Hidden Forest : Biography of an Ecosystem - Hardcover

Luoma, Jon R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805014918 ISBN 13: 9780805014914

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1999

Synopsis

Hidden deep in the Oregon woods is a majestic, wild, and ancient place known to a generation of scientists as the Andrews Experimental Forest. The Andrews represents one of the most important, yet overlooked, scientific endeavors of our time: the long-term, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary study of a single contained ecosystem. Here, for the first time, researchers from an enormous range of disciplines - botanists, entomologists, wildlife ecologists, soil biologists, and others - have assembled to literally write the biography of an ecosystem - to examine the role of every working element in the life of the forest. "Here," says Jon Luoma, "in the shadows of this woods, in its rivulets and streams, under its soil, and high overhead, they have discovered a hidden forest."
This tour de force of natural-history writing reveals how such a careful, concentrated study can bring about profound changes in our understanding and appreciation of the delicate balances of the natural world. In this case, the wealth of new information is pointing the way to a wholly new approach to forest management. On a larger scale, the book underlines the importance of making such whole-ecosystem studies a top national and international priority, as they may be our best hope for understanding how to protect and nurture a sustainable environment.

About this title

Review:

Tucked away into the verdant folds of the Cascade foothills east of Eugene, Oregon, there is a forest that has been forming since before Columbus first set foot in the New World. The 16,000-acre Andrews Experimental Forest is an old-growth forest, a description largely unknown to the American public until the late 1980s, when the spotted owl swooped into notoriety. In some forestry circles, other adjectives like decadent are used to describe this forest's towering Douglas firs, western red cedars, and western hemlocks--that is, a forest that has reached maximum wood fiber capacity. Loggers contend that allowing such giant trees to die, rot, and fall over is a waste of resources. "I'm clearcutting to save the forest," declared a partisan newspaper ad in the go-go timber years of the 1970s, when old growth was liquidated at an unprecedented rate to make way for managed forest crops. The only problem with this view is that it misses the forest for the trees. In The Hidden Forest, Jon Luoma takes us below--and above--the canopy to view the natural processes of an ancient forest and visit with the scientists working there.

The Andrews is unique in that it brings together scientists from diverse fields to join a collaborative effort, with the end result being an entire ecosystem under the microscope.

In the heart of summer research season, scientists can be found burrowing in the soil under logs; or trapping insects fifteen stories or more up in the tree canopy with the aid of rock-climbing gear; or scrambling crablike in a neoprene wet suit in a rushing, buffeting mountain stream....

One optimistic scientist is examining the process of rot in fallen trees, a study that will take two centuries in the case of these old-growth logs, meaning that "it will be up to the contemporaries of [his] great-great-great-great-grandchildren to complete the analysis he has begun." Others are busy identifying thousands of species new to science. To date, this research has yielded a "wellspring of key discoveries," turning the environmental and scientific communities upside-down. But meanwhile, the last remnants of unprotected Pacific old-growth forest continue to fall to the chainsaw. "It remains to be seen," writes Luoma, "how long it might take some entrenched U.S. Forest Service managers to fully embrace more ecosystem-based approaches." The Hidden Forest is testimony as to why sooner is better than later. --Langdon Cook

About the Author:

Jon R. Luoma (Smithville, NJ) is a contributing editor to The New York Science Times and Audubon, and the author of two previous books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0805014918
• ISBN 13: 9780805014914
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228