Since 2009, the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service has promoted an “all lands approach” to forest restoration, particularly relevant in the context of managing wildfire.
Restoration treatments in dry forests of the western US often attempt silvicultural practices to restore the historical characteristics of forest structure and fire behavior.
Current conditions in dry forests of the western United State have given rise to policy mandates for accelerated ecological restoration on U.S. National Forest System and other public lands. In southwestern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Laws.) forests, mechanized tree thinning and prescribed fire are common restoration treatments but are not acceptable for all sites.
We modeled forest restoration scenarios to examine socioeconomic and ecological trade-offs associated with alternative prioritization scenarios. The study examined four US national forests designated as priorities for investments to restore fire resiliency and generate economic opportunities to support local industry.
As approaches to ecological restoration become increasingly large scale and collaborative, there is a need to better understand social aspects of restoration and how they influence land management. In this article, we examine social perspectives that influence the determination of ecological reference conditions in restoration.
Summary Predicting restoration outcomes requires an understanding of the natural variability of ecosystem properties. A hierarchy of predictability has been proposed that ranks measures of restoration success from most-to-least predictable in the following order: vegetation structure > taxonomic diversity > functional diversity > taxonomic composition.
In fire-prone forests, self-reinforcing fire behavior may generate a mosaic of vegetation types and structures. In forests long subject to fire exclusion, such feedbacks may result in forest loss when surface and canopy fuel accumulations lead to unusually severe fires.
Collaborative approaches to natural resource management are becoming increasingly common on public lands. Negotiating a shared vision for desired conditions is a fundamental task of collaboration and serves as a foundation for developing management objectives and monitoring strategies.
In the prairies of the Pacific Northwest, USA, fire has been reintroduced as a tool for reducing non-native, invasive plant cover and promoting the growth and establishment of native plant communities.
Description: Understanding the capacity to reduce wildfire risk and restore dry forests on Western national forests is a key part of prioritizing new accelerated restoration programs initiated by the Forest Service.