Renewable Resources: Forest Ecosystems

1. Renewable Resources: Forest Ecosystems Original Today Frontier

2. D Choices B A Which seems the poorest choice? C http://www.cwbiodiesel.com/biodiesel/palm_oil.html

3. Time Appropriate Questions • What do forest ecosystems provide? • What is important or valuable? • How do we conserve what is valuable? • What approaches are available for defining what is important? • What approaches are available for conserving? • Are we kidding ourselves?

4. Forestecosystems: Goods & Services • Fiber - paper and products • Fuel - cooking & heating • Water - quantity and quality • Nutrient cycling • Ecosystem energetics (food chain) • Air - CO2 uptake, O2 release, pollutant removal • Climate stability • Biodiversity/habitat: plant and animal (wildlife) • Medicine and food products • Recreation/mental & social health Reference: Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods (2006)

5. Ecosystem: A Human Construct • Definition: An ecological system composed of living organisms (plants, animals, & microbes) and their nonliving environment. • Ecosystems are characterized by: • Structure & function • Complexity • Interaction of the components • Change over time (e.g., disturbances), “young, mature, old.” • Today, these functions must be spatially and temporally coordinated.

6. Ecosystem threats? • Loss of habitat: Land-use change and irreversible conversion (fragmentation) • Disruption of biogeochemical cycles (N,C,P) • Invasive or introduced exotic organisms • Toxins, pollutants, human wastes • Climate change

7. Ensuring Ecosystem Goods & Services: Approaches • Examine three different approaches • First, we identify specific species we want in our ecosystem (e.g., wolves, spotted owl, whitebark pine, etc.). • Second, we identify a process we want to maintain (e.g., carbon fixation). • Third: A more comprehensive or systems approach. • Two examples that use this third approach • NCSSF - small scale, small perspective • MEA - small to large scale, many perspectives

8. Whitebark Pine Approach 1. Save a species!

9. Distribution & Importance of Whitebark Pine Pinus albicaulis • High elevation pine • Large seed • Special relationship with a bird • Important for other animals • Keystone species in the Rockies

10. Whitebark Pine: Ecological Importance • Hardy subalpine conifer, tolerates poor soils, steep slopes, windy exposures. • Often the tree line species • Keystone species (Rocky Mountain Region) • Food source - birds, small mammals & bears • Often colonizes a site, facilitates succession & promotes diversity • Regulates runoff, reduces soil erosion Picture: C.J. Earle

11. Decline of Whitebark Pine • White pine blister rust: Cronartium ribicola, is a rust fungus with two hosts. • All North American 5- needled pines • In addition, it infects all species of the genus Ribes spp., its alternate host. • European & Russian species resistant • Problems today • Fire suppression • Global climate change • Mountain pine beetle

12. Situation • Whitebark pine is likely to disappear. • What are our choices? • Do nothing (its “natural”) • Remove the Ribes • Breed for resistance • Introduce resistant European/Russian species • Selection and genetic engineering of the endophyte. 2. Ensure a function!

13. Manage for Carbon Dioxide Uptake Monitor Experiment Two goals: • Understand where the hidden sink for carbon dioxide is? • Use forest systems to take up CO2. Approach taken by Canada - Kyoto Protocol

14. Methods of Study Difficulties • Issues of scale (quality of info vs. extent of info) • Monitoring • Unknowns (soil carbon) • Searchinger, T. et al. 2008. Science Express • Fargione, J. et al. 2008. Sci. Express

15. Lessons from first 2 approaches • Managing single components or processes: Hard • Determination of what to measure, at what scale, how often, etc. • Techniques to measure (e.g., what is there now & how is it changing) are expensive • Monitoring - expensive, takes time • Understanding of interactions (e.g., cascading effects) • Regulatory environment may define • Nature changes (e.g., forest fire, bard owl)

16. Third Approach Work on maintaining “properly” functioning ecosystems Key: Remember all the functions?

17. Two examples • National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry (NCSSF) • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program (MEA)

18. Mission: to advance the science and practice of biodiversity conservation and forest sustainability • Critical Question: How does an owner or manager of forest land tell whether biodiversity and sustainability are being positively, negatively or neutrally affected by management practices and decisions? • Or: Is your land ‘good’, changing, & changing in what direction? http://www.ncseonline.org/NCSSF/page.cfm?FID=1426

19. What’s needed? • Early warning assessment system that is • Rapid & cost effective And that is based on • Stand level sustainability (condition): • Development of functional indicators (of ecosystem services) & • associated benchmarks • These indicators/benchmarks should represent best available information/science.

20. Does it works in practice • Functions, variables and benchmark levels can be defined • A sampling scheme has been designed & tested • Evaluation is then a comparison of values and changes in values. • Subsequent decisions are then based on goals and objectives set by land owner.

21. Does it work? • Perhaps (actually data from urban to rural land • Weakness: • Assumes that the indicators are correct and respond in a measurable & timely way • Assumes that we can react fast enough. • Does not link objectives over large areas of land. • Clearly better than nothing

22. Yangjuan Village • Apparently intensive use of the land • Is the use sustainable? And how does land use reflect and affect the inhabitants? • Idea of eco-political tsunamis

23. Yangjuan Land use Firewood Traditional Buckwheat Livestock Conversion from local land race of corn to new hybrid corn

24. Ecosystem Goods and Services: Example 2 Definition of Ecosystem Goods and Services Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program Example

25. Older definition of Ecosystem goods and services Ecosystem goods: Biophysical elements that are directly, or indirectly, consumed by humans Ecosystem services: processes that produce, or support the production of, ecosystem goods (most involve some biogeochemical cycle).

26. 0 Answer Now! Which is not an ecosystem service? • Provisioning • Regulating • Cultural • Interventions • Supporting

27. Newer definition of Ecosystem goodsand services • Provisional services (e.g., food, fiber, fuelwood, biochemicals, genetic resources, and water) • Cultural services (e.g., recreational, ecotourism, educational, sense of place, cultural heritage, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits). • Supporting services (e.g., primary production, soil formation & nutrient cycling) • Regulating services (e.g., water regulation [floods, irrigation], water purification, climate regulation, land degradation, and disease regulation)

28. Example of an Ecosystem Service • Soil provides the following ecosystem services • Significant regulator of the hydrological cycle • Shelters seeds, provides medium for plant growth, provides physical support • Retains, delivers & derives nutrients • Significant role in decomposition • Contributes to cycling, retention & regulation of major element cycles (N, P, C, S) • Carbon storage & cycle • Role as a purifier (water, nutrients, etc.)

29. Global Regional Local Indirect Drivers of Change • Demographic • Economic • Sociopolitical • Science & technology • Cultural & religious Human well-being & poverty reduction Direct Drivers of Change • Changes in land use & land cover • Species removal or introductions • Technology • Climate change • Natural physical & biological drivers • External inputs Ecosystem Services Life on Earth: Biodiversity MEA Conceptual Framework

30. MEA Goals • Identify options that can better achieve core human development and sustainability goals. • Recognize & meet growing demands for food, clean water, health, and employment. • Balance economic growth and social development with environmental conservation. • Better understand trade-offs involved—across stakeholders—in decisions concerning the environment. • Rather than issue by issue, use a multi-sectoral approach • Match response options with appropriate level of governance

31. Well-Being Defined (MEA) • Security: Ability to • a. live in an environmentally clean and safe shelter • b. reduce vulnerability to ecological shocks & stress. • Basic material for a good life: Ability to access resources to earn income and gain a livelihood • Health: Clean water, air, adequate nourishment, adequate energy for temperature regulation, good health • Good social relations • Freedom & Choice

32. MEA: Assessments & Publications December 2005

33. Pressures on Goals of MEA • Population Growth • Economy, consumption • Combined demand on natural resources • Land degradation & conversion • Invasive organisms • Climate change • Public Health (e.g., HIV, malaria, nutrition) • Template for evaluation • Political acceptance & will (and consistency)

34. Conclusion: Difficulties • Setting limits and distributing responsibility • Scale & variable (s) • Measurement • Monitoring • Assessment • Regulation • Outcomes and Feedback • Choices • Political will = f (human will)