By Mark Kolinski
Adapted from “Cumberland Sandstone Glade
Restoration at the William B. Bankhead National Forest
By David Borland, The Nature Conservancy

The 181,000 acres of the William B. Bankhead National Forest accommodate a rich diversity of flora and fauna within a mosaic of unique habitat types. 

The Revised Land and Resource Management Plan, which guides the U.S. Forest Service in managing this rich land- scape, emphasizes restoring and maintaining indigenous forest and plant community types not abundant on private lands in the Southern Cumberland Plateau physiographic region in Alabama.  These communities include eight distinct and rare plant community types, which the Forest Service is charged to inventory, restore, and monitor. 

One of these unique communities is the Cumberland Sandstone Glade and its associate ecotones (areas of transition between the glade and the adjacent forest).  Within the Bankhead, glades are found most commonly on sandstone outcrops just back from canyon rims.  These outcrops can be wet or dry and of varying slopes from gradual to steep.  The conditions that mainly define and shape the glade community are thin to non-existent soil and high sunlight availability.  Typically glades are small (around 3 acres on average) and occur as discontinuous patches, islands surrounded by various woodland communities. Upland forests are usually pine dominated, while lower slopes below the glade are dominated by mixed Northern hardwood species.

In the implementation of the Forest Service’s Forest Health and Restoration Initiative, glades have been recognized as especially important because of the many rare plant species found only in the site specific conditions of the glade environment.  While the steepness of slope, aspect, moisture, and size can markedly influence the assemblage of plant species found on a particular glade, the vegetation on a glade is noticeably quite different from the surrounding forest.  Inventories in the Eastern United States have documented twenty-six species of flora endemic to glades, four of which are federally listed as endangered or threatened.

An initial inventory of glades in the Bankhead National Forest was produced in collaboration with the Alabama National Heritage Program and led by community ecologist Al Schotz, under the direction of Forest Botanist for National Forests in Alabama, Rhonda Stewart; this inventory documented and surveyed nine glades in detail.  This inventory enabled an assessment of current glade conditions in the Bankhead, necessary for developing conservation strategies in the restoration and maintenance of these rare communities.

Generally, the current conditional assessment of the glades is poor to fair, and the inventory established a number of conservation concerns.  The number of woody stems and biomass accumulations both in the glade interiors and surrounding ecotones was found to be excessive, frequently falling outside desirable levels.  Historically, periodic fire has been an essential disturbance for maintaining the open-condition requirements of the glades’ endemic and common plant species.  Exclusion of fire has caused encroachment by loblolly and Virginia pines, shrubs, vines and other woody plants.  Moss and lichens may in some cases be overabundant.  Owing to tree mortality from pine beetle infestations, wind events and droughts in the areas around the glades, downed woody debris cover many glade sites.  The resulting increase in soil accumulation has caused shifts in plant species composition and promoted native and non-native invasive species expansion, commonly including Chinese privet and Japanese honeysuckle.  In some cases the condition of a glade has been adversely affected by direct human impact, such as unauthorized vehicle travel and trash.

In other words, the glades are badly in need of restoration.  U.S. Forest Service resource managers, led by Bankhead wildlife biologist Tom Counts, requested the assistance of Nature Conservancy ecologist Dave Borland in developing ecological restoration plans for the glade communities.  This collaboration identified the principal conservation threats and devised strategies to address them.  The overall goal is to prioritize rehabilitation of multiple large and small glade patches, connecting these where possible and integrating all restored glades into the surrounding woodland or forest ecosystem management processes. 

A sandstone glade near the Cranal Road in the Caney Creek watershed was identified in an area currently active in receiving restoration treatments.  Funding was secured to initiate a pilot project in winter and early spring 2007 to restore this three-acre glade.  A preliminary evaluation of this particular glade was conducted by U. S. Forest Service biologists Tom Counts and Allison Cochran, and ecologists Al Schotz and Dave Borland, accompanied by Wild South staff members Hank Byrnes, Vince Meleski, and Mark Kolinski. Conditions on the glade were typical, exhibiting a buildup of woody debris and excessive recruitment of woody plants, as well as overabundant mosses and lichens.

In implementing the restoration process, Allison Cochran fortuitously arranged for a crew of ten Forest Service fire- fighters to provide assistance in the initial glade cleanup.  The Cherokee Hotshots, a highly skilled wildfire suppression team, spent a rainy day using chainsaws to fell trees and cut up woody debris to be manually removed from the glade.  It was a very labor intensive process.  Restoration plan objectives call for the debris to be relocated beyond twenty meters from the glade ecotones and thoroughly scattered to minimize modifying the behavior of subsequent fires.  A volunteer group of Wild South members and staff assisted Tom and Allison in further removal of woody debris from the glade.  More such work remains to be done, and Wild South volunteers plan to participate, now that weather conditions have moderated.

Removal of woody debris and excessive tree growth has produced improvements in the open structural conditions on the glade in this pilot project.  Significantly, the region has been impacted by late season freezing temperatures and extended severe drought this year, which will be taken into account as this site is monitored.  Vegetative responses will be monitored annually, both qualitatively and through photographic documentation.  An effort will be made by the Forest Service to reintroduce fire into the glades by including them in prescribed burns planned for their surrounding forest resource compartments.  Depending on glade location, some may be burned on three-year rotations, others at ten-year intervals.

As the U.S. Forest Service gets into the meat of its restoration plan for the national forests in Alabama, the Bankhead National Forest is to be commended, for recognizing the importance to regional biodiversity of glades and other rare communities, and for efforts to restore the ecological integrity and function of these unique environments.  In seeking expertise from The Nature Conservancy and the Alabama Natural Heritage Program, and in promoting local community involvement by utilizing the labor of Wild South volunteers, the collaborative nature of this pilot project to restore one of the Bankhead’s glades is a template for success in future restoration work.  It exemplifies adaptive approaches to the ecological restoration of discrete plant communities within a framework of long-term conservation stewardship.