Long-ago history, but was recently at Hemlock Bluffs park in Cary and noticed some signs about long-ago farms there and our local woods’ fire dependence.
That reminded me of the tale of the Saint Francis’ Satyr – an endangered native butterfly that now only exists in isolated spots at Fort Liberty, because its bombing ranges are about the only spot in our region regularly cleared by fire. Radiolab had a cool podcast about how this was discovered by an NCSU scientist.
Or of the tale of Umstead State Park, whose verdant forests were created by none other than the federal government from worn-out farmland.
Anyways, something to keep in mind when you hear NIMBYs yell and shout about how greedy developers are viciously vaporizing all of our precious virgin woods. Usually, those are 30-40 year old loblolly pines (much younger than the NIMBYs!) which grow just about anywhere. Even when there are champion oaks, those are often “field oaks” – planted or nurtured by humans at the edge of farms and therefore given much more space and sun than forest trees. They only grew that big because