On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Donald Mansius wrote:
> >Can anyone please tell me anything about the origins of the TERM
> >'old-growth'? I guess it originated in the Pacific NorthWest of North
> >America and has become widely adopted in Australia and elsewhere. It does
> Old growth stands have three key elements:
> 1) Age: most trees in the stand are approaching their pathological age.
> A long time has passed since a large-scale disturbance.
> 2) Coarse woody debris: present in large quantities and in large size
> classes.
> 3) Vertical diversity: Tall trees, medium height trees, little trees, the
> latter two size classes filling the gaps where old trees have fallen down
> due to wind, disease, etc.
Unfortunately I cannot answer the original question on the origin of the
term either, but I would like to raise another aspect of the definition.
This definition problem came up in a recent discussion here at Metla:
Often we would need to define are we discussing the age of the forest or
the virginity/naturality of it?
Point (1) above combines both age and scale. Are these always
interconnected? Can we have small-scale forests which could be
called "old-growth"?
Also, we may have managed forests, which are old ("at pathological age")
or very young natural/virgin forests (e.g. after fires), which usually
would not be called "old-growth" according to any of the points 1-3.
The term "old-forest" is in wide use in Finland.
Jarmo Saarikko
Finnish Forest Research Institute METLA, Helsinki Research Centre
Mail converted by
MHonArc 1.1.0