by Greg Hoch
The conservation community does a lot of habitat work that benefits wildlife. That wildlife may be prairie grouse in grasslands, ducks in wetlands or ruffed grouse and woodcock in forests. We restore, protect and enhance habitat. We fundraise and lobby to support these efforts. And, of course, the work we do for these birds benefits hundreds of other wildlife species.
Some might see this as work we’re doing only for the birds, and so that our dogs can point or flush them each fall. However, that’d be a very shortsighted view.
Conversations with friends and colleagues who hunt are easy. We speak the same language and have the same interests: dogs, birds, habitats and so on. All of us also have friends and colleagues who don’t hunt. How do we communicate the importance of wildlife habitat to them? Why should they care? What’s in it for them? As it turns out, there are lots of benefits for everyone when it comes to wildlife habitat. These benefits fall under the general category of ecosystem services.
If you’ve ever been caught out in the open during a rainstorm, you know that the rain can come down pretty hard on head, shoulders and back. If there’s any bare soil in the area, all those raindrops hitting the soil surface loosen soil particles and potentially cause erosion. If the water comes down faster than the bare or compacted soil can absorb it, the water will run off horizontally, adding to the erosion. Even more water will run off when the rain hits developed surfaces like cement or asphalt. All that water rushing into ditches, creeks and rivers can cause downstream flooding.
Compare that to a walk in the woods when it starts to rain. You first hear the raindrops hitting the top of the tree canopy. The water collects on those leaves and drops onto lower leaves, and then the leaves below those. After a couple minutes you feel the first drops on your head and shoulders and see rivulets of rain running down some of the tree trunks. However, that water’s lost all its speed and energy.
The water that gets to the ground falls on the leaf litter before getting to the soil. From there, the soil quickly absorbs the water. Below the leaf litter, roots are constantly growing, dying and leaving channels in the soil. Insects’ and worms’ burrows create more channels for water to infiltrate. Together, this creates a very porous soil that quickly absorbs the water when it rains.
A lot of the water doesn’t even reach the soil. Walk into an aspen forest right after a rain and you’re soon soaked from all the water clinging to the leaves and stems.
From the soil, water percolates down into the groundwater or is captured by tree, shrub and wildflower roots and pumped upward to leaves over the following weeks. The water caught on the leaves will just evaporate over the next couple hours. What the water doesn’t do is quickly run horizontally, scour the soil surface, cause erosion or rush into creeks and rivers to cause immediate flooding downstream.
The reason plants pull water from the soil is to help them perform photosynthesis. Photosynthesis uses light energy to absorb carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen. Habitat restoration and enhancement can be key factors in keeping the air healthy to breathe and slowing the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.
Forests, grasslands and wetlands moderate the extremes in weather. These habitats capture water during the wet times when it rains or the snow melts and reduce downstream flood damage. They then slowly release that stored water into lakes, creeks and rivers during the dry times. Many people have compared forest soils to a sponge because they soak up water so quickly. Natural habitats keep the wet times drier and the dry times wetter.
Ecclesiastes (1:7) reminds us that there’s nothing new under the sun: “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” In the early 1800s, Alexander von Humboldt wrote: “When forests are destroyed…the beds of the rivers, remaining dry during a part of the year, are converted into torrents, whenever great rains fall…the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded in their course; and instead of slowly augmenting the levels of the river by progressive filtration, they…form those sudden inundations that devastate the country.” In his 1864 book Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh expanded these same concepts. So, these aren’t new ideas.
Another related topic can be tied to the word “filtration” in Humboldt’s passage. Forests, grasslands and wetlands are all very good at filtering out sediment and many chemical pollutants. When water slows down, sediment drops out of the water. Bacteria, insects and plants break down or absorb many chemicals that could cause problems downstream.
As we learn more, we can be more specific with our habitat work. Conservation efforts in one area may restore habitat. That same effort on a groundwater recharge zone or wellhead protection area can help protect drinking water for nearby towns, businesses and homeowners.
That’s what New York City did more than a century ago. To protect the city’s water supply, they could’ve invested in massive infrastructure projects. What they did was protect upstream watersheds.
Economists and land managers have worked together in recent years to assign dollar values to all these benefits. A recent study by The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota found that reforestation in specific parts of the state could generate $32 billion annually in benefits.
Not all those forests make prime woodcock and grouse coverts, so the best grouse habitat will be some fraction of $32 billion. But that’s just one state. Multiplying those habitat acres throughout the Great Lakes states, New England and the Appalachians would produce a much larger dollar value. Then add overwintering woodcock habitat in the southern states and the dollar values go up even more.
Add to those dollars timber harvests to keep early successional forests young and healthy. Then add all the dollars hunters spend each fall. The numbers really add up!
COVID was a global tragedy. However, it did show many people the value of spending time in the natural world, for both their physical and mental health. Of course, many of us have known that for decades. Taking a walk with gun, binoculars or camera, is another important value of forests, wetlands and grasslands, although perhaps more difficult to put an exact dollar figure on.
We can’t overpromise on any of this. There have always been floods and droughts and always will be. However, well-planned habitat conservation can take the edge off the extremes.
Let’s go back to that first sentence. “The conservation community does a lot of habitat work that benefits wildlife.” We can expand that idea: The conservation community does a lot of habitat work that benefits wildlife and people. With that idea, we’ve a new story to tell to a large audience beyond the conservation community. We also have a way to show people the importance of conservation work to them. Together, that could help conservation gain a much larger base of support. Conservation needs all the friends it can get, and these ideas offer one way to have new conversations. Once they’re onboard and excited about habitat work, ask them if they’d like to take a walk through the aspens with you and the dog some fall afternoon.
Learn more about how you can support RGS & AWS’s sustainable habitat management work.
