ENVS195 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Climax Community
15 Jun 2015
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Document Summary
Deforestation is one of the first steps toward the development of human communities. Led to the development of economic and trading systems. There is accelerated deforestation in tropical regions, loss in temperate latitudes has been reduced recently. Closed forest - at least 20 percent crown cover. Open forest - 5 to 20 percent crown cover. Clear cutting - entire strands of trees felled and removed. Selective logging - picking specific trees, valuable and mature trees, not as bad, continuous supply of mature trees over time. Deforestation defined as reducing crown cover to less than 10 percent. Hypothesis: deforestation and forest management practices have an impact on both the risk and impact of hazardous events. Used to believe that ecosystems could reach climax community or equilibrium with the environment. Has become clear that equilibrium is relatively rare and disturbances to ecosystems are common. Called for moving of 25000 families to move there from main island for agricultural activities.
