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Book Review
| Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England. Edited by David R. Foster and John D. Aber. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. xiv + 477 pp. Illustrations, figures, maps, bibliographic essay, bibliography, list of contributors, index. Cloth $45.00.
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| This volume is a set of essays reporting the results of the Long Term Ecological Research Program, begun in 1988, centered on the Harvard Forest and central New England more generally. The entire volume is framed by the theme "that understanding history is critical for ecological studies and society as it attempts to address modern environmental issues" (p. ix). These essays succeed admirably in delivering ecological findings in a historical context, in a format friendly to nonscientists (references are, on the whole, found in a bibliographic essay at the end of the book). Given the continuing, often acrimonious, debate regarding wilderness and Native American actions prior to European arrival, this volume also offers the opportunity for a calmer discussion. Since the New England landscape was greatly manipulated by European settlers, no one is arguing that its forests are a pristine natural landscape, and hence there is less at stake for those at either end of the humanized/wilderness landscape continuum. This allows space for discussion and argument that later may be applied to the more contentious western landscape. |
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Several of the essays are of central concern to those interested in environmental history, especially those in the section titled Regional History and Landscape Dynamics. "The Environmental and Human History of New England" delivers a comprehensive summary of the most current knowledge on the postglacial history of the New England landscape, including the role of climate change and disturbance processes such as wind (especially hurricanes), introduced pests and pathogens, Native American activity, and fire on forest vegetation patterns. Fire is, of course, an ambiguous disturbance process since it occurs naturally and is set by humans. On the role of fire Foster et al. conclude that "Even in fire-prone areas, historical data suggest that fire frequency may have been only once every ten to one hundred years, whereas in the moist, rolling uplands, fire-free periods of more than one thousand years clearly occurred. We note, however, that fire need not be frequent to exert important and long-lasting effects on forest structure, composition, and ecosystem function" (p. 69). They also sketch the ecological details of the familiar story of the post-European New England landscape: clearing forests for agriculture and settlement, followed by land abandonment and reforestation. Their most interesting finding on this topic is that the historical impacts of all forms of agriculture continue to exist on forested landscapes, even more than one hundred years later. The next three essays focus more specifically on forest response to land use and climate change, long-term landscape dynamics, and wildlife dynamics—with humans all playing a leading role in the stories. |
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This book is a mandatory companion to Emily Russell's People and the Land through Time (Yale, 1997) and Gordon Whitney's From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain (Cambridge, 1994) for those interested in how humans, plants, and animals have interacted in the northeastern United States over the last five hundred years. It is similarly of great importance to those interested in the interplay of ecology and culture on any landscape. Several of the essays are suitable for use in introductory courses on American and environmental history, while the entire volume, with its greater detail on ecological studies and techniques, is more appropriate for the graduate level. |
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Christopher McGrory Klyza is Stafford Professor of Public Policy and professor of political science and environmental studies at Middlebury College. He is the coauthor of The Story of Vermont: A Natural and Cultural History
(University Press of New England, 1999) and editor of Wilderness Comes Home: Rewilding the Northeast (University Press of New England, 2001). |
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