The Health of Forests Ecosystems – The Smokey Bear Campaign

The Health of Forests Ecosystems – The Smokey Bear Campaign

The Smokey Bear campaign aimed to eliminate all wildfires from forests in America. This campaign was wildly successful as forests significantly decreased to almost none. However, as it turns out, this was a recipe for disaster. Natural fires are part of the ecosystem and serve several benefits to the ecosystem. The Smokey Bear campaign reduced the number of forest fires, which meant that the plants in the forests continued to grow over the years, leading to overgrowth. Further, more species grew in the same forests, choking up forests with shrubs, trees, weeds, and grass. All this overgrowth not only continued to degrade the soil in the forest but also created fire hazards that could destroy the whole forest if a fire were to occur.

Fire is crucial in managing an ecosystem because it clears out excessive growth, cleans the dead decaying matter off the forest floor, and removes some species. While this may be harmful to said species, it also helps in making sure that the resources available are sustainable and helps with new growth as the sun reaches the soil. In addition, the burnt debris helps nourish the soil, nourishing the remaining plants after a fire. Further, without occasional fires, there would be overgrowth. If a fire takes place by chance, this accumulated overgrowth would mean a bigger fire, which could damage the whole forest, leaving nothing behind.

According to National Geographic, fire has always been part of nature, and as such, nature has evolved with it (National Geographic Society, 2022). Some plants and animals depend on occasional fires for ecological balance. For example, some pine trees depend on fire to help burn their seeds’ shells so they can start germinating. Also, wildfires clear out dead and decaying matter from forests, which, upon accumulation, could prevent new growth of plants and restrict the survival of organisms beneficial to the soil. Remarkably, some animals also depend entirely on fire to survive. For instance, the caterpillar of the endangered Karner blue butterfly only feeds on wild lupine, which in turn requires fire to maintain an ecosystem equilibrium in which it can grow (National Geographic Society, 2022).

Further, wildfires serve to clear excessive bushes, weeds, and other plants so that many plants do not overwhelm the land. Lastly, fires also help eliminate evasive species, which threaten other species in the area that have been around and are used to the fire (Withgott & Brennan, 2009). By preventing wildfires through the Smokey Bear campaign, all these benefits of fire to the ecosystem were stopped, which put the forest at risk of evasive species, overgrowth, and dying plants due to various factors listed above. Further, eventually, new growth in the forests would be hard to come by due to dead decaying matter on the ground, all of which could destroy the whole forest.

The best alternative to fire suppression is intentionally setting fires that can be managed. Firefighters could be allocated the duty of setting fires in forests at low controlled rates so that they do not get out of hand (Merino et al., 2012). These small fires could serve the purpose of natural wildfires, benefit the ecosystem, and prevent disasters caused by fire suppression, as explained above.

References

Merino, L., Caballero, F., Martínez-de-Dios, J. R., Maza, I., & Ollero, A. (2012). An unmanned aircraft system for automatic forest fire monitoring and measurement. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 65, 533-548.

National Geographic Society (2022). “The Ecological Benefits of Fire”. National Geographic. Accessed from: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ecological-benefits-fire

Withgott, J., & Brennan, S. R. (2009). Essential environment: The science behind the stories (p. 480). San Francisco, CA: Pearson.

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The Health of Forests Ecosystems – The Smokey Bear Campaign

How has the Smokey the Bear campaign, which attempted to eliminate wildfires from forested areas altogether, damaged forest health? What is the importance of fire in ecosystem management? What is the cost of fire suppression for ecosystem health? What is the alternative to fire suppression?

Essential Environment: The Science Behind the Stories
Jay Withgott & Matthew Laposata, 2018
Pearson
ISBN.13: 978-0-134-71488-2