the answer, if only the practitioner has the skill to use it properly.
When the Forest Service tried to apply science to the pine forests, they often weren't able to do so effectively. Sometimes they were hampered by lack of information: the extent and variability of the forest made determining the amount of available wood difficult to estimate with any accuracy. Sometimes they were hampered in their scope: they assumed that a productive forest had a clean forest floor, free of dead wood and undergrowth, and so didn't try to look scientifically at what function those things had in the forest. Because of the Forest Service's influence, these limitations of the Forest Service's scientific knowledge and practices ultimately had huge effects on the forests.
-Erin
Native Americans in the west had nomadic societies, but this did not mean they did have major influences on the forested landscape of the Blues. The changes to the landscape may have meant that they were not living completely sustainably off the landscape, but trends in more recent history show that they lived far more sustainably than the Europeans that arrived after them. Explorers, missionaries, and settlers made the trip out west in hopes of finding or founding economic prosperity. They did not see the Native Americans as having rights to the land, as they were foragers and hunters, not agriculturalists. I found the criteria to the different levels of connection to the land as an interesting means of determining the eligibility for rights of the land.
ReplyDeleteAs Europeans arrived in this foreign, confusing, and treacherous landscape, they had hopes of mining, trapping, logging, farming, and livestock grazing. Most practices proved difficult and did not result in easy returns. Mining left ghost towns, intense competition for trapping areas left depleted furbearer populations, logging resulted in unexpected successional events, farmers struggled with water availability, and cattle and sheep herder competition resulted in sometimes violent disputes. This last point was most surprising to me. I had heard most of the previous issues in past readings, but I did not realize the differences between cattle and sheep grazing. I was surprised that sheep grazing was so popular, as it is not what comes to mind when I hear about livestock grazing. It was interesting to note that sheep have lower water requirements and that herds could number in the thousands. It is not difficult to imagine the stress 2,000 sheep would have on a landscape in a short period of time.
This was a history and region I was unfamiliar with, but understanding its history provides a rich variety of issues surrounding forest management. This region is full of wrong turns and unexpected outcomes from which we can learn for future management practices. The complexity of a landscape mirrors the complexity of ability to manage that landscape. It is impossible to consider and plan for every outcome of a management practice, and the Blues give us a taste of the consequences of not understanding those potential outcomes.
Amanda
Adding my two cents to the insightful entries above, I would note that in exploring the interplay between ecological and social processes in the forests of the Blue Mountains, Nancy Langston reveals how ideas or “metaphors” of what constituted an ideal forest drove much of the human-induced change in the region.
ReplyDeleteFor some Native Americans, the ideal landscape contained grasslands to attract game, and forests with trees spaced far enough apart for riders to pass through at a gallop. Fire proved an indispensable tool for creating such terrains. White fur trappers, gold miners, cattle grazers, and lumbermen brought short-term visions to the Blues. They gazed upon the wilderness and saw a storehouse of commodities.
For their part, farmers carried the torch of the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal into the region. When they cast their eyes on the breathtaking valleys of eastern Oregon they beheld an earthly paradise in which to set roots. Unfortunately for them, unpredictable climate and other factors dashed many a dream.
Foresters brought perhaps the most complicated and contradictory visions (or blind spots) to the Blue Mountains. Science was their god and efficiency their creed. Filled with the aggressive optimism of scientific forestry, they sought to convert “decadent” old growth into sustainable-yield forests. Yet much of their understanding of forest dynamics derived from experiences with humid forests of the East. Seeking to make room for more ponderosa, they managed instead to create conditions hospitable to firs and insect plagues. Aiming to boost forest health and value, they pursued fire suppression at all cost, and got devastating infernos. Virtually every policy seemed fated to fail largely because “their vision of an ideal forest got in the way…” (188).
Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares offers an interesting twist to the all-too-familiar story of Europeans (and their descendents) turning “paradises” of plenty into hells on earth. What’s unusual about the history of the Blues is the apparent sincerity with which many tried to do right by the land, even as their ham-fisted interventions led to one disaster after another.
Professor Langston makes the provocative point that ideas such as “crisis” in forest health may have more political than ecological meaning (4-5). For, whether composed principally of ponderosa, larch, lodgepole pine, or Douglas fir, the ever-changing forests of the Blue Mountains were still, in one form or another, forests. It was the people who had invested so deeply in them who suffered the crises.
--John
I kept thinking how ironic it was for me, while reading this book, to be constantly thinking of the word “dynamic”- a word that seems far too impromptu to be linked with forest change. The interwoven aspect of how the forest responds to its own changes and human-influenced changes was very well documented in this book. If left to its own devices, the forest is not as stable and unchangeable as one might think. Maybe it is arrogance that motivates humans to think that the forest ecosystem doesn’t do much until we step in to “help,” but based on the reading, it’s much more complicated. The importance of many of the features in and around the forest-water and fine degrees of moisture, plants and the interactions between flora and fauna, soil and the minute changes between one site and another, death, reproduction- they all seem somewhat choreographed and random at the same time. And, even though “dynamism” seems an appropriate concept when landscapes are left to their own devices, human interaction seems to cut to the chase much sooner. Contrasting a branch falling in the forest, and the subtle chain reactions that are spurred by this action with clear-cutting a forest, and the dynamism takes on a new meaning. Yet, clearly from this reading, leaving “humans” out of the landscape/people equation is not necessarily better or even possible, for the most part.
ReplyDeleteOften, the human element has been destructive, but this book was really helpful with fleshing out the relationship between culture and nature, and portraying the complexities. One of the examples of bridging the landscape/human gap the forest was the silvics reports produced by the Forest Service in the early 1900s. They were so fascinating to me because it really seemed to provide support for the idea that, newly armed with a forest “science” mentality, humans were really struggling to gain a foothold on what makes forests work, to gain “intimate knowledge of local conditions.” In Landscape Architecture, one of the first things that new students learn is to do a site analysis- a two-part process that involves primarily inventory and analysis. New students seem to readily grasp the inventory part of it, but really struggle with the analysis part. The silvics reports were inspiring to me (and something that I wanted to share with first year students) because they really seemed like a method by which foresters, who had a real drive to understand, could wrestle with the mysteries of the forest ecosystem and try to understand and analyze it. The success of the results was mixed, and maybe even overall, negative. The idea that humans should try to intercept with perceived problems, and make them right, has met with decidedly mixed results. But, that germ of desire to explore and tease apart the forests’ secrets by “men with a mission” in the Blue Mountains, a “different kind of landscape” was particularly intriguing to me.
One story that was particularly remarkable in “Forest Dreams…” was the story of Langille and his attempt at rectifying the wrong-doings of “outsiders” in the Blues. Vehemently against greedy eastern capitalists, Languille sought to halt the common wanton destruction and decimation of the ponderosa forests while concurrently promoting the benefits of the forest to the individual capitalist whose efforts ameliorated the local condition. He accomplished this by actively supporting grazing and mining efforts, two activities usually not associated with conservation. It seems Langille’s story is representative of today’s conflicting land agency bureaucracies and varying management approaches in each one. When I first read that Langille would actively support “the working” man I was astounded and thought of how far we’ve come today, but in reality outside vs. local interests still are majorly juxtaposed in resource use today. One example I can think of is BP’s oil spill in the Gulf. Major environmental catastrophes that are widely publicized usually have outside interests at blame, but in reality were settlers the more likely culprit?
ReplyDeleteAs Nancy points out throughout the book, it was a combination of both outside interests and settler’s naiivity in ecosystem linkages and processes. When tens of thousands of sheep would rove the upper meadows of the Blues and deplete the native grasses it was only a matter of time before the landscape was completely denuded of its vegetation and natural fertility. Reading this passage I was reminded of a chapter out of one of John Muir’s journals in his memoir “My First Summer in the Sierras.” Feel free to see the chapter here:
http://www.nature.net/muir/firstsummer/ch1pt3.html
In this chapter Muir tells the daily accounts of his summer spent roaming the foothills of the Sierras with a shepard and a band of “hooved locusts” as he calls them.
“Therefore large flocks may be kept at slight expense, and large profits realized, the money invested doubling, it is claimed, every other year. This quickly acquired wealth usually creates desire for more. Then indeed the wool is drawn close down over the poor fellow's eyes, dimming or shutting out almost everything worth seeing. “ (1911)
It’s interesting how Langille and Muir were writing of sheep grazing at the same time yet held markedly contrasting views of the impacts of grazing to the landscape. This is of course related to differences in land agencies today, as the US Forest Service has a more utilitarian approach to forest management (Langille reasoning) versus the National Park Service with a generally more preservationist standpoint (Muir).
-Jo
Unlike past readings where whites came to “new” lands exclusively to exploit it through a get rich quick scheme, this time not all whites came for the same reason. Some whites did come to the Pacific Northwest to exploit the land through mining, forestry, and trapping, but many others came to set up a new life. Although they might have come for different reasons, both groups did their own damage.
ReplyDeleteNot surprisingly, there were extreme cultural differences between the Native Americans and the whites. As Langston said, as soon as the white people arrived they fell in love with the pine forests, but did not realize that Native Americans had largely created the landscape with fire. The whites came in and set up fire controlling and other foresting laws that were meant to protect the pine forests. However, the laws completely backfired and destroyed much of the forest they were trying to protect.
Langston talks about how it was not as simple as saying it was the white people’s endless greed that led to the destruction of the forests because many whites truly loved the land and wanted to protect it. The problem more stems from how Europeans viewed nature as a system that humans could prefect. Whites implemented forestry practices from the east, even though they did not understand the complexity of the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
I kept thinking about the common story of whites coming to a region and changing the landscapes at a much higher rate than seen before their settlement. Again, Europeans thought that they could prefect nature through “hard work”. Of course “hard work” did not include the setting of controlled fires or the hunting/gathering practices of the natives. “Hard work” only referred to implementing intensive farming and logging practices. But in the end, as is characteristic of white people settlements, their work was self-defeating; they found infertile soils and destroyed much of the forests they loved.
sam
4/4/11
A while ago I read this book called “House of Rain” by Craig Childs. It is about the neolithic civilizations in the southwest. I was reminded of this book when Nancy Langston described the difference between Westerners’ relationship to the land and the Nez Perce’s relationship. In both of these cultures, movement has been a critical part, but the difference is Westerners exhaust and then expand; they are always moving on to see what is over the next horizon, while the Nez Perce had a way of life that revolved around what Langston refers to as “transhumance.” I love this word. As she describes it, it is “moving on fixed rounds.” This is what reminded me of Childs’ book. He described the Anasazi way of life as “tethered nomadism.” The southwest was such a harsh climate, it is a wonder that an agricultural society could survive there, but Childs writes the people moved from place to place, always tethered to a specific region of home, so that they did not exhaust their resources.
ReplyDeleteI think of that phrase “tethered nomadism” as that combination of wild and tame, which Nancy Langston writes it is an American desire to have both. If one’s home is thought of as a region then one can feel responsible for the region’s welfare, while at the same time, always giving a part of the land time to “be wild.”
This treats our relationship to nature not as a competition but as a relationship of give and take. I really liked the part in “Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares” when Langston describes what ecology is. She writes, “The forest might be a place where resources are not always limited- where a plant or animal could give something away without using it up, where giving might increase abundance, not decrease it.” She goes on to describe that ecology studies a web of relationships, which does not always depend on competition.
All of this makes me wonder, is there a way that we can incorporate transhumance into our current society? Could we incorporate it only partially and have ecologists already begun this and if so how?
The intertwining social and ecological processes that effected fire suppression as described in the previous comments had been brought to yet another topic for debate in the 1990s when western forests were burning by the thousands of acres. Some of the worst fires in years burnt across western Oregon and into Idaho and scientists, ecologists and foresters were in a hurry to prescribe a solution in yet another attempt in history to manage forests to save them from human intervention.
ReplyDeleteAfter over 100 years of management, there were still those who supported intense management to achieve a healthy natural forest. This side of the debate often prescribed burning and saw a healthy western forest as those when whites first arrived and found that fire occurred regularly. The traditional managers thought that thinning and managing and setting small regular fires could prevent the devastating hot burning fires by limiting the fuel. It was thought that fires were natural and therefore good for the forests.
However those who saw the helicopters spreading fuel over the fires as all but natural, were one group that was in opposition to the prescribed burnings. Although fires were occasionally set by lightening in the arid forests of the west, it is difficult to know how regularly fires occurred naturally. This side of the debate often looked further back into history for their sense of a natural healthy forest. The forests white settlers found were not unmanaged and natural forests, they were managed by Indians with fire for the grazing of large herds of horses. It would be interesting to know what the fire cycles were before Indians were grazing horses to help determine how much the forests were affected by human set fires.
While reading through Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares, the complex histories of a forest come to light. Before I knew much about forest history and theories of succession, looking at the processes that changed forests and brought them to their present state seemed like a simple look back at ecological processes. I realized humans played a role in this development, but it was often a role downplayed in all of the history I received through schooling. Furthermore, when human influences on the landscape were discussed, they were often romanticized as taming the west and ideals such as manifest destiny.
ReplyDeleteSeveral reoccurring themes surfaced during the exploration and early settlement of the Oregon woodlands. These concerned the Indians living on the land already, simplistic views of the land, and the desire to bring “home” to the west.
Indians had lived on the land centuries before the arrival of whites. During these times, they played an important role in the development of the landscape encountered by explorers and settlers. Their use of fire was little understood by the new arrivals and looked down upon. Not understanding fire ecology, people interested in harvesting the forested lands saw only the destruction of saplings and deteriorating soil resulting from fire. Land rights also entered their thoughts. Burning the land was not looked at as “working” the land, the common instrumental concept of ownership, Indians were not granted the rights to their land. Whites coming onto the scene wanted to farm and gave them all the more reason to see fit to claim the land as their own.
Continuing on the thought of making the land their own, settlers related the old growth forests to the humid eastern forests they knew. The simplicity of this view was common and understandable for the lay person of the time. Settlers had little knowledge of the different biome they had come upon, but since it reminded them of home, they quickly set up shop. The open grasslands of the west were a new intimidating view for settlers. This was remedied by the introduction of foreign species of plants and animals that would further change their new homes.
All of these changes happened within an extremely short time in history, especially when the age of the forest and grassland ecosystems are looked at. The influx of new culture, society, technology, and ideas did not meld well with the “natural” order of the forests. The result is the even more complex history since this time which continues today throughout the west and Blue Mountains.
Cory
As almost everyone has pointed out, “Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares,” really emphasizes the strong relationship between ecological and social processes. One group will set out with a goal in mind and over simply a system in order to achieve that goal. Though this may achieve their specific goal, it leads to a myriad of problems in other areas or goals of the forest. As John pointed out, “ideas of what constituted an ideal forest drove much of the human-induced change in the Blue Mountains.” I would argue that these ideas of the “ideal” forest are what have drove human presence and influence in all forest systems around the world.
ReplyDeleteThe complex systems that make up a forest community are far to intertwined and interdependent for us to understand all of the relationships. A group will seek a certain outcome; say to preserve the longevity of timber production, so people conclude that more young trees need to be present so timber production can persist. This seems like a logical conclusion, extend the age of the trees so once the oldest are cut down, younger trees can take their place and the cycle continues. However, to achieve this goal, first fire is suppressed, so different species, like fir, come in and take over because they thrive in shade. Also, fire suppression leads to more fuel on the ground, so when a fire does come it will be more intense and hotter than the more regular “milder” fires that make the tree community what it was. The problems go on and on, one leading to the next and affecting the land and water far away.
One of the biggest things I took away from this book is that no one is really right in arguments surrounding forests because we do not know what the “pristine” forest was, we only have a few hundred years of history to work with. Humans arrived and immediately began to affect the forest, just as any species would. We will affect the land on which we live, that is a basic, yet powerful fact. One quote from Nancy Langston I particularly like is, “Histories of environmental change can begin to sound as if the moral is that there is no way people can work on the land without setting in motion its inevitable collapse” (300). She goes onto say that we must stop thinking of “wild nature” as separate from us, this made me think of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land.” Let’s live at peace with the land by making it a part of us, rather than trying to “fix” it.
-Hanna
One of the most striking arguments to me in Nancy’s book is the idea that people, above all, were and are well-intentioned, this Anne Frank-like core belief that “despite everything…people really are good at heart.” I think I have trouble fathoming this idea in many cases, but by exploring various groups’ mindsets at the time of the decisionmaking that transformed the forests in the Blues, evidence of various groups’ determination to preserve, alter or mold the forests with honest goals in mind, emerges. The human condition is very capable of finding justification to promote reason and attach logic to even the things that may not hold a humanly tangible trajectory. For example, by coming in with the intention to protect forests to ensure economic prosperity, or to “grow trees as a crop” (83), or to make forests “as efficient and productive as possible” (148), it is very easy to see how in light of these honorable intentions, the Forest Service became blind to how their inadequate knowledge of the ecosystem, yield and diversity might be affecting their otherwise good intentions.
ReplyDeleteIn an attempt to support a myriad of efforts to make the forest what they wanted it to be, evidence has been deployed to support different groups’ visions over time—science was made to support nearly every cause it was set out to fit. “The forest that people have seen has always reflected what they wanted from the forest” (147). Nancy writes, “When the government wanted to exclude the timber industry from the Blues, foresters found evidence that cutting trees hurt the watershed. When the government wanted to justify clearcutting they found evidence of nearly the opposite” (148). She notes that in all cases, “bad science was never to blame” (148), and in this, it’s easy to see how such a widely misunderstood, or unknown system such as the Blue Mountains could become prone to such wildly differing interpretations. Intentional or not, people see what they want to see, and evidence against bias gets lost in that vision naturally. So, in this region—“a meeting ground for diverse cultures” (43)—people’s visions crashed. Differing goals led to different actions and led to conflicting results. For example, Native Americans in the region, at first nomadic, were content in the efficacy of burning grasslands “to provide better forage for their massive herds of horses” (48); Protestant missionaries with intentions to farm, found efficacy in conversion of the land and people into something far from the “wild nature” (61) they encountered—perhaps “the best thing one could do with the land was to clear it and farm it” (83); and, as John writes, foresters too, had goals—“science was their God and efficiency their creed.” Every differing motive here took the forest “in a slightly different direction” (262), and in tandem with natural turns resulted in a forest history that taken apart today, can be understood as a series of justified motives—both backed by scientific evidence (as seen fit), and almost always “good” intentions.
-Stevie
The position of federal forest service agents/inspectors in the Blues (in the early 1900s) has a very interesting dynamic. They went into it with a very romanticized view and with “the best of intentions (86)” to bring some type of order to the extraction and conserve for the future. The forester H.D. Langille seems to sit right in the middle of this struggle for resources and the continued growth of the forests within the Blues. He did see the bigger the picture, namely how the region had important water regimes and protection of the watershed would be critical for future growth. He noticed the carelessness and destructive practices of industrial logging which if continued there would be nothing left. Moreover, maybe most importantly he saw the need to persuade and engage the local population in the implementation of any type of reserve or governmental regulation within the Blues. Which many programs and conservation initiatives can still learn from. However, the establishment of the first reserves in the Blues sounds very similar to many of the case studies we have already looked at. While the reserves are created with the best of intentions, the execution of them seems to fall flat and the support of local populations erodes. The execution of the reserves failed, much like the India case study, because there were no clear goals and bureaucratic infighting between different departments for control. Even more troubling is the fact that people making the decisions and who had control (the department of the interior) had no foresters or little forestry experience, but instead were political appointees ripe for corruption and kickbacks.
ReplyDeleteThe federal government was in a difficult position entering into the Blues, as the perceived outsider to locals and a roadblock to the industrial logging machine. It is not hard to believe that they did enter the foray with the best of intentions, but trying to negotiate economic growth with conservation for the future is a difficult line to walk.
-matt
In Forest Dreams and Forest Nightmares, Nancy Langston explores the unique and dynamic set of social and ecological interactions that created the conditions for the Forest Service’s unprecedented admission of fault in their 1991 report. I found that one of the most interesting social phenomena that impacted the ecology of the Blues was the Forest Service’s conception of responsible forestry: even though there were advocates for prescribed burns in order to maintain the appealing aesthetics, the worry about integrating a Native American form of forest management was significant in their decision to suppress fire. Similar to McKibben’s appeal to United States history in explaining American environmental perceptions in eaarth, it is interesting to consider the conceptions of “work” as held by pioneers settling the Blues and how they influenced the Forest Service to establish the management style that they did. Taming the wilderness by the sweat of one’s own brow certainly fits into the mentality of a Christian work ethic more than standing by idly while a forest goes up in smoke.
ReplyDeleteThe overall theme from this book that there is no one “right” thing to do when it comes to forest management is certainly true for this specific case, but I was left wondering if perhaps other unique natural areas have different unique management prescriptions. Reflecting on that question has revealed to me that I am suffering from the same affliction as the managers of the Blues: a belief that there is an ecological “right” way of doing things, when success actually depends on the socially derived interests that one has. Even when such a goal is defined, it is still very difficult to attain due to the ecological complexity of a forest ecosystem.
One initial impression I had of the book was that I liked that it was written about a place in America. So much of what we have read this semester has been about other countries far away, which is interesting. However when you read about forest history in other countries you have to have an understanding of the overall history of the country, and even when it is given it is harder to understand or keep track of. It was nice with this book that since it was about a place in America I knew the broader history of the country and could place it in to historical context. It was also nice, because while I have never been to the Blues, I have been to Washington and Oregon and I could picture the area which is harder to do with some of the other books.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John that this is as he put it, “an interesting twist to the all-too-familiar story of Europeans (and their descendents) turning “paradises” of plenty into hells on earth.” Whites came into the region with good intentions for the use of the land, but fumbled to try and find a way to manage the land resulting in changes that no one wanted. However the story is not presented in a blame placing manner which is a refreshing change from many of the books we have read.
One of the biggest social factors that influenced the shaping of the western forests was the fact that most people came from humid forests in the east. This affected the way they treated the forest because they thought it could be managed the same way as the forests back home. But they were dreadfully wrong. By suppressing the fire that they thought was destroying their beloved open pines; they actually set their demise in motion.
ReplyDeleteFirst there were the Native Americans. They were mostly nomadic, setting fires to clear land and to drive game. They were a major part in the making of the pine forests that European settlers would find later. Next came the trappers and explorers. The trappers took a lot of beaver, which after a while changed the landscape by reducing the amount of dams. After that were the European settlers who brought grazing, farming, and mining. Grazing mowed down natural vegetation and changed the grasslands. It also compacted the fragile ash soils which had more long lasting effects. Farmers at first viewed the forests as the most fertile as they often were in the east. But many learned to listen to more experienced people and found that the sagebrush grasslands were surprisingly fertile. Mining completely stripped the mountains of their trees and washed away the unstable soil to get to the minerals underneath. Then came logging and the forest service. Lack of appropriate knowledge and desire to utilize the forest led to the demise many of the pure pine stands. There was no one person to blame for this. The factors of utilization and insufficient knowledge of the forest came together to change the forest structure. Yet who are we to say that this is not as it should be. Forests change whether we want them to or not.
-Mallory
While I was reading Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares by Nancy Langston, I couldn’t help but put myself into the book as combinations of outside influence and ecological arguments arose. I noticed a lot of pressure was put on the Forest Service from a cultural view as well as an economic standing.
ReplyDeleteIn attempts to help the forest, the Forest Service took some very drastic decisions that lead to the overall depletion and allowance of fires in the Blues. This however was heavily influenced by industrial logging and the cultural aspect of what was considered taboo.
When Indian practices we sought and believed as the main way of reason for the light burning the Forest Service was forced to end that taboo and looked heavy for evidence elsewhere. “Forest Service scientist argued that light burning advocates sought immediate rewards…at the expense of long-term forest values such as reproduction and soil protection. Stockmen, miners, railroaders, and loggers insisted they were only continuing Indian ways when they burned” (250).
This thought led the Forest Service in a reversal of its views that cost them a lot of hurt in the future. “Forest Service hostility against light-burning was in large part cultural. If light burning was an Indian practice, then by definition it was superstition, not science” (250).
In later pages, Langston continues on the conversation of why, if the Forest Service agreed with a small amount of light-burning did they go against the major public opinion and decide on 100 percent fire suppression.
The discussion follows up with a gross amount of pressure they were trying to counter that was coming from the industrial loggers. The Forest Service saw the practices as counterintuitive to their desires in conservation and protection. “The Forest saw burning as a part of an irresponsible laissez-faire logging practice—practices utterly opposed to scientific sustained-yield forestry”(249). The Forest Service could no longer keep taking the blame for the allowance of the miss haps and the resulted conflagrations. And thus the bad practices forced the Forest Service to suppress 100 percent. “In arguing for fire suppression, the Forest Service was reacting against poor industrial logging practices that had resulted in conflagrations” (249).