| Popis: |
Postfire management most often includes extensiver removal of biological legacies (e.g., snags and native shrubs) and replacing them with commercially valuable trees, as well as engaging in road building and road maintenance, seeding with nonnative plants for erosion abatement, and other ecosystem damaging actions uses. Taken individually or in combination, these activities disrupt postfire processes and inhibit the development and longevity of complex early seral forests. Postfire logging impacts that have been documented across taxa and regions typically include soil compaction; aquatic and terrestrial habitat degradation, particularly for rare and imperiled species; the spread of invasives; increased fine fuels; and natural tree seedling mortality, among others. Context and scale matter when postfire management actions are planned over large landscapes. We present recommendations for protecting high-value conservation areas and minimizing the postfire logging footprint based on four case studies: (1) the Biscuit Fire area of southwest Oregon; (2) the Rim Fire area of the Sierra region in central California; (3) the montane ash-eucalypt forests of Victoria, Australia; and (4) the conifer forests in the Black Hills of South Dakota. |
