Restoration, Climate Change, Smoke, Resilient Forests, Oh My!

Damn those incense cedars, they just keep growing. That was the comment from one of a group I met who were trying to create a wildfire resistant community around their homes.  They were concerned because of a wildfire burning near them.  Looking around it was easy to see the grass, then the small trees, next to larger trees besides homes.  Some had already taken action, and broke the grass to home connection, but not everyone.  There were those who would not touch a tree.

Forests, natural, are so dynamic, they are always changing. Some of this change is visible like the West’s wildfires that clogged metropolitan areas with smoke.  Other changes are more subtle like the tree limb that breaks off in the first windstorm of the year.  That limbs adds to the forest floor humus absorbing the first big rains, a burn scar not so much.

So what is a natural forest?  Should it be resilient and able to absorb the effects of climate change? Will the natural forest of 2017 or 2067 look different than that same forest in 1967?  What about the social, economic and environmental demands, how will these needs be met and accounted for?  So many questions to explore.