Canada should be ‘world leader’ on alternative PTSD therapies, veteran says

By Sean Boynton Global News
Posted November 10, 2024

WATCH: After being injured in Canada's longest, most expensive war effort, one veteran created and fundraised an exhibit to help ensure the efforts of those who served — and the memories those who died — aren't forgotten. Mercedes Stephenson explains  

A Canadian Forces veteran who served in Afghanistan says Canada should be a “world leader” on alternative therapies for treating veterans’ post-traumatic stress disorder and other post-combat trauma, including the use of psychedelics.

Retired MCpl. Gordon Hurley says psychedelic treatments such as ketamine and psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” can give veterans “a breath of relief” from their trauma or addictions, pointing to his own experience, and is calling for further study and coverage for physician-assisted therapies.

“I really think we’re in a unique position as a country, with such a liberal view on health care and life, that we should be able to be a world leader in providing alternative therapies,” he told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block ahead of Remembrance Day.

“We should be doing the same thing with our veterans just how you send us to war. A majority of the time we’re saying, ‘Send me, send me.’ We can do the same thing with these types of treatments.”

Hurley deployed to Afghanistan in the summer of 2008, just 15 months after joining the military and completing basic training. He was injured by an improvised explosive device but returned to the battlefield just three weeks after surgery.

2:21

Nova Scotia company to examine magic mushrooms as PTSD treatment



More than 40,000 Canadians served in Afghanistan, many on multiple tours during the 20-year global War on Terror, and 165 Canadian Armed Forces members died there.

Many veterans of that war returned to Canada suffering not just from PTSD but also traumatic brain injuries and effects from toxic burn pit exposure, among other traumas.

Research has suggested recent veterans have had a higher rate of mental health and addiction issues compared to older veterans and the overall Canadian population.

Veterans Affairs Canada is conducting research and clinical trials into the use of ketamine as a treatment for traumatic brain injuries and depression, but has yet to launch a similar project on psilocybin. Independent studies have been launched across Canada in recent years into psychedelic treatments

A Senate committee report last December urged the federal government to “immediately” conduct a “major research program” into how psychedelics can help veterans suffering from PTSD. The report said research already exists into the effectiveness of such treatments and warned Canada is falling behind other countries in studying them.

The United States has funded research into psychedelic treatments for veterans, but the U.S. FDA this year rejected an approval for MDMA treatment, calling for further study.

Briefing notes prepared for the veterans affairs minister last year say the department only provides financial coverage for treatments that are supported by solid research, and says approved psychological and psychiatric treatments are the “first-line evidence-based” approach to treating PTSD and other mental issues.

2:01

Psychedelics approved for medical use in Canada

“Western treatment is completely fine,” Hurley said. “There’s nothing wrong with prescription drugs or SSDIs (antidepressants), whatever is going to work to get that person off the ledge is worth it. But there are other treatment options.”

Hurley said he travels to Mexico to receive treatment through psychedelics through a clinic run by Canadian doctors, and touted their effectiveness.

Besides psychedelics, Hurley also pointed to a treatment known as stellate ganglion block, which numbs nerves in the neck and “basically resets your nervous system,” he said. The treatment has been studied at multiple Canadian hospitals and universities and has been called “miraculous” in treating PTSD.

“To get that initial breath and that initial pause where they don’t have the cravings for their addiction, or they don’t have the annoyances of trauma, of post-traumatic stress, of perhaps being too freaked out to go into public spaces or noises and all these other detriments to the veteran’s life … we could be fixing with different types of treatment,” he said.

Hurley said the government should particularly cover assisted treatment programs that allow doctors to work with patients and ensure veterans are taking the proper treatments and dosages.

“The doctor is going to have specific training to deal with psychedelics and how that integrates into a person’s life,” he said.

“We’re so new to it. It’s not anyone’s fault, but we should really be ahead of the curve on this.”

Psychedelic therapy provides hope for veterans

Story by Maya Goldman


Psychedelic therapy provides hope for veterans

Veterans are campaigning to take psychedelic therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder mainstream, despite the Food and Drug Administration's rejection of an ecstasy-based therapy in August.

Why it matters: About 29% of veterans who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq will have PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veteran suicide rates are also higher than in the general population.

"The thirst is very palpable among our generation" of veterans for alternative mental health therapies, Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told Axios.

Catch up quick: Psychedelics like magic mushrooms, LSD and ecstasy can alter a person's state of mind and cause hallucinations.
It's been nearly impossible to research their effects, because they've been criminalized and classified as controlled substances since 1970.
But interest in psychedelics' potential to treat mental health conditions — particularly in veterans — has grown in recent years.
The FDA in 2017 granted fast-track review of a PTSD treatment that mixes ecstasy with talk therapy.

The VA started funding research into psychedelic therapies this year. Congress also passed bipartisan legislation directing the Pentagon to study the treatments.
In the meantime, more than 1,200 veterans traveled to other countries for psychedelic therapies through one nonprofit alone, said Jesse Gould, founder of that organization, Heroic Hearts Project.

But the FDA in August rejected the therapy it had originally fast-tracked, following an independent review that highlighted concerns like missing safety data and allegations of misconduct in clinical trials.

Zoom in: The decision felt like a major setback to veterans.
"It was emotionally just gut-wrenching, thinking about all of those veterans, and all the other people, for that matter, that were just really counting on being able to access this as a solution for their debilitating PTSD," said Juliana Mercer, a Marine Corps veteran and director at veterans advocacy group Healing Breakthrough.
The FDA rejection pushes mental health progress back years, added Gould, a former Army Ranger. It "indicates to veterans that they are not being listened to and they're not a priority."

Where it stands: Veterans are continuing to work toward broadening access to psychedelic therapies.
State-level action is also picking up. Oregon and Colorado have legalized psychedelic mushrooms for therapeutic use. But Massachusetts voters last week rejected a ballot proposal to legalize psychedelics.

What's next: The company behind the rejected ecstasy-based therapy now has a new acting CEO and chief medical officer, and it announced last month that it will run a new clinical trial on the PTSD treatment.

The VA has reportedly said it would consider funding the trial.
The FDA also fast-tracked review for a psychedelic mushroom therapy, though the company running that trial announced recently that it's delaying a key data release.

The new clinical trials will likely take at least two more years, Mercer predicted.
But the extended timeline means the VA "is going to be more prepared to effectively roll out a psychedelic program," she said. "I'm choosing to look at that as a silver lining."

Smoking toad venom helps veterans with PTSD, addiction, and depression

Allan Rose Hill
Mon Nov 11, 2024
BOING!BOING!


image: Deep Desert Photography/Shutterstock (manipulated)

Zach Skiles is a veteran and clinical psychologist who, informed by his own experiences, is helping other veterans deal with PTSD, depression, and drug addiction. As a researcher with University of California at San Francisco, Skiles leads veterans through psychedelic experiences to help alleviate some of their suffering. The participants are first given ibogaine—a natural stimulant with psychedelic properties found in the West African shrub iboga. After a long "group healing" session, they are administered 5-MeO-DMT, an extremely powerful and short-lasting psychedelic found in the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad. (Both compounds can also be synthesized in a laboratory.) Unfortunately. both of these compounds are illegal in the United States so the veterans must travel to Mexico for the actual treatments. In honor of Veteran's Day, the always-excellent Microdose republished Jan C. Hu's 2021 interview with Skiles:

What aspects of psychedelic therapy might help treat veterans in particular?

In treating PTSD, psychedelics enhance your ability to bring up trauma and simultaneously see it from different angles. Everything feels new, more revelatory and connected. There's the ability to take a step back and experience something in a totally new way.

One of the cooler things about psychedelic assisted therapies is you're not only getting those cognitive pieces, but you're also getting somatic, cathartic experiences at the same time. For people who've experienced sexual assault or combat exposure, you cut off a lot of sensation from your body and reconnecting to it is actually one of the main goals of all therapies. Having that experience along with these cognitive pieces is something that they call a codex condensed experience — it's happening in different constellations of the mind and body[…]

These therapies aren't legal in the U.S. What drove you and other vets to seek out these experiences in Mexico?

There's a bit of desperation; people have to leave the country to be able to get these therapies. These are folks who have spent careers in the U.S. Special Forces, with blast injuries or lesions on their brain. It's a group of folks who have tried every single therapy that's offered in the United States and have come up wanting more. They had to leave the country in order to have a therapeutic experience, and not be arrested for it.

It's important to give guys an ability to have the most up to date therapeutic access, but in the U.S.; it's also important for this to become regulated. We operate in the underground because that's the only place we can do this kind of thing.

Previously:
• FDA denies approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD
• These psychonauts are in training to take DMT trips that last hours or even days and report back… for science
• 'Please refrain from licking' toads, says National Park Service in unusual warning

 

Healing, spiritual purposes drive many veterans’ use of psychedelics

In survey, 85% of veterans report they benefited from the experience

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most U.S. military veterans who have used psychedelics reported in a recent study that they pursued the substances for healing or spiritual exploration, and over 80% said they benefited from the experience – even those who had challenging outcomes.

The survey also indicated many of the veterans would be more likely to seek mental health care, or return to care, at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) if psychedelic-assisted therapy were offered.

Findings from this comprehensive examination of veterans’ experiences with psychedelics can give clinicians a clearer understanding of the veteran community’s expectations and specific needs for mental health care, researchers say.

“Because of all of the complexity that veterans are experiencing and the higher risk they’re at for experiencing not just one, but several mental health and physical health-related challenges, it makes sense that they would be searching for opportunities to address those challenges, especially when they feel like they’re not being met with the current system here in the U.S.,” said lead author Alan Davis, associate professor and director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at The Ohio State University College of Social Work.

The study was published recently in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.

The VA estimates that more than 17 U.S. veterans die by suicide each day, according to 2021 data. And studies suggest between 44% and 72% of veterans are highly stressed during the transition from military to civilian life.

The research team, which included veterans, consulted with other past military service members to design a survey examining patterns of psychedelic use, perspectives of those who did and did not report use, and what kinds of benefits and adverse outcomes were associated with veterans’ use of the drugs. Veterans were referred to the survey through online advertisements and communities, email invitations and word of mouth.

“Understanding military veteran culture is crucial for civilian therapists working with this population,” said co-author Mark Bates, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and clinical psychologist at Sunstone Therapies, a Maryland treatment center researching psychedelic-assisted therapies.

“It’s about avoiding inadvertently undermining the therapeutic relationship and knowing how to use military culture as an effective frame of reference. This is also part of the reason of why we carefully consulted with a team of veteran advisers in the development and validation of the survey questions.”

With veteran advocacy for access to psychedelic-assisted therapy increasing in recent years, Bates said, “There is a really pressing need to explore anything that’s promising for mental health treatment.”

The survey sample consisted of 426 participants categorized into two groups – those who had (217) and had not (209) used psychedelics. Drugs used by veterans included psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD, ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy), ayahuasca, ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT (toad) and peyote/mescaline. The most commonly reported reasons for use were healing or treatment (69%), spiritual exploration (47.5%) or recreation (38.7%).

Compared to veterans who had not used psychedelics, the veterans who had taken the drugs were more likely to be older and had spent more time deployed during their service, and a larger proportion of them reported PTSD, depression and anxiety.

While some participants were alone when they used psychedelics, many reported taking them in spiritual locations or outdoors, with friends, or in medical clinics or retreat centers – both in the United States and abroad.

Overall, participants rated the psychedelic experiences as beneficial whether they considered the experience uniformly positive (88.6%) or endured one or more adverse outcomes (81.3%). The most common adverse outcomes were flashbacks and craving or trying to reduce use of psychedelics. Fewer participants reported being arrested or seeking medical treatment in relation to using the drugs.

Statistical analysis identified a number of factors that lowered the likelihood of having negative outcomes: being older, using psilocybin, having depression or anxiety, obtaining psychedelics from a safe source, being prepared, comfortable and confident during the treatment, and being able to trust, let go and be open to the experience.

“This finding highlights the importance of people in the veteran community knowing that keeping these things in mind prior to use can help set them up for the best possible outcome,” Davis said.

With most psychedelic substances classified as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act, the only legal way for most people to access them in the United States currently is in a clinical trial setting. Davis is leading a current psilocybin-assisted therapy study at Ohio State for the treatment of PTSD among military veterans, and Bates and colleagues at Sunstone Therapies have treated many veterans to date.

Finding that surveyed veterans would welcome a chance to access psychedelic-assisted therapy at the VA is an important highlight of the study, the researchers said.

“What’s really exciting about this study and understanding veterans’ interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy is it’s potentially opening up an opportunity to address some of their core challenges head-on,” Davis said. “Veterans are dying by suicide and fleeing the country to find these opportunities in other places, so the message is clear. This needs to be available.”

Additional co-authors were Nathan Sepeda, Adam Levin and Stacey Armstrong of Ohio State; independent researcher Erik Lund; Robert Koffman of Sunstone Therapies; Katinka Hooyer of the Medical College of Wisconsin; and Rachel Yehuda of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

This work was supported by private donors, the Cammack Family Gift Fund, the Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research at the Icahn Medical School, the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, and the CPDRE at Ohio State.

#

---

Journal

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

DOI

10.1080/02791072.2024.2401977 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Epidemiology of Psychedelic Use Among United States Military Veterans

Landscape Ecology and National Forest Mismanagement

Steven Krichbaum

 September 24, 2024
Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Mature deciduous forest, Mogan Ridge Roadless Area, Hoosier National Forest. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The verbiage in US Forest Service (“FS”) scoping letters (“SL”) and environmental assessments (“EA”) would have the public believe that all you have to do get your desired floristic composition (such as more oaks) is open up the canopy with chainsaws. This disinformation campaign, however, ignores the fact that there is far more influencing conditions on the ground and tree regeneration than simply the amount of canopy openness that exists. Numerous interacting factors at multiple spatial scales generate structural and compositional heterogeneity in forest habitats (Braun 1950, Runkle 1991a, Franklin et al. 2002, McEwan et al. 2010, Schlenker et al. 2024).

Shifting Mosaic

In terms of landscape ecology, a National Forest exists as a mosaic of patches (Urban, D.L. et al. 1987). The various patches composing a landscape mosaic are heterogeneous in space and time due to the interactions of three pattern‐forming templates (Swanson et al. 1988, Pickett & Rogers 1997, Angelstam 2003, McEwan et al. 2010):

‐ site‐specific physical conditions — including soil, slope aspect, hydrology, climate

‐ natural disturbance regimes
       ‐ biotic interactions — such as mutualism (including such mutualists as mycorrhizal networks (MNs)), competition, parasitism, predation (which includes browsing/grazing by Deer).

Broad- and fine-scale distributional patterns of understory and overstory forest vegetation result from synergies of these site-specific physical conditions, disturbance regimes, and biotic interactions (Watt 1947, Braun 1950, Swanson et al. 1988, DeMars and Runkle 1992, Callaway 1997, Pickett and Rogers 1997, Hutchinson et al. 1999, Angelstam 2003, Dyer 2006, Dyer 2010, Matlack and Schaub 2011, McEwan and Muller 2011, Chapman and McEwan 2012, Anning et al. 2014). In addition to moisture, edaphic, and topographic gradients (Ashe, W.W. 1922, Lawrence, D.M. et al. 1997, Stephenson and Mills 1999, McEwan, R.W. and R.N. Muller 2006; McEwan and Muller 2011), canopy gaps are a major factor structuring understory and overstory vegetation in deciduous forests of the eastern United States (Glasgow, L.S. and G.R. Matlack 2007a). All of these natural factors lead to multi-habitat landscapes with increased diversity and improved functionality (Hackett et al. 2024).

These templates must be considered and maintained to sustain the broad spectrum of diversity of habitat, communities, and ecosystems in our NFs. The physical environment includes such features as edaphic conditions (e.g., soil pH), elevation, slope inclination and aspect, temperature, and precipitation (Whitaker 1956). These factors influence fine-scale microclimatic patches and gradients that affect patterns of vegetation composition and structure (Jackson and Newman 1967, Chen et al. 1999, Stephenson and Mills 1999, Dyer 2009, Dobrowski 2010, Fleming 2012, Anning et al. 2014).

Disturbances (intermittent stochastic disruptions) occur in the canopy as well as in the understories, independently or in concert (Runkle, J.R. 1991b). The sheer age (seral stage) of forest tracts can influence the herbaceous community present there; generally, disturbance sensitive species are underrepresented in secondary forests (DeMars and Runkle 1992, Dyer 2010, Matlack and Schaub 2011). It may take decades and even centuries for plant species to colonize and populations to stabilize (see, e.g., Honnay, O. et al. 2005).

Thus, it is obvious that vegetation diversity and tree regeneration/recruitment results from far more than just the amount of canopy openness at a site.

The FS analyses and decisions neglect to fully and fairly consider this ecology (related to purpose & need rationale, existing conditions, and effects of the proposed actions) and their consideration/disclosure is inadequate and fraudulent.

Natural ESH                    

Due to natural processes early successional habitat (“ESH”) is constantly created in forests. Yet the agency repeatedly fails to fully and fairly consider/estimate/inventory/analyze all these amounts in their decision-making process. The only ESH they recognize is that fabricated by human logging and cutting. And the agency disregards the significant negative aspects associated with such fabrication (Kellet et al. 2023).

The FS does not properly consider the contribution of natural processes to maintaining habitat diversity, particularly “early successional habitat”, on the George Washington, Hoosier, and countless other National Forests (“NF”). The FS planners fail to properly consider and analyse natural ESH patches, particularly those under two acres in size (the scale of many canopy gaps). As a consequence, the NF managers constantly use a fallacious “need” to fabricate such habitat as a rationale for cutting down valuable and important mature and old-growth sites.

The truth is that our maturing and recovering NFs naturally contain a spectrum of developmental stages of forest growth due to regeneration at canopy gaps created by disease, snow & ice, lightning strikes and resultant fire, insect outbreaks (including Gypsy Moths), tree senescence, windthrow, Beavers, drought, flooding, and other small-scale natural disturbances (Braun, E. 1950, Rentch, J. 2006). The Forest Service does not and can not provide evidence that these factors do not operate in project areas on NFs.

A disturbance regime of small-scale, within-stand gap processes dominated the natural forests in the Eastern region (Rentch, J. 2006, Runkle, J. 1985, 1991a). Further, it is critical to consider that intensive logging operations not only significantly directly alter habitat conditions, but in addition they interfere with, impede, truncate, and/or prevent the expression of the natural disturbance regime. Something that one would not want to do if actual “restoration” was the goal.

The simple fact is, natural disturbances small and large are constantly happening somewhere throughout the National Forests, forming a shifting mosaic of habitats (see Shugart, H. and D. West 1981, and Harris, L. et al. 1996). With the sporadic nature of natural disturbances (see, e.g., JNF FEIS 3-107, 109), early successional habitat is naturally patchy or spotty and species are adapted to this.

The fact that the FS managers/planners might not formally inventory or monitor this natural early successional habitat or for some reason do not like its floristic composition does not alter the reality of its de facto existence on the ground. It must be fully and fairly estimated and assessed and properly considered.

A full and accurate appraisal of the “existing conditions” is the sine qua non of informed decision-making and honest public disclosure of impacts and rationale. Without this, logging decisions on NFs are unreasonable, an abuse of agency discretion, and illegal (in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and Administrative Procedures Act).

Hardwood forests on Canaan Mountain, Monoghela NF. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Heterogeneous Species Composition

At any site, multiple successional pathways are possible post-disturbance (Egler 1954, Connel and Slatyer 1977). Various factors are responsible for this (e.g., site-specific physical conditions or the abundance of browsers), but it partially depends upon the starting point (see “initial floristic composition” in Egler 1954, Roberts 2004). For tree taxa in particular this means the existence of a seed bank and advanced regeneration (the seedlings already growing at a particular site) (Brokaw and Busing 2000). The cutting supposedly for oaks proposed for the HNF Buffalo Springs and GWNF North Shenandoah Mountain project areas and on a multitude of other NFs is NOT confined to sites with lots of advanced oak regeneration.

In eastern deciduous forests species composition is not spatially or temporally uniform (Dyer 2006, Dyer and Hutchinson 2019). In much of the East, Oak-Hickory dominance was naturally localized – typically on the drier sites (Paulus et al. 2018). In West Virginia Rentch and colleagues (2005) found the lowest herbal richness in Chestnut Oak forests; these tracts were associated with acidic soil conditions (Fleming 2012). In Kentucky, oak plots were in the driest most nutrient poor sites, while maple species were in the more mesic and nutrient rich sites (McEwan and Muller 2011). In the “Mesophytic” and “Beech – Maple – Basswood” regions, oak dominance across large broad areas is not to be expected everywhere and may exist in some places as a more-or-less unnatural condition facilitated/fabricated by major human disturbance —  fires and large openings (using the FS’s own logic) and Chestnut blight and Ash borers and agricultural legacies and Deer killing (see, e.g., McEwan et al. 2010). After the Europeans invaded and took over, there were a lot more fires taking place over far more area. So, centuries of human-caused fires here can be expected to have resulted in an excess of oaks and other taxa called fire-tolerant. And this pyromania is what some in the FS are intent on “restoring” (follow the money).

In other words, oaks, just as other species, are naturally localized due to the synergies of the three landscape templates. See, e.g., Donaldson’s Woods and Pioneer Mothers, and Peters Mountain North and Frozen Knob, old-growth forests in Indiana and Virginia: these places are a mosaic of all-aged hardwood forests (natural templates in action). And in some locales, oaks are a dominant canopy species.

FS proposals such as the Buffalo Springs (Hoosier NF) and North Shenandoah Mountain (GWNF) projects are all about trying to force an artificial disturbance regime and manipulated composition upon thousands of acres and alter the overall forest type (e.g., mixed mesic) and forest structure (make it younger and even-aged).

Oak regeneration/recruitment is NOT simply a function of canopy openness. The FS would have the public believe that all it has to do is reduce the canopy tree cover with chainsaws across hundreds of acres and then oaks will  crop up all across the landscape like magic. Not only is regeneration NOT due to simply opening the canopy with chainsaws, but that is certainly not all that is necessary for the FS to do — no, lots more tax dollar spending make work/job security must be inflicted ad nauseum, and that’s left out or obfuscated in the FS documentation and PR for the projects.

Indeed, and of great importance and that CANNOT BE EMPHASIZED ENOUGH:

Much of the agency’s intensive even-age logging does NOT typically result in oak-hickory stands. Subsequent additional “treatments” are always needed, such as “timber stand improvement” (mechanical and chemical), pre-commercial thinning, crop tree release, and commercial thinning. Finally, after the application of lots of tax dollars and other cultural/economic/energy inputs that alter stand structure and composition, oak-hickory dominant stands might result.

If the even-age logging imposed by the FS actually resulted in oak forests, they would NOT need to repeatedly go back to these sites over decades and manipulate the tree composition there – i.e., cutting/killing the “undesirable” (i.e., not of greater commercial value) species there.

And that is explicitly part of the management proposed for the Buffalo Springs, North Shenandoah Mountain, and many other areas (see the EAs and scoping letters).

Oak-Hickory forest, Panther Hollow, Hoosier NF. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

MNs and Oaks

The landscape template of biotic interactions includes such mutualists as fungal mycorrhizal networks (MNs), which generally fall under two separate categories: Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and Arbuscular (AM) fungi. These two classes of MN have some fundamental differences and appear to compete with one another (Johnson et al. 2018 – research done at an old growth forest in southern Indiana). Species such as oak, hickory, and beech are served by ECM networks, whereas maples and tulip poplars are served by AM networks. ECM trees typically produce slow-decaying leaf litters with lower nutrient content relative to co-occurring AM trees, resulting in distinct biogeochemical nutrient economies. Because ECM fungi possess the ability to mine nutrients from detritus, whereas AM fungi do not, ECM trees may be most competitive in their own soils (Johnson et al. 2018). ECM networks are especially sensitive to intensive harvesting regimes.

Research has shown that ECM fungi decline overall, regardless of ecozone, due to harvesting (Wilhelm et al. 2017). In contrast, AM populations increased in harvested plots likely due to their common symbioses with successional plant cover (Wilhelm et al. 2017). By implication, the removal of mature ECM trees and the corresponding disruption of ECM networks may facilitate AM invasion and succession from oak-hickory to Maple-Tulip Tree ecosystems. In addition, soil compaction from harvesting profoundly affects ECM fungi abundance, structure, and function; it therefore raises concerns regarding forest productivity, juvenile tree regeneration/recruitment and long-term ecosystem functioning (Hartmann et al. 2014).

And yet, the FS consistently proposes/inflicts intensive cutting with extensive canopy removal and soil disturbance on hundreds of acres, supposedly to increase oaks. These impacts to and from MNs are significant issues that have not been fully considered in FS project analyses/decisions.

The fact that when some “maturing oaks and hickories age and die they are being replaced by trees such as maple and beech” (SL) does not mean that ALL of them are or that it is happening everywhere —  the trajectories are heterogeneous in space and time due to the interactions of the three pattern‐forming templates. Because of this, at some sites oaks naturally may actually increase in number. And climate change modeling predicts that oaks will EXPAND their range northwards at places in the East. Further, oaks have the ability to remain in the understory for decades, biding their time, building up amounts of advanced regen and waiting for a natural disturbance release event.

 “White oak usually becomes dominant in the stand because of its ability to persist for long periods of time in the understory, its ability to respond well after release, and its great longevity.” (Burns & Honkala 1990) Vol.2 at pg. 610) (emphasis added) “If regeneration of a white oak stand is the desired goal, then the implementation of a slower, more gradual approach to opening up the canopy may be necessary.” (Rebbeck et al. 2011 at pg. 2229)

A slower more gradual approach is natural processes operating over long periods (hundreds of years), i.e. proforestation (Moomaw et al. 2019.

Old Forests, Seral Stages, and Natural Disturbances

Habitat complexity generally increases as forests age (Franklin et al. 2002); amongst other benefits, this niche complexity provides refugia from predators (Finke and Denno 2006), a factor presumably of critical importance to small somewhat defenseless site-sensitive forest creatures who cannot run away or fly away from harm. A body of research indicates that canopy gaps, herbaceous vegetation, mushrooms, invertebrate richness or abundance, snags, and large woody debris amounts are generally more abundant in older forest habitats (Whitney and Foster 1988, Meier et al. 1995, Greenberg and Forrest 2003, Van de Poll 2004, Ziegler 2004, Webster and Jenkins 2005, Keeton et al. 2007, Scheff 2014). For instance, the stand-initiation and stem- exclusion stages of seral development (sensu Oliver and Larson 1996) (i.e., early successional habitat with high density of saplings) is commonly characterized by a depauperate herbaceous layer (Halpern and Spies 1995, Roberts 2004). A typical rationale used for timber sales is the assertion that after cutting the logged sites will have increased berry or soft mast production. However, this enhancement is only short-term (2-9 years), then the cutover sites have a very long period (30-60 years) of dense canopy with very low soft mast production (Reynolds-Hogland et al. 2006). The Forest Service consistently and unfairly disregards the harms and negative aspects of early successional habitat fabricated by logging older forest (Kellett et al. 2023).

The truth is that our maturing and recovering National Forests naturally contain a spectrum of developmental stages of forest growth due to regeneration at canopy gaps created by natural processes; though of course old-growth stages are much diminished at present, particularly in the East. A forest can be “intact” or “contiguous” yet have numerous canopy openings due to a variety of natural disturbances (see, e.g., McCarthy, J. 2001). In fact, this is the natural state of wild mature and old-growth forests in the East  (Davis, M.B. 1996). Disturbances occur in the canopy as well as in the understories, independently or in concert (Runkle, J.R. 1991b). Such processes normally occur and can be expected to occur in the future, as nature is very capable of maintaining our National Forests’ ecological integrity without the assistance of commercial logging.

Though episodic, natural canopy gaps are a regular occurrence in Eastern NFs, their rates varying depending on the scale of natural disturbance events in a particular year and the forest type studied. On the GWNF, canopy gaps are said to annually form from natural disturbances at the rate/extent of “0.4 to 2.0% of the land area” (GW-JNFs Indiana Bat EA-20). This means that in any ten-year period (this is the increment used by the agency to define age classes and wildlife habitat), up to 4-20% of a project area may have natural esh conditions. These natural processes and conditions provide desirable and suitable habitat for Grouse, Deer, Turkey, Bear and a host of other species. The 1993 GWNF FEIS had estimated abundances of game populations under each alternative for comparison. The proforestation/natural processes option (Alternative 3) was clearly estimated to supply game populations far in excess of viable populations (in the case of Bears it was said to support the greatest numbers, for Turkeys the second greatest).

The congruence and harmonization, or lack thereof, of human disturbance (viz., cutting regimes) with the spatial and temporal parameters of natural disturbance and their associated biological legacies are of great concern (Franklin, J. et al. 2002, Keeton, W.S. 2004, and Flamm, B.R. 1990). Further, it is critical to consider that intensive logging operations not only significantly directly alter habitat conditions, but in addition they interfere with, impede, truncate, and/or prevent the expression of the natural disturbance regime. Mature forests are of the age that a mosaic of habitats is gaining expression due to the operant natural disturbance regime (Franklin, J. et al. 2002; Keeton, W.S. 2004). And still more such niche complexity (including canopy openings) can be expected to develop as mature forests develop into old growth (Dahir, S.E. and C.G. Lorimer 1996). Such heterogeneous forests (of sufficient age) typically include stands or patches dominated by young early successional forest, older early successional forest, mid-successional forest, young late successional forest, and old late successional forest (Frelich, L.E. and P.B. Reich 2003).

The Forest Service likes to claim that its logging operations mimic natural disturbance. This is flagrantly absurd. Natural disturbances do NOT remove huge amounts of biomass (in the form of large trees) from a community — nothing goes to waste. They remain on-site to form niche complexity and provide nutrients. Which is exactly the opposite of the current management regime impressed upon the ecosystems — the constant removal of the organisms that would otherwise be recycled into and enrich, sustain, and recompose the system. In a naturally wild old forest it is the persistence of ecological legacy throughout the course of natural disturbances that promotes such great diversity of community composition and forest structure (Hackett et al. 2024). Ecology is about legacies — that which happened, or didn’t, in the past forms the contemporary context of the present system. Some things are here that shouldn’t be and some things are missing that should be here. In this age of mass extinction and global climate change, the greatest value our National Forests can provide is to serve as ecological preserves.

Let Them Be

Our National Forests are composed of maturing biotic communities on their way to developing/recovering something like their original condition. The fact that there are immature stems of many species right now does not mean that the sites were always that way or will always stay that way. The FS refuses to deal with the temporal reality of these developing ecosystems that are in the process of developing their uneven-age natural structure with multi-layered canopies. Instead of forcing an artificial young even-age condition on these ecosystems, here on these public lands we should take the opportunity to maintain their ecological integrity and continue to let nature diversify and heal herself.