Disturbance can change what resources are available to a natural community—sunlight, nutrients, conditions favorable to germination—so you want to be thoughtful about where and when you cause it to happen. Some disturbances are natural: stream flooding, trees falling naturally in the forest, wildfire, and those interactions of plants and animals (re)allocating resources around the food web. But some human activities go beyond these disturbances and may cause some unintended and perhaps unwelcome outcomes.
In the course of managing land we are using equipment and techniques that, unless carefully considered, may take the land further from our original goals. Bringing heavy equipment in to rip out one species of invasive plant may create the ideal conditions for others. (In our region, you could list multiflora rose, autumn olive, or honeysuckle shrubs for the first category targeted for removal, and Japanese stiltgrass, garlic mustard, and mile-a-minute as the unintended beneficiaries of the management efforts.)
So here are some guidelines:
- Do no more management than is necessary to achieve your goals. Evaluate the effects of your efforts to make sure they are achieving your goals. It is tempting to want to do something, but it is important to know when your work will help and when to leave things alone.
- Work with nature, not against it. Use shade as a tool, use a desirable plant occupying a niche as a tool to exclude an undesirable one.
- Scale your choice of equipment to the job. If selective work is desired, a selective tool or method is required.
- Keep your equipment clean to avoid the unintended spread of seeds.
- Working on top of snow cover minimizes soil disturbance; some projects can only be done when the ground is frozen or else dry enough to support the weight of the equipment. Ruts change the hydrology of the site and should be avoided—unless you are managing for a species (and there are some!) that is dependent on that kind of disturbance.
- Do a thorough job, but be aware that it took years for things to get to their current state and it may take years to achieve your goals: it is okay to control only a portion of the invasives on a site if that results in less overall disturbance or leaves a site more natural-looking.
- If you are doing a good job in a natural area it should look as though you were never there. Proper pruning cuts leave no disfiguring stubs. Leave brush on site—if you can do it without leaving more than will break down in a couple years or become an obstacle to management. Return at a later date to do more work if necessary when these branches have returned to the earth.
Practical Stewardship Notes (c) Daniel Barringer
