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1875. The topic of this hearing is reforestation, and the evidence suggests that we 

 have been less successful on our public forests than we expect. We at American For- 

 ests have not conducted a field survey of reforestation to bring before you today. In- 

 stead, what we would like to do is outline the situation that is facing the forests, 

 not just of the United States, but of the world, because we believe this situation 

 is most relevant to the topic before you. 



The thrust of our message is that there are excellent reasons whv reforestation 

 has not always been as successful as foresters would hope. Part of it nas to do with 

 the way in which forests are harvested, and the environmental events surrounding 

 and foUowing that harvest. In too many places, the site has been so altered by the 

 harvest that the subsequent conditions prevented seedling survival. We believe that 

 many of those situations can, in the future, be avoided tfij-ough changes in harvest- 

 ing and reforestation methods; most of which are being implemented (or, at least, 

 tested) on the federal forests todav. 



This is no panacea, however. We are further convinced that the reality of how for- 

 est ecosystems work, and the increased risk being created by global environmental 

 and climate changes, could easily make restoration of health forest ecosystems more 

 difficult in the future than what has been experienced in the past. 



And changing harvest methods in the future won't do anything for the forest 

 where reforestation has failed. There are millions of acres in that condition, and 

 they need our help. That help, some of which is gong to be fairly expensive, should 

 not be limited to those places where it can be justified on timber economics alone. 

 We need to re-invest in our public forest for a variety of reasons, both economic and 

 environmental, and restoring forest ecosystems is one of the ways needed. 



We believe the American public supports such re-investment. As a matter of fact, 

 we have been very successful in the past three years in raising private dollars to 

 support forest ecosystem restoration projects. Our program is called Heritage For- 

 ests, and we believe it is demonstrating some very positive ways in which damaged 

 forests can be brought back to ecosystem health. 



NEW ECOLOGY 



Ecologists are telling us some very important things about forest ecosystems these 

 days, some very different from what we were told in the past. We call it "new ecol- 

 ogy," although it was being posed by leading ecologists many years ago. Today, the 

 messages are coming through in a much more direct manner, and they bear impor- 

 tantly on the challenges of managing and restoring forest. Some of the relevant mes- 

 sages follow. 



There is no such thing as "natural balance," a "balance of nature," or a "natural 

 steady-state system." Ecosystems, whether affected by people or not, constantly 

 change, and have always done so. Many of those changes are highly important in 

 terms of the ability of forests to produce goods and services that people depend on. 

 Sometimes, changes can be highly destructive, in terms of how humans measure for- 

 est values. 



A lot of ecosystem changes are caused by natural conditions that proceed at a 

 slow and gradual pace. Climate change, species evolution and migration, and soil 

 formation are examples. Others occur in an instant. Disastrous wildfires, major 

 storms, and volcanoes do their thing, and continue to do so. 



Forests don't always respond to gradual changes in gradual ways. A forest may 

 tolerate a gradual shifl in climatic conditions, or a change in nutrient input, with 

 no perceptible impact on trees or other major species for many years. If there is a 

 change, it is lost in the "noise" created by the fact that trees live and die, animal 

 populations cycle up and down, and the weather varies from year to year. Signifi- 

 cant change may be hidden for many years within the "normal' variation in the sys- 

 tem. 



But the forest may also pass through a "threshold" where many or all of the trees 

 suddenly die. Again, cause and eflfect may be hard to identify. Drought, insects, dis- 

 ease — any or all may be present. But the real cause? That's sometimes hard to tell. 

 And it may be due to long-term, gradual shifls that we're still imable to clearly 

 identify. 



Thus, recent changes in nutrient input, acidity, and atmospheric deposition could 

 not be shown to kill trees, and a multi-million-dollar study on acid rain concluded 

 that, so far as science could demonstrate, acid rain was causing no serious wide- 

 spread harm to forests. But the changes are there, altering important ecosystem 

 processes, and they will continue to manifest themselves as the system responds to 

 the altered state. 



When the trees suddenly die in a forest, whether from natural disaster or a tim- 

 ber harvest, there's no guarantee that the same species or species mix will return. 



