1. Introduction: The Human-Forest Ecosystem

Close your eyes while standing in a mature forest along the North Pacific coast of North America in spring and you will smell the wet moss and feel its softness beneath your feet. You might detect the scent of a nearby cedar or hear the long and trembling song of a wren. You would sense the presence of tall and stately conifers nearby, and perhaps the wind lifting and bouncing their rain-heavy branches. Coniferous forests of the North Pacific coast of North America have an air of permanence where they remain intact, although this book will explore their heterogeneity and the uncertainties in their future. Aesthetically they are unparalleled in grandeur, being graced with long days during the growing season, mild winter and summer temperatures, and abundant rainfall. An active geology has been favorable as well: as the Juan de Fuca plate dives under the North American plate, the products of mountain uplift and volcanoes often mix with rocks ground by glaciers to provide young, nutrient-rich substrates. This setting supports forests of extraordinary productivity and biodiversity from northwestern California to Southeast Alaska (fig. 1.1; plate 1; chap. 2) that are greatly valued by their human inhabitants. Abundant moist temperate plants and animals have nurtured some of the wealthiest nonagricultural Native cultures ever known from North America. Visions of this productive landscape drove many of the Europeans migrating along the Oregon Trail early in the nineteenth century, and the forests provided a strong economic engine for the growing region through the twentieth century.