Strategies, tools, and challenges for sustaining and restoring high elevation five-needle white pine forests in western North America

Conference Paper

Development

Many ecologically important, five-needle white pine forests that historically dominated the high elevation landscapes of western North America are now being heavily impacted by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus spp.) outbreaks, the exotic disease white pine blister rust (WPBR), and altered high elevation fire regimes. Management intervention using specially designed strategic treatments will be needed to conserve these keystone species. The goal of this intervention is to promote self-sustaining five-needle white pine ecosystems that have both resilience to disturbances and genetic resistance to white pine blister rust. Many tools and methods are available for land managers. In this paper we outline important steps for implementation of restoration treatments in declining high elevation white pine stands and discuss a number of proactive treatments in threatened ecosystems to mitigate adverse impacts of rust, beetles, and lack of fire. These steps for restoration include (1) create a strategy for restoration across multiple scales, (2) develop materials and techniques for conducting restoration treatments, such as seed collections and rust resistance assessments of the genetic material, (3) prioritize stands or landscapes by integrating the strategy with other management issues, administrative barriers, climate change mitigation, and other local concerns, (4) implement silvicultural cuttings and prescribed fire according to landscape and stand level strategies, (5) conduct activities and assessments to enhance and ensure restoration treatments are effective including planting rust-resistant pine seedlings and protecting valuable seed-sources, and finally (6) monitor treated landscape and stands for effects and adjust and modify future treatment designs accordingly. Examples from whitebark pine ecosystems in the northern Rocky Mountains will be presented to demonstrate this process. For those high elevation white pine ecosystems that are threatened by white pine blister rust or mountain pine beetle, there are actions that can be taken proactively to gain necessary information to evaluate risk and prepared landscapes for invasion to mitigate future impacts. The proactive strategy includes: (1) educate and engage the public and managers to shift from crisis management to management for resiliency, (2) conserve genetic diversity from native populations before they are impacted by WPBR or other stresses, (3) conduct research on patterns, processes and responses of native ecosystems to provide process level understanding of ecosystem behavior and (4) develop and conduct appropriate management activities to increase the resiliency of high elevation five-needle pine ecosystems to prepare them for change. Whether it is restoring impacted landscapes or interventions to mitigate the development of impacts on threatened landscapes, there are two important factors that will govern the success of these species even with comprehensive and effective rangewide strategies: (1) the magnitude of resources available over time to conduct restoration efforts, and (2) the committment of natural resource agencies to conduct restoration activities over the long term, most likely for many decades to centuries.