Forest
Stewardship News Release
July
31, 2007- For Immediate Release
Contact: Allyson
Muth, Phone: 814-865-3208, E-mail:
Caring for Pennsylvania's Forest Resources
Have you ever thought much about the importance of forests to Pennsylvania’s landscape, lifestyle, and heritage? After all, our Commonwealth’s name reflects its forested history. Literally, Pennsylvania means Penn’s Woods.
Today, after more than 300 years of European settlement, about 60% of the Commonwealth remains forested. This vast forest resource is largely in private ownership – about 12.5 million acres of the state’s 17 million acres of forest is held by nearly 700,000 owners who daily make decisions about the future of their forest land. Since private individuals, and not state, federal, or local governments, own most of the forest, private citizens make decisions that impact the sustainability of the Commonwealth’s overall forest. An interesting and challenging goal for these owners and the natural resource professionals in Pennsylvania is to keep our forests green and growing and to do so in a sustainable manner. While you may appreciate our state’s forests, it is often difficult to witness a commitment to forests; one most often sees this tremendous natural resource treated apathetically.
The history of people and forests in Pennsylvania are intimately interwoven. How we treated the forest in the past established the forest we have today – both its benefits and limitations. Did you know that from the early in the 1700s through the 1860s great areas of the state were repeatedly cleared of trees to produce charcoal to fuel the state’s iron industry that lead to Pennsylvania’s industrial development? Around the same time, extensive areas of forest were cleared for agriculture and much of this area remains in farms or is being converted to development. Then from the 1860s to the 1920s, the rest of the state’s forests were felled to produce lumber to build the nation’s cities and homes. It was a period of exploitation and, except for a few patches that were too hard to reach, most of the state was cleared and the current forest started regrowing across the state about 80 to 140 years ago.
Forests grow well in Pennsylvania, and today human needs continue to link people to forests. The forest that regrew from the charcoal and logging eras gave us the tremendous black cherry, sugar maple, and oaks that help fuel Pennsylvania’s hardwood lumber, furniture, and exporting industries today.
Apart from wood products, have you given any thought to the other services Pennsylvania’s forests provide to you? Most of Pennsylvania’s clean water falls on forested watersheds and in the process is cleaned and purified. Forests also help to improve air quality by removing pollutants from the air and providing oxygen that we breathe. Forests shade streams to provide trout habitat; they help to control flooding because forest soil is exponentially more porous than lawn and paved surfaces. Trees in residential areas shade houses and reduce wind – reducing heating and cooling costs. Forests also enhance the lovely views that we see from our windows or on our drives.
It’s easy to take Pennsylvania’s forests for granted. They seem to be everywhere. While Pennsylvania’s forests seem unending, they are experiencing tremendous change that threatens our relationship to them. Forestland and agricultural land is disappearing daily as an estimated 350 acres of land are developed – more than 100,000 acres annually – an area roughly equal in area to Rhode Island every nine years. When we harvest our forests well-intentioned, but ill-informed, landowners tend to remove the best trees (a process known as high-grading, or diameter limit cutting, or selective cutting), because that’s where the money is, and leave the poorest quality, the species that have little value for wildlife or future commercial products, thereby changing the general structure of the forest. We’re seeing trees that are valuable to wildlife decreasing; we’re seeing a lack of new native tree growth in the forest because of invading plants, hungry herbivores, and not enough light to stimulate desirable plant growth.
Because of our interconnected relationship to the forest, we’ve should take recourse to address the problems we’ve caused. Much like a garden, a forest needs to be tended, but the time scale and area are much longer and larger. To grow bigger carrots you weed out the spindly ones – giving more growing space to those that are edging ahead. Sometimes tending the forest involves just letting things grow – leaving it alone; other times, tending involves opening up growing space for other trees to grow; and sometimes tending is helping the forest start over by using a regeneration cut (a shelterwood, seed tree, or clear cut harvest) and letting or helping the different species reestablish themselves.
Forests are undergoing tremendous change in PA because of development pressures, and we often fail to think about the benefits they provide. Working with a forest is hard work, and it may not always make economic sense – forests or houses or roads or stores and businesses. But what are the social and ecological values of forests? How do you care for Pennsylvania’s forests? What do you value about them? How do they impact your life and work?
If you’re looking for more information regarding Pennsylvania’s forests, there are a number of outlets who can provide resources. The DCNR Bureau of Forestry has service foresters who work in each of Pennsylvania’s sixty-seven counties providing resources and advice to landowners, government, and the general public. Penn State’s Cooperative Extension Foresters, and Extension Urban Foresters serve an educational role for landowners, government, and the public. Private resource professionals provide goods and services to undertake action and tend the forest. Land trusts and conservancies provide conservation resources. Woodland owner associations are local groups where peers come together to learn and share ideas about caring for Pennsylvania’s forests. There’s a lot of help and information out there. Seek it out. The forests are in your backyard. Enhance how you care for Pennsylvania’s forests and let’s keep it around and vibrant.
For more information on sources of information about how you can help care for forests, write to the Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship Program and request a copy of the PSU extension outreach brochure.
The Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship Program provides publications on a variety of topics related to woodland management for private landowners. For a list of free publications, call 1-800-235-WISE (toll-free), send e-mail to , or write to: Forest Stewardship Program, Forest Resources Extension, The Pennsylvania State University, 320 Forest Resources Building, University Park, PA 16802. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry and USDA Forest Service, in partnership with the Penn State's Forest Resources Extension, sponsor the Forest Stewardship Program in Pennsylvania.
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