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Three cheers and hip-hip hooray for the Sequoia National Forest. Their newest management plan for the forest is the most progressive and comprehensive management plan yet devised by any National Forest in the U.S. The Sequoia National Forest is the first agency to recognize the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem management as necessary and viable management goals for the future.
The idea of ecosystem management is relatively new to science. Only in the last decade or so has modern man begun to understand the complexities involved with nature and our interaction with it. In the past, the methods with which we interacted with and managed nature and our natural resources was on a "species specific basis". That is, if we were concerned about trees, we managed trees. If we were worried about populations of Mountain lions we enacted regulations regarding mountain lions. It has become evident, however, through a great deal of study, that this type of thinking does not really suit management of the environment properly. Take fire suppression, for example. For nearly one hundred years man has managed the vast forest lands of the West with the idea of fire suppression. Clearly a forest fire is a massively destructive agent, both to the trees and to mankind. In order to prevent this catastrophe, man has endeavored to minimize forest fires, and to put them out as quickly as possible if they did occur. This method did prove successful in protecting the trees of the forest, however, it has also created subtle, and, perhaps, undesirable changes to the forests.
Periodically throughout history forest fires inundated the forests of the west as a natural occurrence: an act of nature. These fires scorched thousands of acres of forest and appeared to man as highly destructive. Recently, however, man has begun to understand that these fires also represent highly productive values to the forest. Fires eliminate understory vegetation, which, if allowed to become too thick, inhibits forest growth. Furthermore, many tree species, such as the magnificent Giant Sequoia, and many others, actually need forest fires to thin understory and create new open spaces in order for their seeds to germinate and grow.
A further consequence of fire suppression has become evident. Because understory growth has not been disturbed by fire, in most cases, over the last one hun
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