Synthesis and Conclusions from Studies of Southern Commercial Pines

Abstract

In 1985, when the Southern Commercial Forest Research Cooperative was initiated, regional, national, and international concerns about the vitality of forests were emerging. Beginning in the late 1970’s in Europe there had been reports of unhealthy forests, and by the early 1980s, 20 to 25% of these forests were classified as moderately or severely damaged from unknown causes (Schulze, 1989). Perhaps no European forests were so severely impacted as in Germany, where Waldsterben or “forest decline”became a focal point of international concern. In 1986, visible symptoms of damage were identified in over one half of the West German forests. These symptoms were primarily in older trees and consisted mostly of chlorotic leaves and premature leaf senescence (Krzak et al., 1988). As the intensity of forest surveys increased, damage appeared even more widespread and varied (Blank et al., 1988). Eventually in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, the amount of reported damage would stabilize (Schulze, 1989), but at the time of the initiation of the Southern Commercial Forest Research Cooperative, the health of European forests appeared to be declining rapidly. The European scientific community focused its attention on the possibility that air pollutants were the causal agents responsible for the damage, which by then was being called neuartige Waldschaden (i.e., new types of forest damage).

Identification of the possible is an intellectual, abstract activity called “logic,” identification of the probable is an empirical, applied activity termed “science,” R.H. Peters, 1991, p 18.