Earley Epilogue and review

a story of waste and destruction
also a story of how hard it is to understand and restore an ecosystem

Is nature something we should leave alone or manage?
Foresters are very much in the "manage" camp
Norman Christensen: "There is no such thing as not managing"

On the other side there is the pressure of demand
In 1997 the southeastern US produced 58% of the nation's wood fiber (including pulp, pellets, mulch...)



Key ideas from the book

• the longleaf forest needs human intervention (and always has)
• longleaf ecosystem can recover
• takes many decisions, not just one thing
• private landowners need to be committed, not just the national forests
• timber and turpentine--the trees have value to humans
• leads to greed and their destruction
• but it would be possible to use the forests more sustainably
• the way to get there is if people own the land and are thinking long term
• we see the destruction and realize we don't want to have that effect
• only then did people believed that they could exhaust the forests (we don't easily believe we can damage nature)
• big change in way of thinking: from short term profit to long term management for sustained yield
• for management to work, it takes a lot of knowledge and care
• the ecosystem is complex and management needs to take that into account
• relationship between humans and nature
• nature never has been independent of human beings, it isn't a matter of leaving it alone
• humans and nature are not independent, each changes the other
• natural processes aren't the overwhelming thing shaping the forest, how we manage human impacts has an important effect
• human impacts are both things we take, like harvesting, and also things we do to help the forest, like planting: these are both ways of managing the forest, not separate categories
• if it is so complicated how can you get people to understand how to do it right?
• it isn't a matter of central planning but lots of little decisions that can be pushed in the right direction
• eg. program to subsidize farmers if they convert crop fields to forest
  

Exam:
exam write one essay, open book, open notes, open internet

• be careful to avoid plagiarism!
• informal citations are sufficient (author and page number or URL)
• you may write on your laptop, or on paper

you have the class period--50 minutes--write 2-3 double space pages

• you will have a choice of two questions
• make sure to answer the question asked!
• organize your essay into paragraphs with topic sentences (a one sentence introductory paragraph is ok)