A number of restoration approaches have been tried in southwestern ponderosa pine forests; many, especially the wide range of thinning options, are detailed in the Treatment Options section. Managers will have to make site-specific decisions about restoration objectives, treatment prescriptions, and implementation strategies. But a few general principles hold. Restoration treatments developed by the ERI follow these principles (Covington and Vosick 2003):

• retain all trees that pre-date Euro-American settlement
• retain some postsettlement trees to replace trees that existed before Euro-American settlement but have died or been removed
• thin and remove excess trees
• rake heavy fuels from the bases of old trees if necessary to prepare for safe prescribed fire conditions
• burn to emulate the natural disturbance regime
• reestablish healthy understories in which native rather than exotic species thrive

Restoration specifically focuses on healing damaged ecological integrity through attention to the historic structure of ponderosa pine ecosystems. It is easily confused with several other management strategies. The revegetation of severely burned areas is not restoration; it is more akin to rehabilitation or reclamation—an attempt to avert severe erosion of soil and ensuing degradation of the land. Such treatments do not seek to rapidly restore the structure and function of the original forest. Thinning treatments that seek only to remove some small-diameter trees in order to reduce fire danger are not by themselves restoration, for they fail to give sufficient attention to the restoration of the herbaceous understory, the foundation of most of the biological diversity in these ecosystems. Treatments that are not linked with frequent, low-intensity burning will fail to restore what is certainly a keystone process in these ecosystems. Further, the lack of frequent fire may result in a renewed need for thinning in the future, without any of the benefits of restoration of understory vegetation. The removal of old-growth pines is emphatically not restoration, for numbers of old trees have declined throughout ponderosa pine forests. These old-growth trees are the very trees that restoration seeks to protect and reinvigorate.

Restoration, then, focuses on returning low-level fire to its core role, on protecting the oldest trees, and on promoting the growth and development of new generations of old trees. It also must consider other native plant species besides pine trees, since a wide array of grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs makes up most of the biodiversity in ponderosa pine forests (Alcoze and Hurteau 2001); it must consider restoration of native wildlife composition and densities; it must consider nutrient cycling and hydrology; it must address concerns about invasive species. For it to succeed at meaningful landscape scales it must also be linked to work such as the removal of roads and the restoration of springs, wet meadows, and open, grassy parklands, most of which are severely degraded throughout the Southwest. Finally, if it is to become a lasting part of the social landscape, restoration must benefit and sustain human communities.

To learn more, read about restoration principles developed for southwestern ponderosa pine forests by several other groups:

Ecological Restoration of Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Ecosystems: A Broad Perspective (Allen et al. 2002)

A Citizen’s Call for Ecological Forest Restoration: Forest Restoration Principles and Criteria (DellaSala et al. 2003)

A Declaration of Civic Principles for Responsible Forest Restoration, Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership, June 1999

Publications:

• Alcoze, T., and M. Hurteau. 2001. Implementing the archaeo-environmental reconstruction technique: Rediscovering the historic ground layer of three plant communities in the greater Grand Canyon region. Pp. 413-424 in The historical ecology handbook: A restorationist’s guide to reference ecosystems, ed. D. Egan and E. A. Howell. Washington D.C.: Island Press.
• Covington, W. W., and D. Vosick. 2003. Conclusion: Key concepts and questions in adaptive ecosystem restoration of ponderosa pine forest ecosystems. Pp. 429-431 in Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine forests, ed. P. Friederici. Washington, D.C. : Island Press.