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60-455: To ascertain and protect environmentally important forest areas that are threatened by conversion to nonforest uses Development of the nation's forested areas poses an increasing threat to maintaining the integrity of our country's valuable forest lands. Intact forest lands supply timber products, wildlife habitat, soil and watershed protection, aesthetics, and recreational opportunities. However, as these areas are fragmented and disappear, so do

120-471: A coarse scale, typically no finer than 1:16 million. The IFL mapping initiatives differ from these by using the IFL definition mentioned above, by using information from satellites in addition to other sources, and by producing results at a much finer scale, approximately 1:1 million. The first regional IFL map was presented by Greenpeace Russia in 2001, covering northern European Russia. The report also contains

180-414: A compartmentalized world, consisting of neatly and tightly sealed, autonomous 'space envelopes' (the home, the city, and nature) was, in fact, a messy socio-spatial continuum". And William Cronon argues against the idea of wilderness because it "involves a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural" and affirms that "wildness (as opposed to wilderness) can be found anywhere" even "in

240-529: A complete description of the IFL concept and the mapping algorithm. A number of regional IFL maps were presented in 2002–2006, using similar methods, by a group of scientists and environmental non-governmental organizations under the framework of Global Forest Watch , an initiative of the World Resources Institute . Using the same method, a global IFL map was prepared in 2005–2006 under the leadership of Greenpeace, with contributions from

300-484: A distinct relationship with the FLP. Because of their compatible interest in protecting land for conservation purposes, land trusts can be a primary contact with landowners to negotiate the purchase of conservation easements and to monitor the conservation easements once they are enrolled in the FLP. Lands acquired by or donated to land trusts may be counted toward the non-Federal cost-share amount of total program costs, provided

360-589: A forest land base. Hold and administering the lands or interests in land that enter the Forest Legacy Program. Monitor tracts for program compliance. The State Forest Stewardship Coordinating Committee Role The State Forest Stewardship Coordinating Committee is identified in the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act. The committee's consulting and recommending duties for the Forest Legacy Program are identified in

420-451: A greater role in implementing the program. FLP also encourages partnerships with local governments and land trusts, recognizing the important contributions landowners, communities and private organizations make to conservation efforts. Intact forest landscape An intact forest landscape ( IFL ) is an unbroken natural landscape of a forest ecosystem and its habitat – plant community components, in an extant forest zone. An IFL

480-405: A landscape, has been further complicated by the discovery of global warming and how it is changing natural landscapes. Also important is a reaction recently amongst scholars against dualistic thinking about nature and culture. Maria Kaika comments: "Nowadays, we are beginning to see nature and culture as intertwined once again – not ontologically separated anymore […].What I used to perceive as

540-474: A more natural landscape. It was founded in 1914, and is one of the earliest national parks in Europe. Visitors are not allowed to leave the motor road, or paths through the park, make fire or camp. The only building within the park is Chamanna Cluozza, mountain hut . It is also forbidden to disturb the animals or the plants, or to take home anything found in the park. Dogs are not allowed. Due to these strict rules,

600-483: A natural landscape was first developed in connection with landscape painting , though the actual term itself was first used in relation to landscape gardening . In both cases it was used to contrast a formal style with a more natural one, that is closer to nature. Chunglin Kwa suggests, "that a seventeenth-century or early-eighteenth-century pen could experience natural scenery 'just like on a painting,’ and so, with or without

660-479: A negotiated set of property rights from one party to another, without removing the property from private ownership. Most FLP conservation easements restrict development, require sustainable forestry practices, and protect other values. The Forest Legacy Program is a partnership between participating States and the USDA Forest Service to identify and protect environmentally important forest land that

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720-489: A primary practitioner in maintaining the forest land base by implementing management activities to conserve the values for which the land entered the program. Forest Legacy complements private, federal and state programs focusing on conservation in two ways. First, FLP directly supports property acquisition. Additionally, FLP supports efforts to acquire donated conservation easements. FLP funded acquisitions serve public purposes identified by participating states and agreed to by

780-416: A pristine natural or "primitive" landscape is a myth, and it now realised that people have been changing the natural into a cultural landscape for a long while, and that there are few places untouched in some way from human influence. The earlier conservation policies were now seen as cultural interventions. The idea of what is natural and what artificial or cultural, and how to maintain the natural elements in

840-460: A useful tool for making, implementing, and monitoring policy in the realms of sustainable forest management, conservation and climate, as shown by the following examples. The distinction between intact and non-intact forest landscapes can be used to account for losses of carbon from forest degradation, as proposed by Mollicone, et al. The global IFL map provides a geographically explicit baseline with several advantages: Conservation of large IFLs

900-511: Is a natural environment with no signs of significant human activity or habitat fragmentation , and of sufficient size to contain, support, and maintain the complex of indigenous biodiversity of viable populations of a wide range of genera and species , and their ecological effects . IFLs are estimated to cover 23 percent of forest ecosystems (13.1 million km ). Two biomes hold almost all of these IFLs: dense tropical and subtropical forests (45 percent) and boreal forests (44 percent), while

960-449: Is a robust and cost-effective way to protect biodiversity and maintain ecological integrity and should therefore be an important component of a global conservation strategy. The remoteness and large size of these areas provide the best guarantee for their continued intactness. Withdrawing remaining intact areas from the production base would lead to small or negligible economic loss. Russian NGOs have, for example, used IFL maps to argue that

1020-436: Is a therefore a task of global importance. Several attempts have been made since the 1990s to map the remaining extent of large natural forests. At the global level, these include: wilderness area maps by McCloskey and Spalding; human footprint map by Sanderson, et al.; and frontier forests map by Bryant, et al. These efforts have generally combined already existing maps and information to identify areas of low human impact at

1080-416: Is acted upon by human culture . The natural landscape and the cultural landscape are separate parts of the landscape. However, in the 21st century, landscapes that are totally untouched by human activity no longer exist, so that reference is sometimes now made to degrees of naturalness within a landscape. In Silent Spring (1962) Rachel Carson describes a roadside verge as it used to look: "Along

1140-629: Is estimated that the planet has lost seven percent of its IFLs since 2000. The term "intact forest landscape" was developed by a group of environmental non-governmental organizations including Greenpeace , the World Resources Institute , Biodiversity Conservation Center, International Socio-Ecological Union, and Transparent World. IFL has been used in regional and global forest monitoring projects such as Intact-Forests.org, and in scientific forest ecology research. The concept of an intact forest landscape and its technical definition were developed to help create, implement, and monitor policies concerning

1200-639: Is therefore high, although it varies among regions. At the same time the cost of conserving large unpopulated areas is often low. The same factors that have kept them from being developed, such as remoteness and low economic value, also help to reduce the cost of protecting them. Several international initiatives to protect forest biodiversity ( CBD ), to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation ( IGBP , REDD ), and to stimulate use of sustainable forest management practices ( FSC ) require that large natural forest areas be preserved. Mapping, conservation and monitoring of intact forest landscapes

1260-432: Is threatened by conversion to nonforest uses. Conservation easements are the primary tool used to achieve this goal. Priority is given to lands that have important scenic or recreational values; riparian areas ; fish and wildlife values, including threatened and endangered species ; or other ecological values. The program helps States and regions identify important forest areas. When conservation easements are used,

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1320-779: The Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland , with a low population density, only " the high summits of the Cairngorm Mountains , consist entirely of natural elements. These high summits are of course only part of the Cairngorms, and there are no longer wolves, bears, wild boar or lynx in Scotland's wilderness. The Scots pine in the form of the Caledonian forest also covered much more of the Scottish landscape than today. The Swiss National Park , however, represent

1380-498: The FSC Controlled Wood standard. Several retailers, including IKEA and Lowe's, have committed not to use wood from IFLs unless intactness values are preserved. Others, such as Bank of America , invest only in companies that maintain such values. These companies use regional IFL maps to implement their policies. Natural landscape A natural landscape is the original landscape that exists before it

1440-569: The Forest Stewardship Council is analogous to that of IFLs. The formulation used in the Canadian and Russian national FSC standards—globally, nationally, or regionally significant forest landscapes, un-fragmented by permanent infrastructure and of a size to maintain viable populations of most species—calls for IFL maps for implementation. IFLs are directly mentioned among other categories of High Conservation Value Forest in

1500-506: The cultural landscape . Then in 1908 geographer Otto Schlüter developed the terms original landscape ( Urlandschaft ) and its opposite cultural landscape ( Kulturlandschaft ) in an attempt to give the science of geography a subject matter that was different from the other sciences. An early use of the actual phrase "natural landscape" by a geographer can be found in Carl O. Sauer 's paper "The Morphology of Landscape" (1925). The concept of

1560-570: The geographer Otto Schlüter , in 1908, argued that by defining geography as a Landschaftskunde (landscape science) would give geography a logical subject matter shared by no other discipline. He defined two forms of landscape: the Urlandschaft (original landscape) or landscape that existed before major human induced changes and the Kulturlandschaft (cultural landscape) a landscape created by human culture. Schlüter argued that

1620-546: The wild turkey depend upon variegation of tree ages and sizes for its optimal sub-canopy flight; forests that have been managed for even aged composition fail to achieve abundance values of the wild turkey and many other organisms. Large natural forest areas are also important for maintaining ecological processes and supplying ecosystem services like water and air purification, nutrient cycling , carbon sequestration , erosion and flood control . The conservation value of forest landscapes that are free from human disturbance

1680-487: The Biodiversity Conservation Center, International Socio-Ecological Union, Transparent World (Russia), Finnish Nature League, Forest Watch Indonesia, and Global Forest Watch . The global IFL map relies on publicly available high spatial resolution satellite imagery provided by Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) and USGS and on a simple and consistent set of criteria. The IFL concept is

1740-467: The Forest Legacy Program, the Federal government helps State and local governments look beyond their political boundaries to identify important forest areas. The Federal government provides oversight, and financial and technical assistance to help protect important forests. The State role States integrate partner resources to cooperatively protect and maintain a forest land base. The lead agency, usually

1800-715: The State chooses to select the State Grant Option as authorized by the 1996 Farm Bill. When the Federal government holds the easement, State or local units of government agree to administer the lands or interests in lands. The lands and interests are held in perpetuity. There is no loss of the Federal investment resulting from change of ownership. Forest Stewardship Plans that meet the landowner's objectives for natural resource management are prepared on all privately owned tracts. The tracts acquired can remain "working forests" and can forever provide forest resources to meet

1860-569: The State forestry organization, carries out the FLP in the State. Responsibilities include the following: Collect information to identify and delineate important forest areas that may be selected as Forest Legacy Areas. Consult with the State Forest Stewardship Coordinating Committee to achieve program purposes. Address land protection and forest management issues. Conduct land acquisition activities Integrate policies and incentives to conserve

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1920-694: The Swiss National Park is the only park in the Alps who has been categorized by the IUCN as a strict nature reserve , which is the highest protection level. No place on the Earth is unaffected by people and their culture. People are part of biodiversity , but human activity affects biodiversity, and this alters the natural landscape. Mankind have altered landscape to such an extent that few places on earth remain pristine, but once free of human influences,

1980-494: The act and the FLP guidelines, and include the following: Prioritize lands for inclusion in the FLP. Establish eligibility criteria and recommends Forest Legacy Areas in the Assessment of Need process. Advise the State lead agency in order to achieve Forest Legacy Program objectives. The Nongovernmental Organization (Land Trust) Role Nongovernmental organizations, specifically land trusts or similar organizations, have

2040-484: The benefits they provide. While local governments commonly guide development away from the most sensitive areas through traditional land use controls (like zoning and performance standards), sometimes these measures are not sufficient to fully protect the forested component of our natural resource base. The Forest Legacy Program (FLP), a federal program in partnership with states, supports state efforts to protect environmentally sensitive forest lands. Designed to encourage

2100-473: The concept of a frontier forest as has been used by the World Resources Institute . Most of the world’s original forests have either been lost to conversion or altered by logging and forest management. Forests that still combine large size with insignificant human influence are becoming increasingly important as their global extent continues to shrink. Ecosystems are generally better able to support their natural biological diversity and ecological processes

2160-407: The concept of what might constitute a natural landscape can still be deduced from the context. The phrase "natural landscape" was first used in connection with landscape painting , and landscape gardening , to contrast a formal style with a more natural one, closer to nature. Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) was to further conceptualize this into the idea of a natural landscape separate from

2220-468: The conservation easement acquisition. The federal government may fund up to 75% of program costs, with at least 25% coming from private, state or local sources. In addition to gains associated with the sale or donation of property rights, many landowners also benefit from reduced taxes associated with limits placed on land use. The USDA Forest Service administers the Forest Legacy Program in cooperation with State Foresters. The state grant option allows states

2280-459: The cracks of a Manhattan sidewalk." According to Cronon we have to "abandon the dualism that sees the tree in the garden as artificial […] and the tree in the wilderness as natural […] Both in some ultimate sense are wild." Here he bends somewhat the regular dictionary meaning of wild, to emphasise that nothing natural, even in a garden, is fully under human control. The landscape of Europe has considerably altered by people and even in an area, like

2340-470: The fact that the words nature and natural have more than one meaning. On the one hand there is the main dictionary meaning for nature: "The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations." On the other hand, there is the growing awareness, especially since Charles Darwin , of humanities biological affinity with nature. The dualism of

2400-517: The first definition has its roots is an "ancient concept", because early people viewed "nature, or the nonhuman world […] as a divine Other , godlike in its separation from humans." In the West , Christianity's myth of the fall , that is the expulsion of humankind from the Garden of Eden , where all creation lived in harmony, into an imperfect world, has been the major influence. Cartesian dualism , from

2460-886: The human impact on forest landscapes at the regional or country levels. Technically, an IFL is defined as an area which contains forest and non-forest ecosystems minimally influenced by human economic activity, with an area of at least 500 km (50,000 ha) and a minimal width of 10 km (measured as the diameter of a circle that is entirely inscribed within the boundaries of the territory). Areas with evidence of certain types of human influence are considered "disturbed" and not eligible for inclusion in an IFL: Areas with evidence of low intensity and old disturbances are treated as subject to “background” influence and are eligible for inclusion in an IFL. Sources of background influence include local shifting cultivation activities, diffuse grazing by domesticated animals, low-intensity selective logging and hunting. This definition builds on and refines

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2520-444: The interests in lands contribute to the goals of the Forest Legacy Program and the lands are located within a Forest Legacy Area. The Landowner Role Landowner participation in the FLP is voluntary. A landowner joins the program either by conveying interests in lands to achieve the conservation objectives of the FLP or by purchasing or inheriting land that has already been committed to an FLP conservation easement. The landowner becomes

2580-468: The land remains privately owned. Other tools include full-fee purchase, voluntary deed restrictions, covenants, and agreements. The program is based on a "willing seller and willing buyer" concept. State and local partners select priority tracts in cooperation with the Forest Service. The interests in land may be held by the Federal government, or by the State or a unit of local government if

2640-410: The land was becoming more and more domesticated and wildlife was disappearing. This led to the creation of American National Parks and other conservation sites. Initially it was believed that all that was needed to do was to separate what was seen as natural landscape and "avoid disturbances such as logging, grazing, fire and insect outbreaks." This, and subsequent environmental policy, until recently,

2700-543: The landowner. On May 18, 2009 US Forest Service chief announced land grants to protect more than 5,000 acres (20 km) of forest in northern Vermont. The land is going to be conserved with the help of a $ 1.8 million under the Eden Forest project. Participation in Forest Legacy is limited to private forest landowners. To qualify, landowners are required to prepare a multiple resource management plan as part of

2760-474: The landscape can return to a natural or near natural state. Even the remote Yukon and Alaskan wilderness, the bi-national Kluane-Wrangell-St. Elias-Glacier Bay-Tatshenshini-Alsek park system comprising Kluane , Wrangell-St Elias , Glacier Bay and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks, a UNESCO World Heritage Site , is not free from human influence, because the Kluane National Park lies within

2820-450: The landscape. Cultural landscapes are places or artifacts created and maintained by people. Examples of cultural intrusions into a landscape are: fences, roads, parking lots, sand pits, buildings, hiking trails, management of plants, including the introduction of invasive species , extraction or removal of plants, management of animals, mining, hunting, natural landscaping , farming and forestry, pollution. Areas that might be confused with

2880-748: The lower their exposure to humans and the greater their area. They are also better able to absorb and recover from disturbance (resistance and resilience). Fragmentation and loss of natural habitats are the main factors threatening plant and animal species with extinction . Forest biodiversity largely depends on intact forest landscapes. Large roaming animals (such as forest elephants, great apes, bears, wolves, tigers, jaguars, eagles, deer, etc.) especially require that intact forest landscapes be preserved. Loss of natural habitat can occur through introduction of forest monoculture or by even aged timber management , which are also destructive of biodiversity and wildlife abundance. For example, many wildlife species such as

2940-408: The major task of geography was to trace the changes in these two landscapes. The term natural landscape is sometimes used as a synonym for wilderness , but for geographers natural landscape is a scientific term which refers to the biological , geological , climatological and other aspects of a landscape, not the cultural values that are implied by the word wilderness. Matters are complicated by

3000-426: The most valuable of the remaining intact natural landscapes of northern European Russia and Far East be preserved, and to propose several new national parks: Kutsa and Hibiny (Murmansk Region), Kalevalsky (Karelia Republic) and Onezhskoye Pomorye (Arkhangelsk Region). Several boreal countries are using the IFL concept in the context of forest certification. One of the categories of High Conservation Value Forest used by

3060-474: The needs of the local community and the Nation The Federal role The significance of the public benefits of a particular forest ranges from local to national. Larger forests tend to be nationally significant because the values they provide are becoming more rare. Extensive forest areas are often subject to the additional challenge of multiple ownerships and numerous political jurisdictions. Through

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3120-444: The proportion of IFLs in temperate broadleaf and mixed forests is very small. IFLs remain in 66 of the 149 countries that could potentially have them. Three of these countries, Canada , Russia , and Brazil , contain 64 percent of the total IFL area in the world. Nineteen percent of the global IFL area is under some form of protection, but only 10 percent is strictly protected, i.e., belongs to IUCN protected areas categories I–III. It

3180-411: The protection of privately owned forest lands, FLP is an entirely voluntary program. To maximize the public benefits it achieves, the program focuses on the acquisition of partial interests in privately owned forest lands. FLP helps the states develop and carry out their forest conservation plans. It encourages and supports the acquisition of conservation easements , legally binding agreements transferring

3240-568: The regular forms of the geometric mode ... would evidently be in violent opposition to the whole character and expression of natural landscape". In his extensive travels in South America, Alexander von Humboldt became the first to conceptualize a natural landscape separate from the cultural landscape, though he does not actually use these terms. Andrew Jackson Downing was aware of, and sympathetic to, Humboldt's ideas, which therefore influenced American landscape gardening. Subsequently,

3300-407: The roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year" and then how it looks now following the use of herbicides : "The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire". Even though the landscape before it is sprayed is biologically degraded, and may well contains alien species,

3360-504: The seventeenth century on, further reinforced this dualistic thinking about nature. With this dualism goes value judgement as to the superiority of the natural over the artificial . Modern science, however, is moving towards a holistic view of nature. What is meant by natural, within the American conservation movement , has been changing over the last century and a half. In the mid-nineteenth century American began to realize that

3420-698: The traditional territories of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations and Kluane First Nation who have a long history of living in this region. Through their respective Final Agreements with the Canadian Government, they have made into law their rights to harvest in this region. Through different intervals of time, the process of natural landscapes have been shaped by a series of landforms , mostly due to its factors, including tectonics , erosion , weathering and vegetation . Cultural forces intentionally or unintentionally, have an influence upon

3480-493: The use of the word itself, designate it as a landscape." With regard to landscape gardening John Aikin, commented in 1794: "Whatever, therefore, there be of novelty in the singular scenery of an artificial garden, it is soon exhausted, whereas the infinite diversity of a natural landscape presents an inexhaustible flore of new forms". Writing in 1844 the prominent American landscape gardener Andrew Jackson Downing comments: "straight canals, round or oblong pieces of water, and all

3540-575: Was inadequate to preserve park values", and that is that direct human intervention was necessary to restore the landscape of National Parks to its ‘'natural'’ condition. In 1963 the Leopold Report argued that "A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America". This policy change eventually led to the restoration of wolves in Yellowstone Park in the 1990s. However, recent research in various disciplines indicates that

3600-482: Was influenced by ideas of the wilderness. However, this policy was not consistently applied, and in Yellowstone Park , to take one example, the existing ecology was altered, firstly by the exclusion of Native Americans and later with the virtual extermination of the wolf population. A century later, in the mid-twentieth century, it began to be believed that the earlier policy of "protection from disturbance

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