As you drive or walk by local forests, you may look at the greenery and tall trees and think all is well, and that the forest is healthy.

What you may not realize, though, is that in a lot of places locally, trees are being impacted by non-native insects and plants, and are also suffering from disease.

Combine those with the fact that most of our local forests are in the waning stages of their life cycles, or “even-aged”, and you have what many local forestry experts call the “perfect storm.”

In response to this, and all of the health challenges of the forests on the Allegheny Plateau, local government agencies, forestry businesses and land ownerships began working together in 2017 to address these concerns.

The resulting group, the Allegheny Forest Health Collaborative, has since developed strategies and research together to address these health concerns and bring health and diversity back to local forests.

“It’s really a community of practice,” said Andrea Hille, a silviculturist with the U.S. Forest Service. “There’s a local collaboration of forest management.”

So how was the “perfect storm” able to arrive?

It starts with the even-aged forest. Roughly 62 percent of forest vegetation in the Allegheny National Forest is between 81-110 years-old. Meanwhile, only 3.8 percent of the vegetation is less than 20 years-old, which falls below the 8 percent objective.

Then, insects and diseases, many of which are non-native,  have presented challenges to the health of the forest, as well as deer browsing. There is also a lack of diversity among the tree species impacting the landscape.

So in 2017, the Collaborative met six times to identify and prioritize threats, and to develop strategies to address these concerns, and has met twice a year since then to continue to monitor the forests and develop these practices.

Those strategies have been put into practice, are visible to the average hiker or outdoorsman, and even the average person passing by.

You may notice an area, or site, that looks like a typical forest with tall trees and green leaves, but pay closer attention to the lower levels of the forest and observe how many younger trees are growing in.

“When you drive by and it’s green, you think it’s fine, but you can come in and see the forest has disease and is old,” said John Saf, a forester from Generations Forestry. “And that condition creates a sense of urgency.”

In response, local foresters are trying to create more diversity, particularly through natural seeding methods.

“We want to see a better mix,” Saf said. “We’re looking at the ground as our next resource to hand off to the next generation.”

The focus on natural seeding comes because natural seedlings will be the most competitive for forest regeneration, if given the right lighting conditions.

To help regenerate these species, local foresters have cleared some older, diseased trees out to make way for the next generation of trees, and kept healthy timber to start the rehabilitation process, because larger, healthier trees can produce many seedlings.

Within these rehabilitation efforts are strategies developed and shared from within the Collaborative to ensure the entire Allegheny Plateau, or as much of it as possible, gets concerns addressed.

“It’s important for us to study available data and understand how much regeneration is enough and under what conditions,” said Susan Stout, a research forester emerita with the USFS.

So while you’re out and about and notice a site without many tall trees, you’re likely observing a spot being rehabilitated and regenerated, rather than just timber extraction.

“These younger trees are our next generation,” USFS District Silviculturist Joshua Hanson said. “And these young trees will eventually become the next mature forest.”

To learn more about the AFHC and its efforts and accomplishments, visit https://tinyurl.com/y4qffo3z.