Longleaf redux - longleaf pine; Global Releaf Forest project in Florida

American Forests, Summer, 1998 by Tom Horton

In Florida, the state with the most longleaf acreage left, state forests are committed to restoring longleaf wherever it grew historically. Joe Gocsik, a forester at the 167,000-acre Withlacoochee State Forest, leaves no doubt as to his seriousness about restoration during a tour of the Global ReLeaf site there.

About 130 acres has just been planted with longleaf seedlings on a tract being converted back to its native ecosystem, and an invasive exotic, Cogongrass, was subdued after several applications of herbicide. "This is going to make a really fine forest," Gocsik says, noting the hundreds of 30-year-old longleafs there.

Anywhere on Withlacoochee lands, he says, his policy is to fine loggers who cut a longleaf $50 to $100, plus twice the value of the fallen tree, "and they have to leave the tree."

Not far from the Global ReLeaf forest-in-the-making, Gocsik pauses to show "what we're aiming for." It is a stand of longleaf, some a century old or more, widely spaced across a grassy understory. With a northwest breeze tossing the pine boughs and rippling the grasses so they shimmer and glint in the winter sun that floods the forest, you can see why it is a place Gocsik loves to stop for lunch. "I eat and just watch the wildlife come out all around me," he says.

Even without its considerable aesthetic and ecological values, longleaf would be worth restoring just for its wood, says Dean Gjerstad, a professor of forestry at Auburn University. Gjerstad is also a founder of the Longleaf Alliance, established in 1996 to promote and coordinate restoration of the species.

Longleaf is resistant to fusiform rust and southern pine beetles, serious problems for many of the pine family. It is an early self-limber, growing tall and straight. It is harder and more rot-resistant than the rest of the pine family. The U.S. Navy, which built 40,000 wooden craft during WWII, knew this well. Early plantation homes favored longleaf from the foundations up for its unmatched rot and termite resistance.

But the greater marvel lies in the longleaf ecosystem, the highly diverse array of plants and animals, birds and insects associated with longleaf and its grassy understory. "Longleaf was such an important part of the southern ecosystem historically. We need to repair the damage that's been done there," AMERICAN FORESTS' executive director Deborah Gangloff says, adding that she concurs with The Nature Conservancy's assessment of longleaf as "the most biologically diverse habitat in the contiguous United States."

One example: On the Global ReLeaf site at Withlacoochee, Gocsik kicks at the once and possibly future burrow of a gopher tortoise, a large, threatened reptile dependent upon longleaf forests. It is a so-called "keystone" species of the system, Gocsik explains. Some 300 other species are known to use its burrows for habitat.

The federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, whose colonies have dwindled from an estimated 500,000 to some 5,000 nationwide, are almost wholly dependent for nesting habitat on longleaf pines more than a century old (the woodpecker excavates cavities in rotting heartwood).