Nature often harms itself

I found it interesting that several sections in this week’s readings focused on how the forests in the Adirondacks are negatively impacted not just by humans but also by nature itself.  Yes it is true that in the last two centuries, most of the damage to the forests has been caused by logging, and clear cutting the forests for charcoal or wood pulp to make paper, but mother nature has done a pretty good job in clearing forests all on her own.  Reading about big storms, forest fires, droughts, and fierce destructive winds and hurricanes that clear hundreds of thousands of acres made me reflect on how vulnerable trees in the Adirondacks really are just to nature itself. 

But unlike the destruction caused by humans, most of the destruction caused by nature can have positive results. For example, McMartin says on page 44 “Windfalls, whether caused by hurricanes, tornados, violent thunderstorms and their accompanying winds, or isolated instances of windthrow of old or dead trees, are responsible for more extensive recycling than diseases and the work of beaver.”  There are several cases in the Adirondacks, where larger and healthier swaths of land have regrown in areas previously destroyed by natural events such as big storms.  I find it really interesting how nature and the wilderness have the abilities to regulate themselves with destruction and regeneration.  This makes me wonder, though, how nature’s regulation process is going to be or has already been disrupted because of human influence and climate change.