Conservation andEnvironmentalismAn Encyclopedia

EditorRobert Paehlke

GARLAND PUBLISHING, INC.New York & London1995

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(where he stressed fights against air and waterpollution).

Earth Day, the story goes, grew out ofNelson's idea to hold environmental "teach-ins" like those used to protest the war in Viet-nam. Nelson enlisted the support of PeteMcCloskey, a Republican Representative fromCalifornia, got office space with the public in-terest group Common Cause, hired law schoolstudent Denis Hayes as an organizer, and setabout raising funds for a day of environmentaleducation and activism. Interest in Earth Dayspread quickly, and the magnitude and impactof the event, held on April 22, 1970, surpassedits planners' wildest dreams.

Nelson's Senate career ended when he wasdefeated for reelection in the Reagan landslideof 1980. Since 1981 he has served as legal coun-sel and associate executive chairman of theWilderness Society, which in 1990 presentedNelson with its Ansel Adams award and estab-lished a scholarship fund in his name to financeawards for excellence in environmental law andpublic policy, natural resource studies, and en-vironmental journalism.

j. Bosso (with Steven Sharobem)

Further ReadingsMilbrath, Lester. Environmentalists: Van-

guard for a New Society. 1984.Shabecoff, Philip. A Fierce Green Fire: The

American Environmental Movement.1993.

See also ADAMS, ANSEL; EARTH DAY; WILDER-NESS SOCIETY

NEPASee NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT(U.S.)

New ForestryNew Forestry (NF) is a term coined in the late1980s by scientists and U.S. Forest Service(USFS) managers working at the H.J. AndrewsExperimental Forest in Oregon. In a 1989 pa-per discussing the origins of NF, Jerry Franklinwrote, "Is there an alternative to the starkchoice between tree farms and totalpreservation? . . . My associates and I in theAndrews Ecosystem Research Group believethat an alternative does exist, and we call it the`New Forestry.' We view the new approach asa kinder and gentler forestry that better accom-

modates ecological values, while allowing forthe extraction of commodities."

NF differs from tree farming in at leastthree ways. One is its focus on complex ecosys-tems rather than just commercially valuabletrees, including maintaining: a) the proper bal-ance of habitats, hence viable populations ofindigenous species; b) the full range of naturalprocesses; and c) the capacity of ecosystems andindividuals for defense and self-repair. In NFharvest of wood and other marketable com-modities is a secondary objective. that must beconsistent with conserving indigenous speciesand overall ecosystem health in perpetuity.

The fact that many of the processes impor-tant to species and ecosystem health play outover large areas leads to a second distinguish-ing characteristic of NF: its focus on managinglandscapes and whole regions rather than justindividual forest stands. A third distinguishingcharacteristic is the explicit recognition thatdifferent forest types may require differentmanagement approaches, from which it followsthat NF, rather than being a single technique,becomes a process of understanding the natu-ral structures and rhythms that characterize agiven forest type, and designing managementpractices that protect or, where necessary, re-store those.

To better understand NF it is necessary tounderstand "old forestry," and to do this it isuseful to briefly review the history of forestryover the past 150 years. At least some of theapproaches utilized in NF are not new at all, butrather date to earlier practices that were largelysupplanted by what, for lack of a better term,is best described as "industrial" forestry(though it has been widely utilized by govern-ment agencies as well as forest industries). In-dustrial forestry, which originated in Germanyduring the mid-1800s, essentially views the for-est as a factory for producing wood, much asthe modern farm is a factory for producingfood. At the time of its inception the forests ofcentral Europe were greatly degraded from cen-turies of uncontrolled cutting. German forest-ers adopted industrial forestry as a means ofrejuvenating their forests while at the same timeputting the practice of forestry on a solid busi-ness basis. Only the fastest growing and mostcommercially valuable trees were grown, andthese were managed according to economic cri-teria that maximized income. Plochman de-scribes the resulting management: "The decidu-ous high forests were converted by seeding andplanting into softwood monocultures. Rota-

468 NELSON, GAYLORD A,

tions were shortened, natural regeneration wasreplaced by plantations, and old forms of silvi-culture, like single-tree selection, replaced byclearcutting."

Industrial forestry was not widely adoptedon public lands in the United States until the late1940s. It was opposed by Gifford Pinchot, thefirst chief of the USFS, who in 1898 wrote: "Aserious check to the progress of forestry was thegeneral praise given to the European methodsof forest management and the frequent, strenu-ous, and utterly impractical advice to applythem to the forests of North America." Thisdoes not mean, however, that forests of theUnited States were managed ecologically. Muchof the logging done in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries was accompanied by nomanagement whatsoever: to use the old but aptphrase, it was cur and run. By the end of thenineteenth century few of the original forestsremained in the United States east of the Mis-sissippi and north of the Ohio rivers; cutoverland had converted largely to scrubby trees andbrush. Roughly one-half of the original old-growth Douglas-fir in western Oregon andWashington had been cut by the mid-1930s,and more than one-half of cutover lands waseither non-stocked or poorly stocked with trees.

The end of World War II triggered an ex-plosion in economic activity and domesticbuilding, and consequently a large increase inthe demand for wood in industrialized coun-tries. The USFS responded by embracing thetechniques of European forestry, as did the for-estry colleges that were the training grounds forfuture generations of foresters (at the time, in-dustrial techniques were called the "new for-estry"). In the decades that followed, technol-ogy added some new twists, such as fertilizers,herbicides, and genetic selection for fast grow-ing trees. Many countries, particularly in thetropics and southern temperate zones, clearednative forests and planted plantations of fastgrowing non-native trees.

At the same time that foresters in theUnited States and elsewhere were embracing thetechniques of industrial forestry the changingsocial landscape within industrialized countrieswas making these techniques less acceptable tothe public. Increasing urbanization was produc-ing a populace for whom wildlands were lessimportant as a source of commodities than theywere for other values, such as recreation andspirituality. One of the first places that the so-cial backlash against industrial forestry ap-peared was Germany, the country that gave it

birth. There, social concerns were accompaniedby the realization on the part of foresters thatindustrial forestry as they were practicing it wasneither economically nor ecologically sound:fully one-third of the total harvest in Germanywas unplanned (i.e., harvested before rotationage) because plantations were being killed bywinds, ice, or insects. By the early 1960s, Ger-mans were abandoning industrial forestry fortheir own brand of NF, which included restor-ing the full complement of native trees, partialcutting, long rotations, and concentration onhigh value wood products rather than highquantity.

During the late 1960s controversy eruptedin the United States over clearcurting of nationalforests leading Congress to pass in 1976 theNational Forest Management Act (NFMA),which required the USFS to develop plans inconsultation with the public. NFMA, however,did little to alter the basic orientation of theUSFS toward the primacy of timber productionon public lands.

Opposition to industrial forestry continuedto build in the United States and other timber-producing countries through the 1970s and1980s, including not only urban people, butrural as well: peasants in India were huggingtrees to keep them from being cut; indigenouspeople in Canada were barricading loggingroads. As in Germany, scientific evidence wasalso accumulating that industrial forestry,widely applied, had created significant ecologi-cal problems in the United States Pacific North-west. The most dramatic of the scientific issuesrelated to species that required old-growth for-ests or other habitats that were not maintainedin industrial forests.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s twoold-growth dependent birds—the northernspotted owl and the marbled murrelet—weregranted protection under the Endangered Spe-cies Act (ESA), as were several breeding popu-lations (stocks) of salmon, whose numbers haddiminished due to a combination of dams onthe Columbia river system and degradation ofstream habitat due to logging and grazing.Numerous other species of mammals, fish, andamphibians, as of 1995, are considered by bi-ologists to be at risk because of habitat degra-dation. Other scientific issues emerged duringthis same period. The standard practice of dis-persing clearcuts throughout a matrix of olderforests, once thought to benefit wildlife, had ledto excessive roading and fragmentation of re-maining older forest into isolated blocks that

NEW FORESTRY 469

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were at risk to fire and wind. Moreover,growing evidence indicated that large deadwood and noncommercial plant species—things that had no place in industrial for-estry—performed important functions withinforest ecosystems.

It is from this cauldron of social and scien-tific issues that NF emerged as an approach torestoring balance between commodity produc-tion, protection of long-term forest health, andmaintenance of the full range of values providedby forests. As of 1995 NF was still evolving,along with its share of skeptics and critics, aswell as proponents. The chief of the USFS an-nounced in 1992 that the agency would insti-tute "ecosystem management" and the Bureauof Land Management issued a similar declara-tion in 1994; however, it remains to be seen howthese policy changes will be translated intopractice. After years of fighting the USFS, manyenvironmentalists and biologists view NF as justanother attempt by the agency to disguise acontinued focus on timber production. At thesame time, however, there is a growing grassroots movement within the USFS and the U.S.Bureau of Land Management away from tim-ber primacy, toward ecosystem and landscapemanagement. Where this will lead is uncertain,but at this point it seems likely that, as in Ger-many, industrial forestry on public lands in theUnited States will eventually become a thing ofthe past.

David A. Perry

Further ReadingsFranklin, J.F. "Towards a New Forestry."

American Forests (December 1989): 37-44.

Hopwood, D. "Principles and Practices ofNew Forestry." British Columbia Minis-try of Forests, Land Management Report71...Victoria, B.C., 1991.

Perry, D.A., and J. Maghembe. "EcosystemConcepts and Current Trends in Forest .Management: Time for Reappraisal."Forest Ecology and Management 26(1989): 123-40.

"Ecosystem Management: Basic Prin-ciples and Thoughts on SocioeconomicImplications." Proceedings, 1993 Silvi-culture Conference. Forestry Canada,Ottawa, 1993..

See also BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT;CLEARCUT; FOREST SERVICE (U.S.); FORESTRY,HISTORY OF; OLD GROWTH FORESTS

New Zealand: Anti-NuclearForeign PolicyThe origins of New Zealand's nuclear free poli-cies are threefold: growing public support thatfirst emerged in the 1960s, clear political com-mitments from the 1972-1975 and 1984-1987Labour governments, and the strong personalconvictions of their respective leaders—primeministers Norman Kirk and David Lange. Thegenesis of the policies occurred in 1962 with anAustralian Labour party suggestion that theAntarctica nuclear weapon free (NWF) zone beextended to the Southern Hemisphere. Church-based peace groups in New Zealand influencedby the British Ban the Bomb movement, sup-ported this with a large petition. Trade Unionpickets also began to oppose U.S. warship vis-its.

The first genuinely popular peace move-ment, however, emerged only with U.S. inter-vention in Vietnam. Large-scale public mobili-zation against the war eventually resulted in thesmall contingent of New Zealand troops beingwithdrawn by the 1972 Labour government.Kirk built on this sentiment and stated that nonuclear powered warships would enter NewZealand's waters.

Opposition was also growing to Frenchatmospheric nudear tests in Lie South Pacific.The Labour governments of Australia and NewZealand jointly petitioned the InternationalCourt of Justice at the Hague seeking an interiminjunction against the tests. This was followedin 1973 by a New Zealand navy frigate beingsent into the test zone with a cabinet ministeron board. In 1974 France moved its tests under-ground. A NWF zone for the South Pacific wasproposed by Kirk in 1975 and endorsed by theUnited Nations (UN) General Assembly.

The resumption of U.S. ship visits by the1976 national government saw growing publicopposition. Peace squadrons—flotillas of smallboats—were formed to hinder the entry of war-ships into ports. The environmental movementalso opposed ship visits and organized a hugepetition against nuclear power in 1976. Thetechnology became politically unacceptable.

During the early 1980s peace groups flour-ished (300 existed) and targeted local authori-ties requesting that they become NWF zones. By1983 half the population was living in suchzones and Labour pledged to make NewZialand nuclear free. All majorpolitical partiesexcept the ruling national party supported thisstance. Labour became government in 1984.Polls indicated that 56 percent of New

5 470 NEW FORESTRY

bile in urban planning and in the quality ofurban life.

John H. Perkins teaches biology and the historyof environment and technology at EvergreenState College in Olympia, Washington. He is theauthor of numerous articles, chapters, and re-views on a wide variety of agricultural policyand environmental protection issues, includingthe book Insects, Experts, and the InsecticideCrisis: The Quest for New Pest ManagementStrategies (1982).

Patricia E. Perkins is an assistant professor onthe. Faculty of Environmental Studies at YorkUniversity in Toronto, Ontario. She was for-merly a policy coordinator for the Ontario gov-ernment on trade and environment issues; hercurrent research focuses on sustainability andtrade.

David A. Perry is a professor of ecosystem stud----.7ies in the Department of Forest Science at Or-egon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. Hehas written extensively on forest policies andpractices, especially as regards the PacificNorthwest, and his publications include Main-taining the I .ong-term Productivity of PacificNorthwest Ec:osystems (1989).

Sherry L. Pettigrew actively promotes large car-nivore conservation through awareness andconservation programs. She is the coauthor ofWild Hunters: Predators in Peril (1991) and canbe reached through Second Wind Services, R.R.# 3, Cookstown, Ontario.

Cassandra Phillips is Antarctic and CetaceanOfficer for the World Wide Fund (WWF) forNature (United Kingdom). She has much expe-rience in conservation matters and regularlyattends meetings of the International WhalingCommission on behalf of WWF.

John C. Pierce teaches in the Department ofPolitical Science at Washington State Universityin Pullman, Washington. He has published sev-eral articles on postmaterialism as a trend inpublic opinion and is coauthor of PoliticalKnowledge and Environmental Politics in Ja-pan and the United States (1989).

New York. A leading researcher on pesticides,agriculture, and the environment, his recentpublications include Food and Natural Re-sources (1989) and the three-volume Handbookof Pest Management in Agriculture (2nd ed.,1990).

Nicholas Polunin, a botanist and graduate ofOxford, Yale, and Harvard universities, is thefounding editor of several major publicationsincluding the journal Environmental Conserva-tion, published in Geneva, Switzerland. As au-thor and editor of some thirteen books on en-vironmental subjects with some emphasis onArctic settings, and as one of the leading envi-ronmentalists in the world, he has receivciawards and recognitions from the United Na-tions Secretary-General, UNEP, and from gov-ernments and organizations in many countriesincluding India, the United States, China, theformer Soviet Union, and the Netherlands.

William 0. Pruitt, Jr. is a professor in the zool-ogy department at the University of Manitobain Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has a broad exper-tise in conservation biology with a researchemphasis on northern forested and tundra habi-tats and species, especially the woodland cari-bou.

Christine Pryde is a policy analyst with theNon-Smokers' Rights Association (NSRA), apioneering Canadian environmental health or-ganization based in Toronto, Ontario. NSRAhas developed an international reputation for itssuccessful advocacy of legislative approaches totobacco control including high taxation poli-cies, precedent-setting warnings on tobaccopackages, and the banning of tobacco advertis-ing through the Tobacco Products Control Act.NSRA is located at 344 Bloor Street West,Toronto, Ontario, MSS 3A7.

Philip R. Pryde teaches in the geography depart-ment at California State University in San Di-ego, California. His central research interest isin environmental policy in the former SovietUnion, and he is the author of EnvironmentalManagement in the Soviet Union (1991); he isalso the coeditor of San Diego: An Introductionto the Region (1984).

David N. Pimentel teaches in the Department ofEntomology in the College of Agriculture andLife Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca,

Robert Michael Pyle is a leading expert on theconservation of butterflies and in 1971 foundedthe Xerces Society, an organization dedicated to

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