173 



per acre. If we compare this stand with the last, die number of trees per acre would appear 

 as the single box in figiire one. The average diameter of this stand in 1986 was 28.5 

 inches, with average height of 125'. 



To summarize this information, both stands had similar characteristics in about 1880, being 

 crowded with vigorous young giant sequoia that had germinated and become successfully 

 established following fire. Through both prescribed fire and careful thinning, site two now 

 has fewer, bigger trees, reduced fire hazard, and improved aesthetic quality when 

 compared to site one. It has also produced forest products and provided gainful 

 enqjloyment in accomplishing these improvements. 



If we were to extend the time line on figure one to the year 3000, studies on parklands 

 adjacent to Whitaker's Forest show that under natural conditions, only two to eight giant 

 sequoia trees per acre will constitute the forest at that time. This natural increase in tree size 

 coupled with a decrease in tree numbers provides us with both problems and c^pOTtuiuties. 



It is noteworthy that neither site has added any new giant sequoias following those that 

 established after the 1875 fires. Without hot fires and open forest canopy, giant sequoia 

 seedlings rarely or never survive for more than a few weeks. This becomes significant 

 when we realize that the old veterans do fall over - they are not part of the unchanging 

 elements of the site. In the eight decades of University ownership, eight of our 220 large 

 giant sequoias have been lost to windthrow, a loss of .045% per year. This rate of loss 

 generally agrees with that experienced on other ancient forest ownerships. At that rate, we 

 would lose about fifty percent of the remaining old growth sequoia trees in the next twelve 

 hundred years. 



Happily, on Whitaker's Forest, the 1875 logging and burning has given us over 8000 

 young giant sequoia trees today, providing about forty times the replacement needed for 

 our lost veterans. If we are to truly be stewards of the land for centuries, then we must 

 look ahead to replacement of the venerable giants before they fall over or die. A surplus of 

 regeneration over those trees that can be maintained in the maturing forest provides us with 

 impcrtant choices and opportuiuties. 



Gradual mortality, however, is not the real threat to continued existence of the giant sequoia 

 groves. The growth and development of a forest is called forest succession, and it will 

 occur no matter what humans desire or proclaim. The continual regeneration on giant 

 sequoia sites of shade-tolerant species, in this case white fir and incense-cedar, coupled 

 with the high danger in California forests of wildfire, dictate that we cannot merely watch 

 the forest and wait Our non-response to the realities of biology has provided us with some 

 stem lessons and serious consequences, as recent conflagrations in Yellowstone and in the 

 Oakland Hills have so devastatingly shown. 



"Remember Succession" is scarcely a dynamic rallying cry, yet it is this slow march to die 

 future that wiU continue to function, in ways spectacular and not, whether ot not it fulfills 

 human desires, to change ecosystems, habitats, forests, and lives. We cannot igiK>re 

 almost a century of successful fire exclusion, and one hot September day we may well lose 

 everything growing in some of our fabulous giant sequoia groves. 



We have been working in forestry to develop our understanding of what ecosystem 

 management means. I think it means that we must configure our management to that which 

 forest biology and ecology teach us. There must be a symmetry to what we want to do and 

 what nature will do. As resource managers, we must bring into balance ecological 

 conditions, economic conditions, and social conditions. There is a solution space where 

 these all meet, but to ignore any of these is to attempt to separate ourselves fixwn our 



