FOREST OPERATIONS >> AESTHETICS
Actively managing forests to ensure their health and value often requires activities such as road building and timber harvesting. Such activities can dramatically impact a forest’s visual appearance. A forest management plan gives a landowner the the capacity to see past the transient disturbed appearance of their harvested forest and allows them to focus on the goals that their forest operations bring them closer to. However, neighbors or other onlookers who do not share that same insight may interpret a harvest as shortsighted and destructive.
Forest aesthetics refers to the visual and perceptual qualities of a forest and how these are impacted by logging activities.
For some landowners, concerns over destroying the natural beauty and aesthetic values of their forest makes them reluctant to harvest timber. To the untrained eye it can be difficult to see the immediate and long-term benefits to wildlife, water, and recreational opportunities that foresters and professional timber harvesters know will evolve from proper forest management. There is no denying that a recently harvested area can be visually unappealing, but expectations can be managed by gaining an understanding of the temporary nature of the visual disturbance and the long-term benefits that active management provide.
What might appear to be a tangle of limbs, branches, and leaves that remains after a harvest actually helps renew the forest. As the dead wood decays, nutrients cycle back into the soil and promote new growth. Additionally, this leftover woody debris, also known as slash, can help protect young trees from too much light, strong winds, and hungry deer, and provides additional cover to wildlife. When a harvest is well planned and carefully implemented the disturbed appearance doesn’t last long. Seedlings, shrubs, wildflowers, and other herbaceous species fill exposed soils rapidly. These new sources of food and cover in turn attract a variety of insects, birds and mammals. The harvested forest is soon transformed to a lush area active with new life. Landowners who are still skeptical, should try visiting a forest that has been well managed in the past.
Since a forest’s appearance is subject to public perception and opinion, forest landowners, loggers, and foresters need to be aware of forest aesthetics and apply visual resource management practices to enhance the scenic quality of forest management activities.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
- Best Management Practices for Pennsylvania Forests [See aesthetic considerations]
- Forestry Aesthetics and Nonprofessional Forestry [Video]
- Forest Stewardship – Planning for Beauty and Enjoyment
- A Guide to Logging Aesthetics: Practical Tips for Loggers, Foresters, and Landowners
- A Guide to Logging Aesthetics [Video]
