Ecological Restoration and Preservation

[Gary_C]

Want to see a ecological restoration site?

Sorry, it's not allowed. Even though it's public owned land, it's only for the ecological minded that can appreciate the beauty of this restoration.  :D





Well, I guess you can have a peek.









What is being done here at great expense to the taxpayers is cutting down those nasty trees and sending them to the chipper for biomass. Especially those Norway Pines that are not native to this area and then they will restore the cleared areas to native prairie grasses. I am told they will be burning the cleared area and then using a disc to prepare the land for native grass seeding. I am hoping to come and watch the discing of those stumps but will not let them use my disc.

What do you think? Should we do another?

[Coon]

 :D  :D  I see you got your head on straight.... you let them bust someone elses equipment and not yours.  ;) 

By the looks of some of them trees you could make some dandy house building logs.  If Norway spruce is anything like white spruce there shouldn't be any problems. Alot of those logs look like they don't have too bad of taper too...  There would still be plenty of wood left there for biomass if a person was to cut out the good logs then chip the rest.  How many acres worth of logs are in there?

Brad.
   

[beenthere]

Around here, they call it restoration back to oak savanah. Clear cut and leave the hills bald. .........(deleted)...........

[Ron Wenrich]

How are they going to keep it in native grass?  I would think that part of the grassland ecology has been changed since the elimination of the big grazers.  The grass is only part of the original ecology.

In our area, it would be turned into brush in short order.  We have lots of invasive species that would take that over in a heartbeat.

[Norm]

Native to what, the last couple of hundred years. They do the same crap here with natural prairie land grasses and flowers. The weeds love it, their seeds can't read the no trespassing signs.  :D

Now on the other hand there's several farmers near me that have done the same on their own dime. Usually it's land not suitable for farming or grazing and the end result is very beautiful. It is high upkeep but the wildlife really gets good use of these areas.

[Gary_C]

I certainly don't know what these "ecologist" are planning and most of the locals are either extremely mad or just scratching their head. This 230 acre property was purchased by the DNR some 10-15 years ago, at a very high price because of the very nice stand of Norway Pine, huge White Pine (8-24 inch dia), Spruce, Tamarac, and Walnut. So now they are clearing the tops of the hills of all trees though they spared most of the Walnut stand and some of the White Pine on the fringes.

I am just the cleanup crew to try to salvage as much of the Red and White Pine that I can and send it to the pulp mill. They already have sent over 1400 cords to the chipper. And they paid a logger to cut the trees and whole tree skid them to the landing area and then gave them away for biomass. It's no wonder these biomass buyers do not want to pay anything for their supply when the state gives them biomass free.  :

But beyond the waste of a nice forest and the taxpayers money is the question of do we really need any more of these restoration projects? I have yet to find anyone that likes this project and of course there are those obnoxious and irritating signs to keep the owners of the property out. One local DNR Forestry person told me that if he told me all the internal battles that have occured between the Scientific and Natural people and the Forestry people, he'd have to kill me. There are very few people other than locals in the state that are aware of this project.

And then there is the question of restoring the land to what? Something of a few human's choosing? They have declared the Norway Pine as non native or really an invasive species. They seem to forget that man could be considered an invasive species. Is that part of the plan to remove all but the ecological enlightened who can appreciate their efforts?   

[SwampDonkey]

What part of Min. are they talking about Gary? Because your state and SE Manitoba are native red pine area. In Canada, it's part of the Acadian and Great Lakes-St Lawrence forest regions.  :

Great Lakes-St Lawrence is defined as Red pine, Eastern White Pine, Eastern Hemlock, Yellow birch, Maple, Oak

Acadian is defined as Red Spruce, Balsam Fir, Maple, Yellow birch

Now Min., borders Ontario and Manitoba, southern portions of these provinces in part make up the Great Lakes-St Lawrence, which extends eastward into Quebec including the Saqueney River Valley including Lac Saint Jean in Alma, and around the Gaspe shore.


The only Deciduous we have is on the north shore of Lake Ontario and Lake Michigan.

Now mind you, the only natural red pine stands I've seen here in New Brunswick were on red clay soils. Where I am it's all planted because these farm fields were all dominated by sugar maple, beech, ash, and yellow birch forest.

[stonebroke]

probably Federal stimulus money.

Stonebroke

[SwampDonkey]

I wonder if they intend to burn the area quite frequently. That's about the only way in nature to keep it grassland. Sure are a lot of dreamy eyed people in the world that can spend tax dollars so frivolously with no accountability.

Up here they trim silviculture money to buy failing golf courses and buy boilers for multi-billion dollar corporations. :D

[Gary_C]

probably Federal stimulus money.

No, actually the state legislature was conned into providing money under the guise of a biomass project to clear this nice pine stand. The foresters had tried a number of times to sell the job and no one would bite because of the depressed pine markets and the restrictive logging requirements these SNA people demand. So actually most of the cutting and skidding was done last winter but with an early that last spring and the SNA got mad at the biomass chippers so the trees have layed on the landing area since then, in violation of all the pine bark beetle rules the DNR is supposed to be enforcing.

SD, they consider the Red Pine to be non native to southern Minnesota and are bent on eradicating it from the area.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Same as that nasty old non-native loblolly pine here in the Ouachitas of Arkansas, about the only thing it is good for is fast growing - high quality timber......

[SwampDonkey]

SD, they consider the Red Pine to be non native to southern Minnesota and are bent on eradicating it from the area.

Ok, well is that the Mississippi River border? A lot of eastern tree species are not west of that. That probably is the start of traditional grass land, it goes up into south western Manitoba and across to the Rockies (foot hills) and north of Calgary, Alberta. Typically, aspen and willow predominate for tree species along tributaries. I don't know how many years ago forest regions were classified. Be interesting to Google or research. I think in Canada it's only been since 1937 by W.E.D. Halliday and then in 1959 and updated in 1972 by J.S.Rowe.

[SwampDonkey]

SD, they consider the Red Pine to be non native to southern Minnesota and are bent on eradicating it from the area.

Sounds about like the same bunch beating up on the farmers for developing farmland on the grasslands. They probably lost that battle and found a new one with forestry.