|
|
RESTORING
WILDLIFE HABITAT
| Scientists,
community members and land managers,
with the help of the NFF’s Grant Programs, are working every day
to implement these new ideas. |
|
 |
Today, wildlife habitat and ecological integrity
play a part in how many National Forests are
managed, but that hasn’t always been the
case. For nearly a century, National Forest lands
were managed primarily for the natural resources
needed to fuel our growing nation. Reducing
excessive fuel loads remains a major concern
of forest managers. To learn more about that,
see our page on fuels
and fires.
Several practices have damaged
the wildlife habitat, including:
- Fire suppression. For years, land managers
suppressed wildfires and forests grew thick
and unhealthy. We now know that fire is a
natural part of a forest’s lifecycle
and vital to the survival of the plants and
animals the forests support.
- Habitat Fragmentation: Past roads, excessive logging and development all worked to fragment large areas of intact habitat, creating small, isolated areas of habitat that are often too small to support many of the resident wildlife.
- Invasive species: Invasive species are native
or non-native plants, animals, insects or
pathogens (disease-causing bacterium or fungus)
that displace or destroy native species. These
species, which are introduced by accident
or on purpose, displace native species of
plants and animals that wildlife rely on for
food and shelter.
- Unmanaged recreation: Recreation has grown
rapidly on National Forest land in the past
30 years. This sudden increase in recreational
use damages trails and waterways. The small
percentage of off-highway vehicle users who
don't stay on established trails and roads
create a disproportionately large amount of
damage to habitats per user.
Land managers, community groups and the National
Forest Foundation are doing more today to protect
and restore large ecosystems. To restore ecosystems,
managers and scientists work together to return
a damaged ecosystem to near its condition prior
to being disturbed. The eventual goal of ecological
restoration is to return function and process
to ecosystems; to re-establish chemical, physical
and biological components using as many materials
indigenous to the ecosystem as possible; and to
restore an ecosystem’s natural resilience
to disturbances.
Restoring habitat and ecological integrity to
ecosystems on our National Forests is a large,
expensive and complicated project. But great scientific
gains in ecological restoration have been made
in recent years, and scientists, community members
and land managers, with the help of the National
Forest Foundation, through our Grant
Programs, are working every day to implement
these new ideas. |
|
|
