Michigan Forest Communities - Michigan Association of ...

INTRODUCTION
Forests are continually changing, usually slowly, but sometimes abruptly. Here a tornado was the
instrument of change.
The extremes of this continuum are
striking—only 21 percent of the southern
Lower Peninsula is occupied by
patchy woods and wetland corridors,
whereas 88 percent of the western
Upper Peninsula is covered by extensive,
largely unbroken forests.
Today’s forests are different in more
than extent from those that provided
food, shelter, fuel, and a host of other
benefits to the state’s native people and
then to the European immigrants who
dispossessed them. Most of our current
forests are relatively young, having
regrown following the devastating, century-long
period of logging and fire that
began about the time Michigan became
a state in 1837. Many of these secondgrowth
forests have been harvested
again, with a third-growth underway.
Thus, ancient or old-growth forests,
which were common two centuries ago,
now are rare. Many of the magnificent
pine forests of yesteryear have been
replaced with woodlands dominated by
aspen or oaks. Open savanna forests
and barrens have virtually disappeared.
Yet in spite of these changes, Michigan’s
forests remain robust and incredibly
diverse. In fact, Michigan contains more
vegetation types than any other state in
the Midwest (Faber-Langendoen 2001).
Although changes in the state’s forest
cover over the past two centuries
are largely due to human action, they
illustrate an important ecological principle
that would hold even if no humans
occupied Michigan’s pleasant peninsulas:
forests are dynamic, not static.
Thus, we can sustain and protect
forests, but we cannot preserve them.
Preservation implies retaining something
in a facsimile of its present condition,
such as canning a peach or freezing
a salmon. In fact, changes will occur
in our favorite woods whether we like it
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