Thread: The West Is Burning!
View Single Post
  #11   Report Post  
Old 22-08-2003, 06:02 PM
Larry Caldwell
 
Posts: n/a
Default The West Is Burning!
(Le Messurier) writes:

I'm not aware that "much of the present day Ponderosa
forest occupies what used to be grassland in the late 1800's. Stopping
fire and grazing changed that." The grasslands were IN the forests,
and were the prevalent ground cover. This is what allowed the low
intensity fires to "work" in keeping this forest type free of
excessive fuel loading. I don't believe that the area covered by the
ponderosa forests have grown.

There has been a substantial encroachment of forests into grasslands
since the buffalo were eradicated at the end of the last century.
Buffalo have an instinctive antipathy toward trees. A buffalo will go
out of its way to kill small trees. Maybe they just like to run without
running into anything, but the absence of trees on the Great Plains is
primarily due to the historic large herds of buffalo. Urban sprawl has
introduced tree species with landscaping, and existing forests have
encroached from both the east and west. If the plains ever revert to a
natural state, they will become a great central forest in North America.

Another, quite separate issue is the encroachment of Juniper and Pinon
Pine forests into grasslands in the more arid parts of the west. Juniper
is a water thief that will eradicate competing vegetation. If an area
develops a 40% juniper canopy, the destruction is so complete that the
ecology of the land can not recover naturally.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc