65 



With your indulgence, I would like to show a few Vu-Graphs as I 

 talk. 



Mr. CONDIT. Absolutely. 



Mr. RUNDEL. I think to make some of the points better, on what 

 I would like to talk about. There are really three major points that 

 I want to make today, and I'll try to make my comments brief. 



One is that we are dealing with very complex systems, much 

 more complex than I think we often give these areas credit for. Sec- 

 ond, they are very dynamic systems — dynamic in space and dy- 

 namic in time. 



And third, these areas are going to require active managenient, 

 particularly with regard to fire; and that fire is not necessarily a 

 bad factor. It's a very good factor, and in fact, a very necessary fac- 

 tor in these groves. 



But the long-term resource management, a commitment to that, 

 is absolutely critical. I agree with Dr. Thomas in this respect com- 

 pletely. 



[Vu-Graphs shown.] 



Mr. RuNDEL. In a suma-cultural approach to management, we 

 tend to look at single species. We look at certainly a variety of com- 

 plex factors of the environment and interactions that affect these. 



But I think in the last few decades, ecosystem science has made 

 tremendous advances, and we know much more now about other 

 lands of factors that affect these environments. And we know they 

 are affected by a whole variety of causes of factors, both biotic and 

 abiotic. 



One of those we talked about today is fire. And fire is certainly 

 absolutely critical. Many of the discussions of management implica- 

 tions have to do with reducing large amounts of fuels that have 

 built up in these groves. While that certainly is very critical to 

 maintain natural fire cycles, the fire itself is an important part of 

 the biology of these species. 



What I'm illustrating here is that without fires and large 

 amounts of layer, there is very little sequoia reproduction. And at 

 the reproduction, while it requires mineral soil, it also requires the 

 heat of a fire for the seeds to be shed. 



Sequoias have cones that remain on the trees for as long as 15 

 to 20 years, much like some of the large groves in the Sierra Ne- 

 vada. And the cones are only opening and shedding their seeds, 

 providing the propagules of the appropriate geno-t3rpes for this 

 area, with the heat of a fire. 



So mere mechanical manipulation alone is necessary perhaps, 

 but not sufficient, to provide for future sequoia generations. Aiid 

 with past management practices, we've had a tremendous lack of 

 reproduction in these areas. 



An ecosystem approach is one that would provide much more 

 consideration of other factors beyond the immediate environment, 

 and much of my concerns with the piesent management philoso- 

 phies for these growth areas is drawing an arbitrary line around 

 a very small grove. 



A small line of that nature doesn't take into account kinds of eco- 

 system properties that operate at much larger landscape levels — 

 properties like fire distributions, hydrological inputs, nutrient cy- 

 cling flows, atmospheric inputs — all of these are extremely impor- 



