Establishing Reference Conditions for Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests
Establishing Reference Conditions for Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests

Author: Peter Friederici

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 16

ISBN-13:

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Restoration treatments that include prescribed burning, often preceded by thinning to reduce fuel loads, have the potential to improve the ecological health of these forests. In order to wisely set the goals that underlie these treatments, it is useful for us to know as much as possible about past forest conditions, especially the reference conditions that existed before forest structure and function were altered by Euro-American settlers. They formed the evolutionary environment of southwestern ponderosa pine trees a fairly stable environment, in other words, in which this tree species and many other plants and animals evolved and adapted. Restoring conditions similar to those of the evolutionary environment is not a matter of trying to return to the past; rather, it is only a way to assure the long-term health of these forests into the future.

The Stand Treatment Impacts on Forest Health (STIFH) Model
The Stand Treatment Impacts on Forest Health (STIFH) Model

Author: Kimberly Lowe

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 8

ISBN-13:

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This Working Paper is one of a series that describes the planning and implementation of restoration treatments in southwestern ponderosa pine forests. In this paper the treatment type is based on the Stand Treatment Impacts on Forest Health (STIFH) restoration treatmentsmulti-aged group selection. It represents the best scientifically-based knowledge currently available about treatment types and effects. But this Working Paper is not a prescription. Restoration decisions need to be made with close attention to local conditionsthere is no one size fits all approach, and specific prescriptions must be determined according to project objectives. Use this publication as an aid in making informed decisions about how to restore more natural conditions, and greater health, to the southwestern ponderosa pine forests.

Forest Reference Conditions for Ecosystem Management in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico
Forest Reference Conditions for Ecosystem Management in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13:

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We present the history of land use and historic vegetation conditions on the Sacramento Ranger District of the Lincoln National Forest within the framework of an ecosystem needs assessment. We reconstruct forest vegetation conditions and ecosystem processes for the period immediately before Anglo-American settlement using General Land Office survey records, historic studies and accounts, and reconstructive studies such as dendrochronological histories of fire and insect outbreak and studies of old growth. Intensive grazing, clearcut logging, fire suppression, and agriculture in riparian areas have radically altered forest structure and processes since the 1880s, when intensive settlement began in the Sacramento Mountains. Present forests are younger and more dense than historic ones, and in areas that were previously dominated by ponderosa pine, dominance has shifted to Douglas-fir and white fir in the absence of frequent surface fire. Landscapes are more homogeneous and contiguous than historic ones, facilitating large-scale, intense disturbances such as insect outbreaks and crown fires.