Managing the Mountains: Land Use Planning, the New Deal, and the Creation of a Federal Landscape in Appalachia by Sara M. Gregg

The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century

“…Native‐American fire practices, as a tool for biome conversion, hunting, and pest control, as well as land‐use change and agricultural conversion were adapted by Euro‐American settlers in the colonial era (Fowler & Konopik, 2007; Pyne, 1982). Such “woodsburning” fire practices, in combination with large‐scale timber harvest and other disturbances such as invasive species and pests (e.g., chestnut blight in the early 20th century) had contributed to depleted forests, especially in the SE (Gregg, 2010). The introduction of fire suppression policies in the early 1900s led to a large decline in burned area and thus burned biomass.…”

“…In the early 20th century, large‐scale fire suppression was introduced to decrease “catastrophic” wildfires, often connected to timber‐harvest activities such as slash and debris burning, spark ignition by railways, arson, and other factors. Together with changing forest management, afforestation, natural resource conservation efforts, and the modernization of local subsistence‐based economies (Fedkiw, 1989; Gregg, 2010), fire prevention and suppression, as well as prescribed burning, drastically reduced fire activities in the contiguous U.S. after the 1930s (MacCleery, 1993; Steen, 2004). Consequently, since the early 20th century, U.S. forests have been in a phase of recovery from depletions in the past in terms of area and C‐density (Magerl et al., 2019), a process denoted as forest transition (Mather, 1992).…”

“…Fire has been used by Native Americans for thousands of years to transform ecosystems for hunting, habitat enhancement, and small‐scale agriculture (Lake et al., 2017; Tom et al., 2023). European settlers adopted and expanded native fire practices and reduced forests largely in favor of agricultural land between 1600 and 1900 (Courtwright, 2011; Gregg, 2010; Hessburg & Agee, 2003; Liebmann et al., 2016). Especially during the 18th and 19th centuries, large‐scale land use changes due to agricultural expansion, as well as clear‐cutting of forests led to an increase in burned area, particularly in the south‐eastern region of the U.S. (Fowler & Konopik, 2007; Pyne, 1997).…”

“…Consequently, since the early 20th century, U.S. forests have been in a phase of recovery from depletions in the past in terms of area and C‐density (Magerl et al., 2019), a process denoted as forest transition (Mather, 1992). During industrialization, forest productivity to provide construction materials to the rapidly expanding economy superseded subsistence farming (Gregg, 2010). Thus, forest recovery was driven mainly by commercial timber forests in the Eastern U.S., while in the West, less pronounced regrowth occurred in more diverse ecosystems, including newly reserved national forests and low‐productive shrub‐ or woodlands (Magerl et al., 2019; Steen, 2004).…”