Forest Management Part 1 – A Necessity for Forest Health and Wildlife Diversity!
Posted:2/15/2024
Black Hawk
Why is forest management so
important? Why are you cutting down certain trees and leaving
others? Will your work damage the wildlife species that are present
there? Are you following a plan? These are questions and many more that I
have tried to answer over many years of my career and will continue to do to so
to help educate the public on the importance of Forest Management and Timber
Stand Improvement in Black Hawk County and around the state. Because in all
reality, these forests are YOURS and Black Hawk County
Conservation staff are the stewards if it!
When settlers began to inhabit Iowa
in the middle 1800’s, they found 6.5 million acres of forest’s (18% of land
mass) spread out among the many natural rivers and creeks and the highest
bluffs overlooking these natural sites. Where the forest met the dry
tallgrass prairie (76% of land mass) at that time a unique ecosystem was
discovered of which we now call a native Oak Savanna. Natural
disturbances from fire, wind, and grazing/browsing from bison and elk
helped keep Iowa’s landscape healthy and diverse for native reptiles and
amphibians, insects, birds, and mammals. As Iowa and Black Hawk County
became more settled, the prairie quickly disappeared and turned into crop
ground; the forests were cut for heating, fuel, construction and farming and
the many of states native wildlife species either left the state (extirpated)
or became endangered or just extinct. These were all man-made disturbances
and decisions with no plan or thought of how the future of Iowa’s wild places
would be impacted.
We still see the impacts today of
historical over-management or mismanagement of Iowa’s and Black Hawk Counties
natural resources. Black Hawk Counties forests overall health is in
decline due the removal of natural disturbances and an infiltration of invasive
species such as bush honeysuckle, autumn olive and non-native insects and birds
carrying diseases harming the best of our trees. As the forest goes so
does the wildlife that uses it!
As Black Hawk County Conservation
staff continue to try and curb this trend in public forest’s, there is a
process we use to get organized before the work begins. The process
starts with developing a Forest Management Plan. This plan
includes input from experienced staff and outside professionals, specific
goals and outcomes, stand mapping by foot to describe the differences in forest
stands, a description along with recommendations for each stand, and the implementation
of that plan after conservation board approval. For example, goals could
include forest management to: regenerate and increase health of hardwood trees
(oak, hickory walnut, sugar maple); protect soil and water quality, enhance
biodiversity of plant and wildlife species using Timber Stand Improvement (TSI)
practices; and manage for various age classes of trees for forest and wildlife
diversity. The included images shows an example of what part
of Black Hawk Park looks like from a stand mapping view and a young white oak
that needs more sunlight to increase it potential. I look forward to the
next several articles giving more detail on how we carry out the plan and what
techniques we use to implement the plan.
So for those who may ask “What is
Forest Management”, here it is in a nutshell!
“Forest
Management aims to mimic natural disturbances in order to address specific
goals.”
