Passive Management for Old Growth Restoration

Passive management for old growth restoration is simple. In many cases, natural ecological processes and time are all that are required to bring old growth into being (Trombulak 1996).  Protection from extractive utilization by humans will likely allow most second-growth forests in the southern Appalachians to mature into old growth over a 150-400 year timespan (Trombulak 1996). Passive restoration of old growth on public land through the establishment of parks, wilderness areas, and research natural areas has been going on for a long time. Old growth restoration using passive management is likely to succeed if society is willing to accept whatever old-growth forest ecosystems result.

Unfortunately, the impact of past extractive utilization of the forest, climatic change, exotic disturbance agents (such as bittersweet and high density deer populations), and protection from the occurrence of historic fire patterns may make it unlikely that historically representative old-growth forests can be restored using passive management alone.  In such cases, various active management practices might be attempted.