Forest-clearing to create early-successional habitats: Questionable benefits, significant costs

A campaign is underway to clear established forests and expand early-successional habitats—also called young forest, pre-forest, early seral, or open habitats—with the intention of benefitting specific species. Coordinated by federal state wildlife agencies, funded with public money, land managers work closely hunting forestry interests, conservation organizations, trusts, private landowners toward this goal. While forest-clearing has become a major focus in Northeast Upper Great Lakes regions U.S., far less attention given protecting recovering old-forest ecosystems, dominant cover these before European settlement. Herein we provide discussion habitat programs policies terms their origins, context historical baselines, respect species’ ranges abundance, as they relate carbon accumulation ecosystem integrity. Taken together, face urgent global crises climate, biodiversity, human health, conclude that forest management must be reevaluated balance prioritization funding strong lasting protection for old-growth mature forests, and, going forward, ensure more robust, unbiased, ongoing monitoring evaluation.