• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

The Forest or the Trees: Previously Untouched Forest Undergoes Makeover to Save Ancient Pines

Posted on: Thursday, 26 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Staci Matlock, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Jan. 26--Amassive yellowbarked ponderosa pine, once 100 feet tall and at least a few hundred years old, lies prostrate in the forest west of Los Alamos. A few others, of equal size and age, are still standing nearby, though some have lost their needles and look ready to topple over in the next galeforce wind. "I'm pretty sure this one was still standing the last time we were here," said Donald Falk, a University of Arizona treering scientist, as he examines the fallen pine, dirt still trapped between its dry roots. Surrounding some of the ancient pines are dozens of spindly ponderosa pine youngsters, only 20 to 30 feet tall. These doghair thickets are strangling their larger ancestors, competing for nutrients and water, Falk said. Falk is walking through the 640-acre Monument Canyon Natural Area, about 15 miles west of Los Alamos, off Forest Road 10. The site was set aside by the Forest Service in 1932 for research to be done in cooperation with The University of New Mexico. It is the second-oldest forestry research site in the country, protected from both logging and grazing. "This area must be preserved in a natural state as near as possible," read the inscription on a large wooden sign. The hands-off approach has led to unanticipated problems for the ancient ponderosa pines, said Falk and others. A month-long project, under way this week, will attempt to rescue the old pines by mulching down some of the dense and spindly youngsters. "Hard to believe these are all about 100 years old," said Bill Armstrong, a Santa Fe National Forest consultant, of the younger trees. The orange-taped plot is one of several Falk is now studying. The gigantic ponderosa pines are competing with the younger pines -- more than 4,000 per acre -- to survive, Falk said. Historically, there were about 40 to 60 ponderosa pines per acre, he said. The trees can live up to 700 of 800 years, but not with competition from so many young others. The thick forests also present a fire danger, both for the large pines and the nearby village of Vallecitos, one of 20 towns on a state list of communities most in danger from wildfire. "It's like fire burning through 30- to 40-foot-tall grass," Armstrong said. It took five years for the Santa Fe National Forest and UNM to complete environmental assessments and paperwork for the project. Armstrong was hired to coordinate. On Friday, a large machine called a Hydro-Ax with an 8-foot circular blade sporting 28 steel teeth began chipping down the smaller pines. It resembled a pencil sharpener, shortening the tree from the top down, leaving the mulch on the ground. "This is one of the thickest, densest stands I've worked in, and I've worked in some nasty stuff," said driver Denver Dodd. Dodd works for Environmental Land Management, a Grand Junction, Colo., company contracted for the project. "We're not reducing the fuel; we're rearranging it," Armstrong said as he walked over a thick carpet of recently chipped trees. Some of the large pines now stand free of their denser offspring, sunlight hitting the ground where it was once shadowed by the dog-hair thicket. About 280 acres of dog-hair thicket will be chipped down by the time the project is done. "The focus here is taking out ones that wouldn't make it anyway," Falk said. Monument Canyon is the most overgrown area in the Jemez Mountains, according to foresters. But the fire danger isn't unusual. Logging has created forests of same-age trees, with needles almost touching their crowns. In Monument Canyon, most of the younger trees date to the early 1900s. Decades of fire suppression allowed the trees to grow without natural thinning from fires that historically swept through the Jemez every four to six years, according to recent tree ring studies. Grazing nearly annihilated native grasses that once fueled the frequent lowintensity fires.

"Until the railroad came through in the 1880s, there used to be fire in the Jemez Mountains all the time," Armstrong said. "There were years the whole Jemez burned." Ponderosa pines thrive on frequent, low-level fires. The height of the younger trees, and their density, could cause a fire to move along the crowns of the ancient trees, and once started, which would kill them, Falk and Armstrong said. Drought increases the chances of a catastrophic fire, posing an even greater risk to the increasing number of people living within the forest. "We've never had as much fuel as we do now and as many people living in or near it," Armstrong said. Dan Key, a fire-management officer with the Santa Fe National Forest, said that before the thinning project began, a fire in the area would have devastated the stands. Once smaller stands of mixed-age trees are re-established, forest officials hope to make regular low-intensity fires a part of management for the area. Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Santa Fe New Mexican

More News in this Category