In a classic evolutionary study, it was shown that, through natural selection, the peppered moth was able to adapt to new environmental variables resulting from the industrial revolution. As buildings became dirtier with coal soot, darker-colored moths better camouflaged themselves agaist surfaces, and thus passed on their genes more frequently. This species, sensitive to ecological variation, has been able to quickly adapt to human-induced environmental change.
Unfortunately, some of the slowest adapting organisms on this planet are trees, and many of our most ecologically-sensitive policies may be assisting in their eradication. There's more...
Just over ten years ago, a couple of concerned academics presented a paper to Congress regarding the ecodynamics of California coastal forests. In this paper, it was pointed out that our forests have adapted to fire, either set by lightning or Native American swidden horticultural practices, over thousands of years. These fires, often low-intensity burns, would primarily consume the understory and cull older trees, increasing soil fertility and biological diversity while leaving younger live trees largely intact.
It was also recongized that by supressing these processes, we have made our forests very dangerous places to be.
Forest fire suppression in the United States, fomerly initiated in in the 1880s, further expanded by the Weeks and Clarke-McNary acts, has been very effective at mitigating forest fires for nearly a century. In doing so, however, we have upset this relatively stable balance, creating a very dangerous situation. The build-up of understory leaves forests vulnerable to wild, intense burns. The kind which destroy full-grown trees. The kind which leave hills charred and bare.
The kind which spread to neighborhoods.
Additionally, the culling effects of natural and anthropogenic fires, having been supressed for so many years, have not allowed for the growth of new trees, rather creating a situation where our forests are dominated by older tree growth. Considering how long it takes some trees to grow, a wildfire in these situations could be (and have been) devestating. See a study by Mast et al from 1999 for more information on this.
In our efforts to protect forests from fire, we have put them at higher risk of burning completely to the ground. Efforts have been made to reintegrate controlled burns into conservation regimes, but these are often met with some resistance. Some fear that we may unintentionally set more dangerous wildfires in the process. Others are acting in the interest of another ecological crusade with temporally different goals, such as endangered species protection. Here's an example of how this occurs:
In the Olympic National Park area of Washington, proposals by the local branch of the Parks Service to integrate controlled fire regimes were introduced in 2003. These proposals were based on recommendations which included the incorporation of archaeological and ethnographic findings into forest management, with particular emphasis on the burning practices of Native Americans. Despite these recommendations, these proposals were met with opposition from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a division of the Department of Commerce, who cite the possible impact of both fire and the modern processes used to control fire on endangered salmon species which inhabit the park’s waterways.
This would seem just another reasonable, hum-drum ruling in the world of parks & recreation management except for one thing: what happens in fifty years when those forests are facing the same predicament as those in Southern California? Instead of some of the salmon dying, all of them will die, and Thurston County will be counting numbers of threatened homes alongside San Diego, Orange, and San Bernardino.
By deferring this issue, which may take decades or centuries before it becomes urgent, in favor of the sexier fight over endangered species, which takes places on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis, may ultimately prove folly for everyone. Unfortunately, the policy-making entities often turn a deaf ear to disciplines dealing with long-term processes, such as geology, archaeology, and evolutionary science.
I don't mean to say that the Endangered Species Act is a bad idea, but it is incredibly short-sighted, as is much of our environmental thinking. The effects of climatalogical and ecological change are largely the result of tampering with long-term evolutionary processes. These require action and haste, but not without considering the all of processes by which these problems came about.
Our forests were shaped by fire for many millenia, and after mitigating those fires for a hundred years we are now reaping the natural reaction. No quick fix will stop this, but well-calculated strategies based on all available information may buy us some time.
For more information on long-term evolutionary processes in ecological change and policy, please read this, or this, or this.
For recommendations on how reinstating Native American burning practices may help rehabilitate our forests and prevent future disasters, please read this, and call your Congressfolk.