Editor's Column

Guest Columns

Forest Facts

By: Jim Petersen

Editor’s Note
It is a measure of both the inherent resilience of our forests, and of the success of the policies that were put in place in response to public concerns in the early decades of this century, that forest conditions over much of the U.S. have improved dramatically since 1900. The following is a snapshot of the forest and wildlife situation that existed in the 1900s, as contrasted to 2000:

Killer wildfires decimated 40-50 million acres of virgin forestland every year.

1900

 

• In the early 1900s, wildfire commonly consumed 40-50 million acres annually, an area the size of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware combined.
• Due largely to such wildfires, there were perhaps 80 million acres of “cutovers” which continued to remain idle and unstocked or poorly stocked with desirable tree species.
• By 1900, many wildlife species, which formerly were abundant, were severely depleted or were on the brink of extinction. Examples included game animals, such as white-tailed deer, wild turkey, pronghorn antelope, moose, bighorn sheep, and, of course bison. Furbearers, especially beaver, had been eliminated from significant portions of their ranges. Waterfowl were also severely impacted, including wood ducks, and several other species of ducks; Canada geese; all manner of plumed wading birds, such as herons, egrets, ibises, and others.
• The volume of timber harvested, nationally, greatly exceeded that of forest growth.
• Clearing of forests for agriculture continued at very high levels. In the last decade of the Century, America’s farmers cleared forests at the average rate of 13.3 square miles per day. In the five decades ending in 1900, forest cover in many areas east of the Mississippi had been reduced from 60-70 percent of the land to 20 percent, or even less in some areas. Many of the areas being cleared were on steep slopes, were marginal for growing crops, and often were highly erodible.
• No provision for reforestation was being made. In fact, no long-term forest man-agement of any kind was being practiced.
• Large quantities of wood were left after logging, sawmills were inefficient, use of wood in buildings was based on custom, rather than sound engineering, and huge volumes of wood were lost to rot and deterioration.
• Large-scale disastrous flooding in the east was tied to farm clearing and to logging and wildfires.

2000

Hi-tech wood pellets: Wood utilization is nearing 100 percent.

The area consumed by wildfire has been reduced by more than 90 percent, from 40-50 million acres in the early 1900s to 2-8 million acres today—even in bad fire years.

• The cutovers or “stumplands” thatexisted in 1900 have been reforested. Today, many of these areas contain mature forests. Others have been harvested a second time and regenerated to young forests.
• Wildlife has been a major conservation success story. While a number of species, such as the great auk, passenger pigeon, heath hen, and several others, did become extinct, many others that were severely depleted, or even on the brink of extinction in 1900, have staged remarkable comebacks. Many species that would likely have been on the endangered species list, had one existed in 1900, are today abundant. Examples include: wild turkey; beaver; egrets, herons, and many  other wading birds; many species of shorebirds; wood ducks, and several other species of ducks; whistling swans; Rocky Mountain elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, black bear; even white-tailed deer throughout most of its range.
• Nationally, forest growth rates have exceeded harvest rates since the 1940s, with each decade generally showing a greater margin of growth over harvest than the one preceding. By 1986, the volume of tree growth nationally exceeded the volume harvested by 37 percent; and growth was more than 3 1/2 times what it had been in 1920.
• For the last 70 years there has been no increase in cropland area. About 1920, for the first time in American history, the increase in the area of cleared farmland abruptly stopped, rather than continuing to rise at the rate of population growth.* While farm clearing of forests continued after 1920 in some areas, it was offset by farmland abandonment and reversion back to forest in others. The stabilization in the area of cleared farmland had an immensely beneficial effect on U.S. forests.Tree planting on all forest ownerships has increased dramatically after World War II, and was at record levels throughout the 1980s. Many private forestlands are now actively being managed for tree growing.
• The efficiency of wood utilization has improved dramatically since 1900. Much less material is being left in the woods, many sawmills produce twice or more the usable lumber and other products per log input they did in 1900, engineering standards and designs have reduced the volume of wood used per square foot of building space, and preservative treatments have substantially extended the service life of wood. All of these have reduced by millions of acres the area of annual harvest that otherwise would have occurred.
• Eastern watersheds have been reforested. The headwaters of many American rivers are protected from over harvesting by National Forests and other public lands.
• The area of cropland stabilized for two primary reasons:
       1) Rapidly increasing numbers of motor vehicles and farm tractors made it unnecessary to continue to raise large numbers of draft animals. In 1910, there were about 50 million horses, mules, and other draft animals in the U.S. Fully 27 percent of all cropland was devoted to growing food for draft animals. By 1950, the numbers of draft animals had dropped so dramatically, compared to 1910, that the equivalent of some 70 million acres of cropland had been released to grow crops for human consumption, and
       2) After 1935, spurred by the development of genetically improved hybrid crops and by expanded use of chemical fertilizers and liming, crop yields finally began to improve. Corn yields are typical—between 1800 and 1935, average corn yields in the U.S. remained virtually flat at about 25 bushels per acre, but they had increased to 35 bushels by 1945, to 40 bushels by 1950, and to 120 bushels by 1988. American farmers now grow as much corn on one acre as it took five acres to grow in 1920.

"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."