PA old growth system

PA old growth system	Lee E. Frelich
	May 04, 2004 10:35 PDT

ENTS:

Have you seen the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation Plan to establish
and old growth forest on state owned forest lands? There is an article
about it on pages 30-36 of the April May issue of Journal of
Forestry. There is also an article in the same issue about structural
complexity of old growth by Jerry Franklin and Bob Van Pelt.

The PA old growth system would link existing old growth with corridors and
buffer zones of second growth that would be allowed to become old growth
over time, eventually totaling 500,000 acres. That is almost 25% of the
state's 2.1 million acres of forest land.

Lee

RE: PA old growth system	Robert Leverett
	May 04, 2004 11:30 PDT

Lee:

That's very interesting. I wonder how the internal support was built
within DCNR. This might be a case study in how to build coalitions among
different resource groups for a system of natural forest preserves.

It gives me hope of seeing something comparable developed here in
Massachusetts. We tried back in 1996, but the Bureau of Forestry was not
behind us. I'm hoping that Jim DiMaio, the new state forester, will be
more receptive. Heck, I'd settle for old growth reserves of 60,000
acres. That would represent about 20% of DCR lands.

Harvard Forest has come out with a proposal to create forest preserves
for about 50% of the state forests. Maybe we're getting there in terms
of the preservation side of the issue. The management side has a long
way to go.

Bob

RE: PA old growth system	Dale J. Luthringer
	May 04, 2004 17:13 PDT

ENTS,

Here's a quick link to some of that proposed area:

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/oldgrowth/sproul.aspx

Proposed Natural/Old-Growth Area, Sproul State Forest

"This large area of mature second-growth forest has been proposed for management as old-growth. It comprises a 12,000+ - acre southwest-northeast oriented strip perpendicular to the Bucktail State Park Natural Area, centered about the tiny hamlet of Keating. The area includes the Fish Dam and Burns Run Wild areas. The terrain is quite steep, but is cut by several trails. Of special interest here is the effect of large tornadoes creating major areas of wind throw, literally hundreds of acres in extent."

Here's another put out by the PA Bureau of Forestry concerning an old
growth auto tour:

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/oldgrowth/index.aspx

Dale

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