Fire As A Management Tool
Restoration ecology is the name given to an attempt to reverse or mitigate some of the changes that humans have caused to an ecosystem. Controlled burning is one tool that is currently receiving considerable attention as a means of restoration and management. Applying fire to an ecosystem may create habitats for species that have been negatively impacted by fire suppression, or fire may be used as a way of controlling invasive species without resorting to herbicides or pesticides. But what should managers aim to restore their ecosystems to? Does “natural” mean pre-human? Pre-European? Native American use of fire, not natural fires, historically maintained the diversity of the savannas of North America. When, how, and where managers should use fire as a management tool is a subject of debate.
Read more about this topic: Fire Ecology
Famous quotes containing the words fire, management and/or tool:
“I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire, which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke: but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The Management Area of Cherokee
National Forest, interested in fish,
Has mapped Tellico and Bald Rivers
And North River, with the tributaries
Brookshire Branch and Sugar Cove Creed:
A fishy map for facile fishery....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The first tool I step on
Turned into a weapon.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)