By Anita Chang
The Associated Press

Foresters say the oak-hickory landscape must be preserved for its historical value and to maintain the health of the forest. This spring, managers at national forests in the eastern part of the country conducted prescribed burns on thousands of acres, helped by legislation signed by President Bush last winter that streamlined the approval process.

"The thing is, the big trees are oak and hickory but as they die the little trees coming in are maples, cherries and poplar, so we don't see a lot of oak-hickory successfully regenerating," said Ricardo Garcia, the natural resources group leader at Wayne National Forest in southern Ohio.

But environmentalists say it hasn't been determined if the maples' spread is just a step in the forest's evolution. They say use of prescribed burns is premature without solid evidence showing that the procedure is effective and doesn't harm forest health.

The oak-hickory forest extends from New York to Georgia and from Virginia to Missouri. European settlers were impressed with the vast old-growth forest that appeared to continue unbroken.

Maples were historically called swamp maples because they mostly grew in boggy areas. Forest managers and some environmentalists say their spread can be attributed, at least in part, to the suppression of fire in forests starting about 1930.

"We decided at that time that fire had no place in the management of the forests and we aggressively began to suppress fire. And we did a really good job of that," said Rex Mann, the timber, wildlife and fire staff officer at Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky.

"And in that time red maple crept out of the wet places and occupied the hilltops, places where it had not previously gone," he said.

Prescribed burns are used to thin and clear forests, killing the brush and undergrowth that can choke the growth of young trees. Burning also removes from the forest floor dried leaves and branches, called fuels, that can become kindling for a forest fire.

Oaks, hickories and their saplings are generally more fire resistant than maples. A fire would kill a maple sapling waiting in the forest understory for an old oak tree to die and open up space in the leafy overstory.

The new legislation, along with the Healthy Forests Initiative of 2002, reduces the amount of documentation required on environmental impact and provides more funding for prescribed burns.

In fiscal year 2000, the Department of Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent $117 million on prescribed burns and fuels reduction; approximately $426 million has been budgeted for work this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

At Wayne National Forest, managers burned close to 600 acres between March and April; the year before, no acreage was burned. At Daniel Boone National Forest, managers burned 15,000 acres this spring, the most ever burned at the forest. Officials hope to increase that acreage to 50,000 per year.

But some activists say there isn't enough research to show that the burns are accomplishing what managers aim to do, and that the process could be damaging - for example, hurting fungi in the soil or killing species, such as certain butterflies and wildflowers, that are not fire tolerant.

"It's not a natural tool, and there's a lot of side effects they don't want to talk about," said Mark Donham, program director of Heartwood, a Bloomington, Ind.-based group that works to protect national forests, particularly in the Midwest.

Environmentalists question whether maintaining the historical makeup of the forest is the real reason for the burns.

"The forest service uses red maples in this part of the country as some kind of boogey-man every time they want to do management activities," said Dave Muhly, a Sierra Club representative for the Appalachia region, based in Bland, Va. "Prescribed burns are often a larger part of management plans that include timber sales."

Timber harvesting is permitted in national forests. The Forest Service takes bids from timber companies.

Some groups say the Forest Service wants to preserve the oak-hickory forest because oak is generally more commercially valuable than maple.

"We need to keep them as honest as can be. The Forest Service is under the Department of Agriculture, and they look at the forest as a crop and they're always looking at the financial end of it," Donham said.

But forest managers say the oak-hickory forest needs to be maintained for the health of the forest, because the trees produce acorns that animals such as deer and wild turkeys feed on.

"We have a huge problem in that we're not able to sustain this oak forest that we depend on so much for wildlife," Mann said.

Whereas the oaks and hickories produce hard acorns, maples produce winged seeds called whirleybirds that aren't as vital of a food source.

Others say money is at the root of that issue, too.

"We call it food for wildlife, but what we really mean is food for the kinds of wildlife that we like to shoot, so we can make money when we sell licenses," said Paul Yambert, a retired forestry professor who was on the faculty at Southern Illinois University.

"The guy who wants to see rare bird species is left out on a limb because he's not likely to be charged when he walks around with his binoculars," he said.

"Anything we do on the national forest is suspect because in the past we've been viewed as great pillagers of the forest," Mann said. "But the fact remains, we have to intervene to improve the health of the forest."