Ecology and Management of a Forested Landscape
Fifty Years on the Savannah River Site
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- $114.99
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- $114.99
Publisher Description
Can land degraded by centuries of agriculture be restored to something approaching its original productivity and diversity? This book tells the story of fifty years of restoration and management of the forested landscape of the Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile tract of land in the coastal plain of South Carolina that has been closed to the public for more than five decades.
Ecology and Management of a Forested Landscape presents for the first time a complete synthesis and summary of information on the Savannah River Site, providing a detailed portrait of the plant and animal populations and communities on the site and the effects on them of fifty years of management practices. Contributors offer thirty-two chapters that describe the site’s history, land management, physical environment, plant and animal communities, endangered species, and game species. Extensively illustrated with photos, maps, charts, and tables, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the forest management practices that can support long-term forest recovery and restoration of native habitats. It represents for natural resource managers a detailed case study in long-term land management, and provides scientists with an in-depth analysis of the natural history and physical and biological characteristics of a southeastern forested landscape.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Franklin, a historian and author of more than 15 books (most recently Vietnam and Other American Fantasies), was inspired by his passion for saltwater angling to write this history of the all but extinct menhaden, a fish that historically has served an essential part of the Atlantic coastal food web, including human populations (natives and settlers both). Integrating his own observations, Franklin spins a grim but compelling tale of the role menhaden play in maintaining critical near-shore habitats, their utility to early Americans and the collapse of their stocks over the past 150 years. Beginning in Maine during the latter half of the 19th century, the menhaden decline has accelerated alongside the nation's economic and technological growth, in particular the increasing sophistication of the fishing industry. Effects are widespread: as the menhaden population thins out, so have bass, bluefish, weakfish and other species, while estuaries suffer catastrophic phytoplankton blooms that create long-lived dead zones in which nothing can survive. This informative, riveting narrative exposes the greed, shortsightedness and unintended consequences that nearly destroyed the Atlantic coast ecosystem entirely, and continue to wreak havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. Franklin's final chapter provides a measure of hope, describing the happy but imperiled recovery of menhaden populations along New Jersey and New England coastlines.
