Introduction
As of January 2008, the online edition of Old Growth in the East is
largely the same as the 2003 revision of the survey, published by
In the online text, we introduce new material by a double asterisk and follow it by the date of the addition in italics. Each state is in a separate file. To search for a specific site within a state and to return from a state to the table of contents, readers will need to use their browsers.
--Mary Byrd Davis, Lexington, Kentucky, January 23, 2008
To
the 2003 Edition
For the revision of Old Growth in
the East, as for the original text, we define old growth loosely as
forest, woodland, or savanna that looks largely as it would appear had
not Europeans settled North America and that has experienced little or
no direct disruption by EuroAmericans.
Thus we are more concerned with the amount of anthropogenic
disruption an area has apparently experienced than with the size or the
age of trees per se. Sites
that have been continuously forested but in which the trees are young or
small because of natural disturbances meet our definition.
Our selection guidelines for both
editions closely resemble David Duffy’s and Albert Meier’s
application in 1992 of the term “primary” to “forests that have
never been clear cut and that have little or no evidence of past human
activity. Such forests may
have been grazed, they may have experienced limited exploitation of
valuable tree species, and their floors may have been burned by Amerinds
and European pioneers.” “Secondary
forests” are “those that have developed after the previous forest
was extensively logged or clear cut.” (1) We rate most highly forest
that has never to our knowledge been logged, grazed by domestic animals,
or burned by Europeans. Nevertheless,
we make the distinction between primary or original and secondary that
Duffy and Meier make. We
avoid including as old growth, sites known to have been heavily logged
or clear cut even though they may now show old-growth characteristics;
and we include many sites that have experienced selective logging or
grazing.
For site evaluations, we are dependent on oral and written
reports from field researchers.
They do not all agree about what constitutes “light” logging
or grazing or “minimal” disruption.
Therefore we have to be somewhat inclusive in our approach to
sites. Within the boundaries
of our definition, we present sites that one or more researchers have
stated are old growth and also sites that may be old growth.
To help readers determine whether a site meets their own
standards, we state the nature of any disruption about which we have
been able to learn. If the
status of a given site appears to be generally uncertain, we include
limiting terms such as “probable” or “possible.”
As
a general rule, the larger a natural area, the more likely it is to be
able to sustain itself. We
usually therefore devote full, individual descriptions only to sites
that are 40 or more acres in size. We
mention briefly many old-growth sites smaller than 40 acres in our
introductions; and we may present full descriptions of small sites that
are embedded in forests or that occur in states with little old growth.
We
have organized the revision as we did the original version.
The geographic area that we cover again includes
Our catalog is incomplete. The
number of known old-growth sites has become too large and the changes in
these sites (under the onslaughts of climate change, exotic species,
acid deposition, and timber sales) too frequent to allow one person to
keep track of all of them. In
order to stay abreast of developments in regard to old growth, a
reporter in each region if not in each state, would be necessary.
These reporters would ideally forward information to one point
for compilation and distribution. In
revising the survey, we searched the literature and went directly to
individual researchers, organizations, and agencies.
We doubtless failed to contact some people whom we should have
contacted. Some we simply
could not reach. Also, we frequently found that those whom we contacted
were too busy to give us much assistance.
The
Natural Heritage offices in each state could be expected to be sources
of information on old growth, and some were very helpful.
However, none that we talked with, track sites in relation to old
growth, ie they cannot type the word “old
growth” into their data bases and retrieve a list of relevant sites.
Furthermore, many of the Natural Heritage offices are apparently
so understaffed that they cannot answer questions from researchers or
conduct the field work that would enable them to identify “new”
old-growth sites and keep track of the status of known sites.
Often when we inquired about a specific site we were told that no
field worker had visited it since we did the research for our 1993
edition.
Our 2003 edition describes more old-growth sites than did our
1993 edition. (We mark with
asterisks those that we describe for the first time.)
We owe the increase in large measure to individual researchers
working alone or with regional or local non-profit organizations, often
with little or no financial remuneration.
With a few notable exceptions, federal and state agencies
managing forests have carried out little inventorying of old growth in
the field since 1993. They
and The Nature Conservancy have located various significant old-growth
sites while searching for exemplary communities in general.
Nevertheless, much research on old growth remains to be done.
Many
of the National Forests in the East are revising their management plans.
For the National Forests in the Southeast in particular,
preparation for the revision in respect to old growth has been woefully
inadequate. Still, we are
forced to ask ourselves, how much difference in regard to preservation
would identification make? With
all the so-called natural disasters threatening our old growth,
conservationists need to work to protect from logging every acre that
still exists; but, from our vantage point, the battle remains uphill.
In
closing, we want to thank the many people who made this report possible
by contributing their time and their information.
We owe a great debt to the staffs of many Natural Heritage
programs and other state agencies, The Nature Conservancy and other
land-preservation organizations, members of the US Forest Service, US
Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, and to many
individual researchers and conservationists.
Special thanks go to Bruce Kershner
and Robert Leverett, who kindly allowed us
to draw on the manuscript of their forthcoming book “Ancient Forests
of the Northeast” to be published by Sierra Club Books, and to the
following researchers, each of whom updated us on one or more entire
states or reviewed a section of the manuscript: Tom Breden,
Daren Carlson, Guy Denny, Amy Eagle, Rick Enser,
Eric Epstein, Gary Fleming, Thomas Foti, Ken
Hotopp,
John Krause, Michael J. Leahy, Jim Manolis,
Rob Messick, Kenneth Metzler,
Jim Neal, Carl Nordman, Ernest Ostuno,
Peter Martin, Linda Parker, John Pearson, Jess Riddle, Robin Roecker,
Al Schotz, Jim Senter,
Bill Shepherd, Stephen R. Shifley, Jason Singhurst,
Latimore Smith, Eric Sorenson, Martin Spetich,
Bill Sweeney, and Ronald Wieland.
We are indebted to John Davis of the Foundation for Deep Ecology
for editing the manuscript. His
comments as well as those of other readers were valuable, but any errors
that remain are my responsibility not theirs, all the more so, because,
in certain cases I added information, after they had completed their
work.
The
report was made possible with the generous assistance of the Foundation
for Deep Ecology and, for the
--Mary Byrd Davis, Lexington, Kentucky, August 19, 2003
1)
David Duffy and Albert Meier. 1992. Do Appalachian Herbacious
Understories Ever Recover from Clearcutting?
Conservation Biology 6 (2) 196-201.
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