Ecological Forestry and an Ethical Worldview

Editor’s Note: David Foster, Tony D’Amato, and Brian Donahue have collaborated to introduce a series of ecological forestry articles in this issue. David’s introduction follows perfectly from Susie O’Keeffe’s essay in our last issue and David Marvin’s here, as well as from Rick Morrill’s piece in this series. Reminding us of Aldo Leopold’s message, David Foster calls on us to adopt an ethic of humility in forest management—to acknowledge that management serves human needs rather than nature’s needs. Nature will be fine without us, but we need forests. Managed forests are part of the integrated approach to conservation that we support, and managing them with care and humility will go a long way toward healing past damage. - Liz Thompson

What is ecological forestry? It has been called a strategy, a framework, a toolbox, and a philosophy. The term was first applied in the 1940s by Harvard Forest silviculturists Stephen Spurr and Albert Cline, who joined ecology and forestry to advance practices that “follow nature as far as possible.” Subsequently it has been argued that ecological forestry follows four principles—continuity, complexity, timing, and context—and that FSC-certification signifies these principles in practice. Meanwhile, many articles in this issue of From the Ground Up characterize ecological forestry by aspirational goals—diversity, complexity, resilience, integrity, and health. But, does anything unify these different descriptions?

What all advocates seem to agree on is that ecological forestry is not traditional forestry, or “old” forestry. That is why Jerry Franklin chose “new forestry,” once he learned that Spurr and Cline had already employed his favorite alternative. To Franklin, new or ecological forestry represented a new forest ethic, harkening back to Aldo Leopold’s call for a land ethic in A Sand County Almanac.

To me, herein lies the essence of ecological forestry. It is not simply a toolbox or a set of ecological principles, but rather the moral grounding and worldview that helps guide how these may be best used. For, as Chelsea Batavia and Michael Nelson remind us in their critique of ecological forestry, without ethical grounding we are left with “a problematic range of variability in how it can be applied.”

After all, a clearcut, a selective thinning, and a wilderness will each have some analog in nature and some ecological consequences, and each may support great diversity. To know which is “good” requires an ethical or normative basis for judgment. Or, as wildlife biologists Dick DeGraaf and Malcolm Hunter have reminded me on occasion, there is no definition of what is “good” or “healthy” wildlife habitat without specifying intention, purpose, and focal species. Every treatment of the land creates great habitat for something. Without ethical underpinnings and clear norms, positive-sounding goals such as diversity, sustainability, and health will, as Batavia and Nelson warn, “cycle in a quick and predictable pattern, from broad appeal to overuse to practical obsolescence.”

The Ethics of Ecological Forestry

So, what is the new ethic underlying ecological forestry?

Traditional forestry is anthropocentric and utilitarian. It focuses on the management of forests as natural resources for human desires and ends. It is rooted in a worldview based on the inherent value of (at least some) humans and the instrumental value of nature to humans.

“Forests have intrinsic value independent of our needs and wants.”

— Rick Morrill

For me, the new ethic is ecocentric and captured well by Rick Morrill’s article and his quote above. Nature has intrinsic value. We need nature; it does not need us. Forests and all life have value independent of their relationship to human needs and desires. As David Marvin notes, this embrace of the essential value and purpose of all biota recognizes that humans are not dominant, but only part of an intricate web of life, death, evolution, and growth that has yet to be fully understood. To Mitch Lansky and Sam Brown, this respect for all life guides Low Impact Forestry, a way of managing forests as if the future of both the forest and society mattered. It has been argued that this embrace of nature’s moral standing has a deep history and ongoing presence in most Indigenous cultures.

Why an Ethic?

Some have argued that ecological forestry may not need ethics, and yet a need for ethics is recognized throughout the forestry profession, albeit not always in harmony.

The Society of American Foresters has a decidedly human-centric code of ethics that focuses on the rights of, and responsibilities to, humans and society. The land serves that end.

Foresters have a responsibility to manage land for current and future generations…[to] maintain the long-term capacity of the land to provide the variety of materials, uses, and values desired by landowners and society.

In contrast, the ethical values espoused by the Forest Stewards Guild center on nature and the responsibility to sustain it. Citing nature as the guide, it also harkens back to Spurr and Cline.

The forest has value in its own right, independent of human intentions and needs… Our first duty is to forests and their future… The natural forest provides a model for sustainable resource management; therefore, responsible forest management imitates nature’s dynamic processes and minimizes impacts...

The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) seeks to advance an ethic for resource management that centers the responsibility of public agencies and their employees on nature.

FSEEE believes that the land is a public trust, to be passed with reverence from generation to generation. The Forest Service and other public agencies must follow the footsteps of Aldo Leopold, a pioneer of conservation, and become leaders in the quest for a new resource ethic.

I would argue that this ecocentric ethic also lays the foundation for integrated efforts like Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities. Recognition of the inherent value in all life guides active management (Woodlands) and demands that we passively manage as much forest as possible (Wildlands). It also informs the way we farm land and produce food, as espoused by Conrad Vispo in “Thoughts on Farming With and For Nature.” Most importantly, as many authors in this issue recognize, this ethic should shape the way we live our lives, treat human relationships, and plan our communities.

Beyond the Illusion of Preservation highlights the interconnectedness of these relationships. By minimizing consumption, we can establish more and larger wildland reserves and meet our timber needs. Surrounding reserves with well-managed forests and farmlands enhances the connectivity of nature with well-planned communities that benefit nature and society. In similar fashion, proponents of low impact forestry seek to ingrain its ethics in our culture, arguing—as does David Marvin—that if society is not sustainable, then forest management cannot be.

Application of Ecological Forestry

Nature has value. It does not need us. There has been and will be a World Without Us.

When it comes to forests, this ethic has many ramifications.

Embrace of its intrinsic value brings moral standing to—and respect for—nature and its capacity for self-management. Forests are self-regulating and can persist without human intervention. Given this, our first stance in management should be to leave nature alone. Instead of asking how we can employ our knowledge to help the forest, we might ask what we can learn by leaving it intact. Instead of questioning how many wildlands are enough, we might ask how much human impact on the world is enough.

“Herein lies the essence of ecological forestry. It is not simply a toolbox or a set of ecological principles, but rather the moral grounding and worldview that helps guide how these may be best used.”

The value and self-regulation we recognize in nature are essential to our understanding of wildlands. Wildlands (wilderness, reserves) are not untouched by humans, but rather “untrammeled” landscapes that humans have left alone. They are places where nature is permanently granted free will, unconstrained by human activity. Wildness is a process, not a product. It does not exclude humans but is free from purposeful intervention.

The embrace of passive management is also based on humility. It acknowledges all we do not know, and helps ensure that the parts and processes we do not even recognize will persist.

Humility must also be a cornerstone of active management. We are constantly learning. Every management action is an experiment, based on imperfect knowledge and best conducted with restraint. Restraint because actions in our brief life will shape forests for generations. Walk the New England landscape today and witness the enduring legacies of Henry Thoreau’s contemporaries.

But what of our benevolent actions to help the forest? These, I would argue, are largely anthropocentric, self-serving, or justifications for other ends. The only reason to manage nature is for the products we need to sustain ourselves. Ecological forestry should seek to do that while minimizing those impacts. Our need for wood products, even if greatly reduced to minimize our footprint on Earth, will provide plenty of opportunity to practice ecological forestry. We do not need to invent other reasons to manage actively.

Take “resilience.” Nature’s resilience is apparent. Half of New England forests today developed with no help, on farmland where most native species had been erased. Witness the flourishing of wildlands on degraded industrial lands managed by the Appalachian Mountain Club or the wilderness regions of the White Mountains. Forest resilience is one of the world’s great environmental stories. Yet, some invoke “resilience” to justify intervention to favor certain species or to speed a process, or simply to prove our worth.

“Nature has value. It does not need us.”

Or “reduce risk and minimize vulnerabilities.” What do we fear? A hurricane, disease, or insect? Death is at home in a healthy forest. Natural disturbance is a great source of diversity. Yet, we seek to diversify stands or landscapes by applying tree death in our own prescriptive ways. Why not just let nature do it? Why seek to minimize windthrow or infestation in one stand, yet diversify with silviculture in another? It is we who fear the impact and risk, not nature. We seek control in an uncertain future. We seek to improve forest health by killing trees by the thousands.

Most of our fears for the future are not about the forest itself, but about the values we cherish—about the impact that forest disturbance may have on us. Climate will impact forests, but they will be fine. We fear damage to infrastructure, quality timber, the aesthetics that we value, and our ability to manage our woods.

Be honest with the woods and ourselves. Manage lightly to secure products we need, and no more. Leave the rest alone. That is the best help we can give nature.

“This ecocentric ethic also lays the foundation for integrated efforts like Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities.”

I will close with two thought experiments. The first was originally advanced by Michael Nelson and is quite relevant today. Consider how different a world is when all human beings are granted intrinsic value, compared to one where some are only instrumentally valuable. Think of the institutions that cannot be tolerated in the former (e.g., slavery, colonialism, genocide). Now apply this logic to nature as a whole.

The second is a simple question: How would you “help” the forest in the following photographs? The images all come from the Pisgah Forest, purchased in the 1920s by Harvard University to serve as a laboratory for the study of natural forest dynamics and a guide to a natural or ecological approach to forestry.