Duke recognized the addition of 1,220 acres of Duke Forest into the North Carolina Registry of Natural Heritage Areas at the Duke Forest Annual Meeting Oct. 14. The gathering discussed issues that affect the forest’s academic purposes and recognized supporters of the Duke Forest.
Richard Rogers, director of legislative and intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, presented the University with official recognition of the registry agreement to maintain this area, which makes up approximately 17 percent of the Duke Forest’s acreage.
This non-binding agreement between Duke and the state ensures the study of natural processes and communities, along with the study of rare species populations, in an area officials said was at a definite risk of being diminished for logging and other purposes.
The 1,220 registered acres include a rare mixture of mature 200-year-old Oak Hickory Forest, upland swamp forest and low elevation seep habitats, which Judson Edeburn, Duke Forest resource manager, noted as essential habitats for maintaining the area’s ecological diversity.
Richard Broadwell, Duke Forest program director, emphasized the importance of sustaining a variety of habitats within the forest for research and recreation purposes. “We want to have a mosaic of environments available,” he said.
Broadwell added that preserving the variety of habitats and wildlife within the forest is important for Duke-related studies ranging from the effects that stagnation of soil has on crop success to how the emission of carbon dioxide boosts tree growth.
In order to preserve the variety of habitats within the forest, Edeburn said officials frequently use the “sustainable forestry” methods of prescribed forest burnings and logging. The registry agreement, however, will now prohibit such forest intervention in the newly protected areas.
Nonetheless, Duke Forest officials are now evaluating alternative methods of sustainable forestry such as reducing the excess deer population in the preserved acres through animal intervention. Edeburn noted that large deer herds are changing the forest’s composition.
Following a presentation about Duke Forest’s origins and recent developments within the area, six individuals received the 2004 Clarence F. Korstian Award for “exemplary support of the Duke Forest.”
B.B. Olive, who was one of the award recipients, jokingly recalled playing as a child in the area that later became West Campus.
Becky Heron, who also received the Korstian Award, emphasized the importance of forest preservation in general. “Without the forest, I don’t know where we’d be,” she said.
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