To the Editor:
I have been shocked, while driving around the Island recently, to see scarred landscapes, large parcels that have been totally cleared of trees for one purpose or another.
Reading that clear-cutting and burning are also planned for the stands of white pine in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest has left me depressed. Is this really necessary?
Various rationales are being put forth to justify violent interventions in forests that I thought were permanently conserved for nature. The word “conservation” should not call up images of fields of raw stumps, exposed and gouged earth, and clouds of smoke and air pollution and even pesticides. When I drive to Edgartown, I don’t want to see a vista such as those shown here: maforests.org.
The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) provides significant funds for clear-cutting and burning, and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) and local conservation nonprofits are on board with the DCR’s plans for the State Forest. Meanwhile, it can seem as though clear-cutting enthusiasts wheel from one rationale to the next, or bring forth new goals when the old ones are questioned. The principal justification for clear-cutting white pines appears to be vilifying the trees themselves: They are accused of being non-natives, even invasives, that have been squatting for nearly a century on land that should now be made available for rare species. Yet according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the native range of Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) is from Newfoundland to Georgia. There is paleontological evidence that the white pine grew on the Vineyard prior to the Island’s separation from the mainland, 10,000 years ago. Anyway, there are plenty of non-native plants on the Island –– such as the ubiquitous Rosa rugosa and the truly invasive, tree-strangulating Oriental bittersweet –– that do not have environmental agencies’ chainsaws aimed at them.
Another rationale for clear-cutting Eastern white pine stands in the State Forest is that they are “plantations” –– planted from the 1920s to the 1940s as the result of gleams in the eyes of an earlier generation of state foresters to establish an Island timber industry. In 2000, a new generation of foresters wanted to turn these plantations into grassland, claiming, incorrectly, that grassland was native there. Now, in a rinse-and-repeat cycle of enlightenment, yet another crop of environmentalists think they have the best plan. Rather than letting the white pine stands grow into old-growth forest, we should transform the terrain into “either sandplain heathlands or pitch-pine oak woodlands” –– they don’t know what will actually happen –– to expand habitat for rare species, and thereby encourage biodiversity. Hence the need to clear-cut and burn what was planted by the first group.
The rare-species priority has costs that need to be fully understood. First are the costs of the actual operation. Then, once cleared, these landscaped habitats will require constant monitoring and maintenance in perpetuity to prevent their being overrun by true invasives such as Oriental bittersweet, and to prevent natural succession. The state doesn’t know where funds for this will be found. There are also opportunity costs in spending money on cutting down trees and then endlessly maintaining a habitat and fighting natural succession, rather than on something more critical, such as putting more land into conservation.
This plan also has opportunity costs to the environment itself. The white pine stands, being “plantations,” are not viewed as having any intrinsic ecological value. Is this true? Back when the trees were planted, we didn’t know about carbon sinks. Now we do. The State Forest white pines are on average about 100 years old. One such young adult tree already sequesters anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds of carbon, and absorbs at least 10 pounds of carbon dioxide annually. Cutting and burning these trees will release a huge portion of this stored carbon (not to mention the carbon spewed out by the machinery). Whatever happened to net zero?
We can be hampered in our views of forests’ value by the fact that human generations are short, whereas tree generations are long. The older trees get, the more carbon they absorb –– and, obviously, sequester (see tinyurl.com/3fta238c). In other ways a growing, aging forest provides expanding environmental benefits over multiple human generations: more ecological niches as understory plants appear; improved soil with greater moisture retention and complex underground communities; reduced fire risk as the canopy becomes more distant from the ground; more effective windbreak. White pines release compounds that help to cool their surroundings and leave humans feeling refreshed when they breathe in the air. Evidence is also accumulating that forests function as “biotic pumps” that circulate water molecules, affecting local wind and weather patterns. In death, all forest trees –– whether they keel over from old age, are toppled by a hurricane, or are killed by insects –– continue to nourish the ecosystem in myriad ways as they lie decomposing on the forest floor. The slow unfolding of natural processes in evolving ecosystems is the best guarantee of long-term biodiversity.
The notion of cutting down and burning stands of healthy trees in order to install a high-maintenance habitat to protect rare species and thus increase biodiversity, in order to increase resilience and slow climate change, sounds somewhat Rube Goldbergish, when these self-same stands of trees are already working hard on Earth’s and humans’ behalf.
Not all scientists support clear-cutting in forest reserves; a large body of scientific research supports letting “Nature riff like a jazz musician,” as Matt Pelikan memorably put it. Now is a good time to take a step back and thoroughly examine the premises and the science that drive the clear-cut-and-burn program. Competing hypotheses and evidence-based peer-reviewed studies are the sinews of the scientific process. The public has a right to hear all sides.
An ad hoc citizens’ group has formed with the purpose of putting the brakes on the DCR’s clear-cutting plans, and initiating a process of clear communications and transparent decision making between the community and the DCR. You can sign their petition here:
bit.ly/Change_CorrellusPetition.
Katherine Scott
Tisbury
