Sustaining Terrestrial Biodiversity:
The Ecosystem Approach
Chapter 10

Core Case Study: Reintroducing
Gray Wolves to Yellowstone
1.
How was the gray wolf species classified and what was it’s niche to receive this classification?
2.
What was the environmental response to the loss of the gray wolf?
3.
Why was the trickle down effect to beavers especially devastating to the environment?
4.
What were the three major concerns about the reintroduction of the gray wolf?

10-1 What Are the Major Threats to Forest Ecosystems?
 Concept 10-1A Forest ecosystems provide ecological services far greater in value than the value of raw materials obtained from forests.
• True Value
 Concept 10-1B Unsustainable cutting and burning of forests, along with diseases and insects, are the chief threats to forest ecosystems.

10-1 What Are the Major Threats to Forest Ecosystems? (2)
 Concept 10-1C Tropical deforestation is a potentially catastrophic problem because of the vital ecological services at risk, the high rate of tropical deforestation, and its growing contribution to global warming.

Forests Vary in Their Make-Up,
Age, and Origins
 Natural and planted forest occupy 30% of land.
• ½ Tropical forest
• ¼ Boreal forest
 What are the two major types of forests based on age and structure?
 Where are most of the old-growth forests?

Tree Plantation, Tree Farm, Commerical
Forest
 What is a tree plantation?
 Generally clear cut as soon as commercially valuable then replanted.
 Used for paper and composites (pressed wood)
 What is the negative effect of this process?
 Where are most of the tree plantations?

 What are the important ecological and economic services of forests?

True Value – monetary value of the ecological services provided.
$4.7 Trillion per year – True
Value of Forests globally.
Fig. 10-A, p. 218

Unsustainable Logging is a Major Threat to Forest Ecosystems Figure 10.5
 What is the environmental cost of building roads for access and lumber removal?

What are the Major Tree Harvesting
Methods?

Clear-Cutting
 What is the positive side to this process?
 What is the negative side to this process?
 Why is this process considered to be a positive feedback process?
 Where is this process increasing now?

Strip Cutting
 More sustainable variation of clearcutting.
 Natural regeneration will occur in a few years then loggers will cut the next strip.

Fire, Insects, and Climate Change Can
Threaten Forest Ecosystems 10.9
 What are the two types of fires?
 How are they different?

 Fires are part of a natural cycle and not a threat to ecosystems.
 Except when used to clear land for crops and livestock.
• Produces pollution.
• Increases carbon dioxide in atmosphere as the wood is oxidized.
• Loss of a carbon sink.

Fire, Insects, and Climate Change Can
Threaten Forest Ecosystems
 Explain the effects of accidental or deliberate introductions of foreign diseases and insects and what can be done.
 Explain the effects of global warming on forests.
Sudden oak death
White pine blister rust
Pine shoot
Beech bark beetle disease
Hemlock woolly adelgid

We Have Cut Down Almost Half of the World’s Forests
 Define
Deforestation.
 Why are humans destroying forests?
 Where is this concentrated now?

Brazil and Indonesia Lead the World in
Tropical Forest Loss.
Brazil 1975 Brazil 2001

Endangered white monkey in Brazilian tropical rain forest.
World’s largest flower – the flesh flower. 3.3 feet in diameter and weighs 15 lbs.
Smells like rotting meat to attract pollinators – beetles and flies.
Fig. 10-14a, p. 224

Deforestation

Case Study: Many Cleared Forests in the
United States Have Grown Back
1.
What did Bill
McKibben mean when he said forest regrowth was “the great environmental story of the U.S. and in some ways, the world”?
2.
What are the concerns about tree plantations?

Causes of Tropical Deforestation
Are Varied and Complex
 1 st Road is cut into the forest for logging and settlement.
 Cut the best trees but many others fall also due to the vines in the canopy.
 Agriculture or grazing animals until the nutrients are gone.
 The loggers, farmers and ranchers move to the next area of what was once tropical rain forest.
 Plantations of soybean and oil palms.
 Burning of the tropical forest responsible twice as much CO
2 as all the world’s cars and trucks.

10-2 How Should We Manage and
Sustain Forests?
 Concept 10-2 We can sustain forests by emphasizing the economic value of their ecological services, protecting old-growth forests, harvesting trees no faster than they are replenished, and using sustainable substitute resources.

We Can Improve the Management of Forest Fires
 The Smokey Bear educational campaign
• What are the pluses?
• What are the minuses?
 What are the steps to reduce firerelated harm to forests and people?

We Can Improve the Management of Forest Fires
 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act
• Describe
• Pros
• Cons

How Can We Reduce the Demand for
Harvested Trees?
 Improve the efficiency of wood use.
• 60% of wood used in the
U.S. is wasted.
• How?
 One of the primary uses for trees is making pulp for paper.
• How can reduce tree usage for this product?
• China
• U.S.

Case Study: Deforestation and the
Fuelwood Crisis
 ¾ of wood cut in developing countries is used for fuel. Firewood and charcoal made from wood.
• Heating and cooking.
 Haiti
• Once a tropical paradise; now with only 2% of land with forests.
• Classified as one of the world’s leading “failing states”
 How can people reduce the fuelwood crisis?
 What is the other crisis of using fuelwood besides loss of trees?

Governments and Individuals Can Act to Reduce Tropical Deforestation
 Ways to reduce fuelwood demand
• Practice small-scale sustainable agriculture and forestry in tropical forest
 Debt-for-nature swaps –
 Conservation concessions –
 Use gentler logging methods –
 Roles for the consumer –

Individuals Matter: Wangari Maathari and
Kenya’s Green Belt Movement
1.
What was the Green Belt Movement of 1977?
2.
Nobel Peace Prize: 2004

10-3 How Should We Manage and
Sustain Grasslands?
 Concept 10-3 We can sustain the productivity of grasslands by controlling the number and distribution of grazing livestock and restoring degraded grasslands.

How Should We Manage and Sustain
Grasslands?
 What are the important ecological services of grasslands?
 Grasslands are the
2 nd most used and abused ecosystem.

 What is the difference in a rangeland and a pasture?

Moderate Grazing, Overgrazing,
Undergrazing
 How can moderate grazing of rangelands be beneficial?
 Explain how undergrazing and overgrazing are both detrimental.

We Can Manage Rangelands More
Sustainably
 The point is to control the number of grazing animals and the duration of their grazing in a given area.
 Explain Rotational grazing.
 What are riparian zones?

We Can Manage Rangelands More
Sustainably
 There are more expensive and thus less widely used methods to sustain rangelands
• Suppress growth of unwanted invader plants
• Replant barren areas
• Apply fertilizer

Case Study: Grazing and Urban
Development the American West
1.
What has caused the population surge to the
American southwest since 1980?
2.
How has the population surge helped to protect this ecosystem?

10-4 How Should We Manage and Sustain
Parks and Natural Reserves?
 Concept 10-4 Sustaining biodiversity will require protecting much more of the earth’s remaining undisturbed land area as parks and nature reserves.

National Parks Face Many Environmental
Threats
 Worldwide: 1100 major national parks
• Most too small to support a lot of large animal species.
• Many suffer from invasions by non-native species.
 Parks in developing countries have the greatest biodiversity but
• Only about 1% protected against
• Illegal animal poaching
• Illegal logging and mining

Case Study: Stresses on U.S.
Public Parks
 58 Major national parks in the U.S.
• In 27 states – most in the west and Alaska.
• 3 In Florida – Everglades, Dry Tortugas, Biscayne
Bay.
 Positive
• Tourism and education.
• No resource extraction.
• Protection of threatened or endangered species.
 Negative
• Some indigenous populations were removed from the land.

 1 st was Yellowstone National
Park in 1872 by Ulysses S.
Grant (must be established by an act of congress).
 Newest is Great Sand Dunes in Colorado 2004.
 Biggest problem may be popularity.
• Great Smoky Mountains
National Park is the most frequently visited.

 Those near urban areas receive twice the traffic as the national parks.
• What are the problems associated with frequent visitors?

Science Focus: Effects of Reintroducing the
Gray Wolf to Yellowstone National Park
 The gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone and this produced ecological ripples.
1.
Explain the effect on elks, grizzly bears, scavengers, trees.
2.
Explain the effect of the tree change to birds and waterways.
3.
Explain the effect on coyotes and the trickle down effect of this change.
4.
How are the wolves affected by the dogs brought into the park by visitors?

Nature Reserves Occupy Only a Small
Part of the Earth’s Land
 Only 12% of the earth’s land is protected strickly or partially.
 What are eco-philanthropists doing?
 What are U.S. Land Trusts groups doing?

Designing and Connecting Nature
Reserves
 Large versus small reserves
 The buffer zone concept

 Habitat corridors between isolated reserves
• Advantages
• Disadvantages

Case Study: Costa Rica —A Global
Conservation Leader
1.
What is the size of Costa
Rica?
2.
Why is it considered a superpower of biodiversity?
3.
What is the largest source of income for
Costa Rica?
4.
How has the government aided in the development of biodiversity in Costa
Rica?

Protecting Wilderness Is an Important
Way to Preserve Biodiversity
 Define wilderness.
 What was Teddy
Roosevelt’s contribution
 1964 US.
Wilderness Act
 Where are most of the U.S. wilderness areas?
How does the U.S. compare with other nations in terms of terrestrial land protected?

10-5 What is the Ecosystem Approach to Sustaining Biodiversity?
 Concept 10-5A We can help sustain biodiversity by identifying severely threatened areas and protecting those with high plant diversity and those where ecosystem services are being impaired.
 Concept 10-5B Sustaining biodiversity will require a global effort to rehabilitate and restore damaged ecosystems.

10-5 What is the Ecosystem Approach to Sustaining Biodiversity? (2)
 Concept 10-5C Humans dominate most of the earth’s land, and preserving biodiversity will require sharing as much of it as possible with other species.

 Map ecosystems globally creating an inventory of species in each and the services they provide.
 Locate and protect the hotspots – areas of highest diversity with endangered or threatened species.
 Try to restore as many degraded ecosystems as possible.
 Make development biodiversity friendly with tax breaks or write-offs and technical help for private landowners who agree to help protect endangered ecosystems.

Protecting Global Biodiversity Hot Spots
Is an Urgent Priority
 Identify biodiversity hot spots rich in endangered species.

Endangered Centers of Terrestrial
Biodiversity

Case Study: A Biodiversity Hot Spot in East Africa
 Eastern Arc Mountains of
Tanzania, Africa
• Highest concentration of endangered species on earth
Threatened due to:
• Killing of forests by farmers & loggers
• Hunting
• Fires

We Can Rehabilitate and Restore
Ecosystems That We Have Damaged
 Study how natural ecosystems recover
• Restoration
• Rehabilitation
• Replacement
• Creating artificial ecosystems

We Can Rehabilitate and Restore
Ecosystems That We Have Damaged
 How to carry out most forms of ecological restoration and rehabilitation
• Identify what caused the degradation
• Stop the abuse
• Reintroduce species, if possible
• Protect from further degradation

Science Focus: Ecological Restoration of a Tropical Dry Forest in Costa Rica
 Guanacaste National Park restoration project
• World’s largest ecological restoration project
• A small tropical dry forest that was burned, degraded and fragmented to be used as cattle ranches and farms.

Will Restoration Encourage Further
Destruction?
 Preventing ecosystem damage is cheaper and more effective than restoration.
 About 5% of the earth’s land is preserved from the effects of human activities

We Can Share Areas We Dominate With
Other Species
 Reconciliation or applied ecology
• Conserve species diversity in areas where we live work and play.
• Learn how to share with other species that we dominate.
• Invent, establish and maintain new habitats.
• Community-based conservation
• Bluebird protection with special housing boxes
• Berlin, Germany: rooftop gardens
• San Francisco: Golden Gate Park

Case Study: The Blackfoot Challenge —
Reconciliation Ecology in Action
 1970s: Blackfoot River Valley in Montana threatened by
• Poor mining, logging, and grazing practices
• Water and air pollution
• Unsustainable commercial and residential development
 Community meetings led to:
• Weed-pulling parties
• Nesting structures for waterfowl
• Developed sustainable grazing systems