| |
 |
High-elevation red oak forests blanket the hills in North Carolina's National Forests
© USDA Forest Service / Gary Kaufmann |
Hardwood and mixed pine-hardwood forest, pine-oak-heath shrublands and woodlands, and small-patch grasslands are found scattered across this mountainous and rolling landscape, resulting in high levels of species diversity and endemism. The partnership has identified shortleaf pine-oak, pine-oak-heath, dry-mesic oak-hickory and high-elevation red oak forests as target communities for restoring fire regimes. These systems cover about 60 percent of the area in the region. About 50,000 acres of this landscape burn each year, through controlled burns or wildfires; four to eight times this much area needs fire or surrogate treatments each year to maintain these forests in a resilient condition.
The Southern Blue Ridge Fire Learning Network engages multiple federal, state and private land management agencies in a collaborative effort to enhance the capacity to implement ecological fire management in the Southern Blue Ridge ecoregion. Together they work to define a healthy, resilient landscape and to identify where, when and how to restore these ecosystems. Expertise in numerous aspects of restoration is distributed among partners and researchers involved in the collaboration. Sharing this knowledge among partners and with other networks accelerates restoration.
Project Vision
Partners in this regional network seek to restore and maintain fire adapted ecosystems on lands within the Southern Blue Ridge landscape under a model partnership of interested agencies and organizations which will work to increase the capacity for and reduce obstacles to conducting prescribed burning.
Background
A fire history study begun in 2007 by Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer and Lisa LaForest has found that the Great Smoky Mountains historically had a fire return interval of one to twelve years. Supression efforts since the 1920s, however, have lead to a lack of recruitment of oaks and pines, the establishment of shrubby undergrowth and the encroachment of mesic, less fire-tolerant species such as red maple and white pine.
The lack of regeneration of oak forests is problematic for both wildlife species such as black bear, deer and turkey that depend on mast, and for foresters who depend on timber products. Native pests such as the southern pine beetle have had severe outbreaks in overgrown forests, leading to the decline of pine trees and increased fuel loads. Invasive species such as princess tree, tree of heaven and Chinese silver grass are invading the forests and displacing native species; there is concern that fire disturbance could accelerate the colonization by some of these species.
The Southern Blue Ridge FLN provides a forum for land managers, planners and researchers to share success stories and lessons learned. This accelerates learning about how and where best to restore fire as a disturbance to increase and maintain ecosystem health, and how to do so with the support of the public.
Landscapes
Leaders: Margit Bucher and Beth Buchanan
Workshop 5 / Crossnore, NC /
18-20 May 2010
This workshop will focus on defining the desired future conditions of landscapes in the network, and developing plans for acheiving those conditions. There will be a field visit to Linville Gorge, a fire-adapted landscape, at which landscape-level fire needs will be discussed, and the draft desired future conditions will be ground-truthed.
Downloads
Workshop 4 / Dillard, GA /
19-21 May 2009
Participants at this workshop peer-reviewed implementation plans for landscapes in the network, reviewed monitoring results, assessed fire needs and opportuinities in landscapes that had revised their boundaries and developed communication strategies.
Downloads
Workshop 3 / Fletcher, NC /
17-19 June 2008
The objectives of this workshop were to:
(1) peer review the plans of three participating sites;
(2) get updates from the national, Appalachian and South Central FLNs, and share research reports on high elevation red oak forests, oak savannas and Table Mountain pine / southern pine beetle dynamics;
(3) compare the effects of fire and a mechanical fire surrogate (field trip); and
(4) discuss fire needs, obstacles to implementation (fire needs, fuel loads, WUI, air quality, pathogens, invasives) and refine solutions developed by sites.
Downloads
|
