A historical perspective and future outlook on landscape scale restorationin the northwest Wisconsin pine barrens

The concurrent discussions of landscape scale restoration among restoration ecologists, and of historic disturbance pattern as a guideline for forest management among forest scientists, offer a unique opportunity for collabor ation between these traditionally separated fields. The objective of this s tudy was to review the environmental history, early restoration projects, a nd current plans to restore landscape patterns at broader scales in the 450 ,000 ha northwest Wisconsin Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens offer an example of a landscape shaped by fire in the past. In northwestern Wisconsin histo rically the barrens were a mosaic of open prairie, savanna, and pine forest s on very poor, sandy soils. The surrounding region of better soils was oth erwise heavily forested. Six restoration sites have been managed since the middle of this century using prescribed burns to maintain the open, barrens habitat. However, these sites are not extensive enough to mimic the shifti ng mosaic of large open patches previously created by fire. Extensive clear -cuts may be used as a substitute for these large fire patches so that pres ettlement landscape patterns are more closely approximated in the current l andscape. We suggest that such silvicultural treatments can be suitable to restore certain aspects of presettlement landscapes, such as landscape patt ern and open habitat for species such as grassland birds. We are aware that the effects of fire and clear-cuts differ in many aspects and additional m anagement tools, such as prescribed burning after harvesting, may assist in further approximating the effect of natural disturbance. However, the rest oration of landscape pattern using clear-cuts may provide an important cont ext for smaller isolated restoration sites even without the subsequent appl ication of fire, in this formerly more open landscape.