FALL NEWS - Environmental & Open Space Commission

Our Forests: Past, Present, and Future

If you take a moment to think about what most of our forests here in Lebanon Township looked like before European settlers came and harvested most of it, what would it look like? Do you picture forests like today but with bigger and older trees? Or do you imagine giant trees, dense canopies, and lots of moss, like in photos of old-growth forests from the Pacific Northwest?

If so, you’re not alone - many people tend to think the forests of northern NJ, before European settlers arrived, consisted of a lot of really large old trees growing closely together, essentially a closed canopy of old-growth forest blanketing almost all of northern NJ. While there were larger and older trees back then, the structure of those forests were very different from what we might imagine.

Open-canopy oak forest in northern NJ with about 20 mature trees per acre and lots of native young trees and shrubs.

Photo Credit: Sharon Petzinger

The earliest records from settlers in New Jersey reported many open woodlands with 10 – 30 trees per acre. Long Island had large natural prairies and savannahs. There was a bird called the heath hen that thrived in grasslands and shrubby areas and was once abundant in NJ before it became extinct. The open woodlands resulted from severe storms, like strong hurricanes, that would topple the majority of large trees every 85-150 years. Lightning and the native Lenape tribe in our area ignited fires which would then keep the forest canopies, grasslands, and shrublands open. For the Lenape, these open areas were great for hunting as well as gathering acorns and berries.

As a result of nature and the work of indigenous tribes, our forests have been dominated by oak trees for the last 10,000 years. Oaks need sunlight to grow and reproduce, and young oak trees don’t grow well after the canopy closes in. They can also survive most wildfires and re-sprout if the fires become too intense. The disturbance to the forests by hurricanes and fires created and maintained the open canopies that allowed oaks to flourish. Researchers estimate that, before European settlers arrived, less than 7% of all the forests in northern NJ were like the old growth forests we imagine – the rest were open-canopy forests containing small and arge trees mixed with grasslands and shrublands containing scattered trees.

Today, most of our forests still have oak trees but the canopies are closed and young oaks cannot grow well. Instead, more shade-tolerant trees like maple, birch, and beech are growing underneath the shaded oak canopy. Next time you walk through the woods, look around at the smaller trees to see how many young oak trees you can find and compare that with the number of maple or beech trees.

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If left alone, this forest will no longer be an oak forest as the maples, beeches, and birches take over the forest canopy. Add to that Lebanon Township’s large deer population, which will eat almost anything within reach (except barberry), and invasive plants like barberry which will choke out young trees, and our oak forests are in trouble if we choose to do nothing.

Why does this matter? Because trees like maples and beeches don’t do as well as oaks during hot, dry summers like the one we just had, and with beech leaf disease now present in Lebanon Township, beech trees will start dying just like our ash trees. Also, so many wildlife species depend on oak trees. Take birds, for instance, which are used by researchers to help assess wildlife habitat conditions. Almost 3 billion individual birds have been lost in North America since 1970, mostly because of habitat, and the majority of the forest birds declining in NJ are those that need forests with open canopies and native shrubs. Most forest birds rely on caterpillars to feed their chicks, and oak trees host the majority of caterpillar species. Chicks also need cover after they leave the nest to hide from predators like hawks and cats, which they can find in thick areas of young trees shrubs that can only grow with a lot of sunlight and not a lot of deer.

We need to start actively taking care of our forests if we want to keep them as oak forests, which is why Lebanon Township has applied for and received a grant to create a master forest stewardship plan for all municipal-owned forests. We want our beautiful forests to be healthy and remain as forests for generations. This can happen if we put in the work to actively take care of them, and then the wildlife will also respond and begin to flourish. On your own property, please encourage hunting deer, putting up fencing, controlling invasive plants, and then consider the possibility of opening up the forest canopy in some areas to let in enough sunlight for young oak trees to grow.

A blue-winged warbler, common to Lebanon Township but

declining & listed as special concern in NJ.

Photo Credit: Sharon Petzinger

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Municipal Building 530 West Hill Rd, Glen Gardner NJ 08826 * (908) 638-8523

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