Column: Houston South isn't a good restoration plan for Hoosier National Forest
Editor's note: This is the second of three opinion columns responding to columns written by Mike Chaveas about management of the Hoosier National Forest.
Hoosier National Forest Supervisor Mike Chaveas accuses those who disagree with the Houston South Project of misrepresenting facts and confusing the public. That is exactly what he is doing. Chaveas’ claims about fire and the need to improve forest structure, diversity of stand ages and wildlife habitats are good examples.
Mr. Chaveas asserts that fire suppression and the lack of disturbance has led to overly dense and shaded forests, which lack diversity in age and structure. In fact, rather than lack of disturbance, our native forests are very fragmented by human activity and are as disturbed from weather events, droughts, logging, insects, and disease as ever. Amidst a rapidly changing climate and such pervasive levels of disturbance, concerns about the scope and magnitude of Houston South and other projects that will burn, log, and apply pesticides to thousands more acres than have ever been disturbed by prior projects in the HNF are justified.
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The premise of Mr. Chaveas that fire is needed to create a natural hardwood forest is false. Fire is not a significant agent of natural disturbance in Indiana’s hardwood forests and has not been for many hundreds of years. Guyette, Dey and Stambaugh studied fire rings on post oaks, a species known to survive fires that grows in the Boone Creek Barrens of Perry County in southern Indiana. After Native Americans left the area, these researchers found no fire scars in the post oaks for 108 years from 1693 to 1801 followed by 14 years with fire scars from 1801 to 1900 during European settlement of the area. They concluded human ignitions were likely the cause of fire in the barrens because lightning is accompanied by heavy rains in this region.
Other fire researchers including Marc Abrams, who is also an expert on oak ecology, echo this same conclusion that Native Americans rather than lightning were the source of most fires in the eastern hardwoods of presettlement America. Government land surveys from the early 1800s indicate the hardwood forest that covered the hills of southern Indiana was far more diverse than just the oak-hickory forest type. Mr. Abrams concludes that fires by Indians and the onslaught of logging and fires by settlers were principal reasons for today’s dominance by this forest type in the eastern hardwoods. Rather than “restoring” the natural forest ecosystem, projects like Houston South are attempting to re-establish the most beat up conditions that existed in the mid 19th century after European settlement ravaged presettlement forests.
The forests in the HNF are becoming more uneven aged with a greater diversity of age classes, species, and structure as they grow older and the natural old growth forest ecosystem returns. These forests are thinning themselves naturally as trees from all age classes die from old age, wind storms, pests, diseases, and other disturbances. Rather than deep shade, these natural disturbances create a mosaic of different light regimens and varied structures of canopy, midstory, understory, snags, and logs in light gaps of varying sizes — all of which provides for the regeneration of the widest diversity of native hardwood tree species.
The shelterwood logging and clearcutting proposed by the Forest Service will dramatically reduce the forests’ age classes. The selective cutting, crop tree release, and midstory removal will reduce the vertical structure. The cutting in combination with the burning and pesticide application will reduce rather than increase forest biodiversity. The wildlife habitat that these activities will create will benefit species that are common at the expense of species that are not.
This destructive management is inappropriate for our public forests.
Jeff Stant is executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance.