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A Total Forest Management Plan
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The "home place" may be a part of the wildlands and this idea bothers some people. At attempt is made to keep the concepts simple and to suggest that there are special places within the total management area that need special attention. These are the camp grounds, the picnic areas, the yards around the major living spaces and the park-like places along the roads.
The management needed is more like that in the urban forest than in the commercial or intensively managed forest. Individual trees are more important, usually, than the population of trees. There are no stands. There is not a conventional rotation practiced.
Such ecosystems (loosely conceived) have trees that reduce carbon emissions from power plants and other sources by a ratio of 12 to 1, that is one unit is removed for every 12 tons that are stored as living trees in the area. Large trees remove 60-70 times more pollution than small trees.
Increasing the tree cover around the homes and structures by 10 % (adding 3 trees per house where they are absent) can reduce annual heating and cooling energy costs by 5 to 10 percent.
The benefits of such trees are numerous and more than pay for their costs over 30 years.
Progressively the staff is developing a set of home place forest plans and aids, attempting to build and enhance tree planting efforts, improve energy use and conservation with trees and landscaping as a major part.
Concepts on which we are working: the solid homes concept, biomass energy reserves, demonstration areas, gardens, demos or tree toxins, esthetic areas, water storage/control areas, watchable wildlife areas, grazing and recreation areas, art areas, and select waste disposal for tree enhancement.
We want to promote an adopt a tree program, one for a planted tree (for the future care and observation) and a large tree for the special interests of people today. Funds can be sought to promote the program, maintain brass names and markers and trails, and otherwise develop a very personal park or series of "sacred" areas with trees.
Whether the major home site or that one called the second home, summer home, or hunting lodge matters little. The establishment of these dispersed developments are very attractive to officials and planning groups in predominantly rural regions (Lewis 1975). This is so because usually such developments enlarge the tax revenues while changing little the tax rates or laws and not greatly increasing county expenditures. The houses have secondary benefits to regional employment and some other economic activities such as local sales.
Second home developments have been found to increase the value of adjacent land for tax purposes. In one Wisconsin area, adjacent land values increased 8 times in a 3-year period, not just because of sub-division potential but primarily due to location in relation to the development itself where land value increased 30 times (Richey 1972).
Where electricity, police, and fire protection, road maintenance, and trash disposal exist, additions to the regional costs are rarely felt. The result is not unlike that of the "commons" (Hardin 19 ) in which all people dip from or feed from a common resource (until regulation or a catastrophe must inevitably occur).
Costs to regions of second-home development tend to be relatively low because they involve older families, do not add to welfare or social systems, and do not increase school cost. Public recreational resource use, if any increase, is only for short periods (Johnson 1973).
The increase in local sales may occur as a development multiplier of between 1.47 and 2.53 (R.R. Nathan Associates, 1966)
In their Appalachian study, local economic benefits were offset by the seasonal aspects of such home use. Adverse effects are the spawn of the dispersed nature and thus high cost-per-dwelling of the range of services and requirements of people in second homes. Second homes often become permanent homes. The demands are for better emergency and medical services. Local government costs increase. There is a feeling, however, that the adverse impacts are outweighed by the benefits and that steps can be taken to reduce the less-desirable aspects (Lewis 1975:116). Land value may not increase, depending on the nature of the home. Road improvements for second home developments may generate conditions for greater dispersion of the residential and urban population and encourage rural people to work in the cities and towns nearby. The roads result in a radical shift in populations, life style, community, and other phenomena. Once these changes occur, then families increase ...with children ... with school needs ...with schools being a substantial part of most regional tax expenditures.
Local effects of second homes need to be analyzed carefully. Gary et al. (1981) found that pollution-impact tests were not sensitive enough to detect above- and below-development site differences in orthophosphate, chloride, indicator bacteria(coliform), or suspended solids. High background levels may have prevented detection of differences in his study but it suggested the needs for long-term monitoring and a clear definition of "impact." Since many developments are near streams, the stream water quality needs to be of high concern.
Eckholm (1975) described the deterioration of mountain environments, especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He suggested that they are the most fragile environments for when they start to deteriorate, the soils and thin and the slopes are steep and it proceeds rapidly. Beautiful mountain spots quickly become barren eyesores. While it is possible to manage expertly terraces, this is rarely done. The rapid runoff and sediment loads are causing effects on streams and floodplains not expected or easily planned. Reservoir filling is speeded. Once mountain lands begin rapid deterioration it is almost impossible to stop the deterioration. Where it is possible (or has been done in the past) there is need to prevent mountain land development, restore or build terraces, and to manage them -- a cost borne with them or later -- downstream. There have to be population controls, reduced expansion outward from the cities, and incentives to manage the lands better.
With terraces as with wildland road building, the outward-sloping road or terrace works well in the lowlands and piedmont hills. In the higher mountains, inward sloping terraces with adequate stone buttresses to hold the annual peak flows are essential. The art of terracing needs to be studied and regained and it may be developed as a specialty function of the Stoneworms.
Ranging (including trekking) into the mountain areas needs to be well managed and planned to protect the areas from use. Loss of firewood and vegetative protection for campfires can become a serious issue and cause of soil erosion and all of its effects.
References
References lost and search is underway. Most are from USFS papers. Garret Hardin's paper is classic.
Eckholm, E.P. 1975. The deterioration of mountain environments. Science 189:764-770.
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Last revision July 11, 2004.