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The Issue: Biodiversity

Cedar and Maple trees are growing out of control. They are preventing sunlight from penetrating the canopy of our woodland forest and are therefore impeding the successful growth of an understory and impairing the ability of our dominant oak, ash, and hickory trees. The understory of a forest provides food and shelter for many species. The lack of an understory is decreasing the biodiversity of the wildlife inhabiting the woodland forest.

Our Long Term Plans/Goals:

Implementation:

Implementation(Future Work):

The Results:

After cutting down as many cedar and maple trees as we could, there was already a very noticable difference in the amount of sunlight that was entering the forest. There was also a notable difference in the amount of space between the dominant trees in the forest.

Before:

After:

Getting The Word Out:

*Cedar and maple trees grow quickly and crow out other native species. Once tall enough, they will establish a canopy above existing trees and block all sunlight from coming through to the understory(which will eventually die if nothing is done to remedy the problem). Also, in areas with a high risk for forest fires, cedar trees in particular burn quickly and burn much hotter than many other trees. The increase in heat and fire temperature caused by the burning of cedar trees can often overwhelm the mostly fireproof Oak trees(which can withstand the temperature of a most natural forest fires).

**This must be done after a frost in order to provide maximum control of the fire. Actually it is to provide minimum collateral wildlife loss of life. By waiting till after the first HARD frost you allow the most vulnerable species, the amphibians and reptiles to go dormant and you allow seeds on standing plants to mature so they may recolonize.

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1201 South Warson Road
St. Louis, MO 63124
P: 314-993-6447
F: 314-994-1467

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