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Combined Threats and Synergistic Impacts: <br />Importance of Climate Change Factors Compared to Other Ecosystem Threats: <br />Threat: Rank Order: Comments: <br />Climate Change <br />Development <br />Logging /Exploitation <br />The majority of Northern Hardwood Forests are on public lands and many are in protected status. <br />Development on private lands, and logging on private and some public lands remain threats, <br />and are likely the most immediate and greatest threat to a significant number of good examples. <br />Climate change, particularly associated drought and wild fire, is the greatest threat to protected <br />examples. However, the threat of climate change is less severe than in Spruce -Fir Forests and the <br />threat of logging and development are relatively greater. <br />Recommendations for Action: <br />Intervention Measures: <br />Intervention: Importance: Feasibility: Comments: <br />Restore /Maintain Landscape Connections Medium Medium <br />Protect /Expand Remaining Examples High High <br />Protect from Wildfire High High <br />For unprotected examples, protection from development and logging is the most important <br />action needed. While many areas are protected, many good examples are unprotected, and some <br />portions of the mountains have little protected area. Warmer winters and more hot spells may <br />fuel increasing desire for housing development at the higher elevations where these communities <br />occur. Effort should particularly be made to protect examples at the higher elevations, where the <br />community is likely to persist and where the seed source for migration to higher elevations will <br />primarily come from. Because the overall extent of the community and of individual patches <br />will decrease, loss of these areas will become more important than at present. There are <br />some opportunities to restore and expand these communities into areas where they have been lost, <br />but the overall loss and potential for restoration has been less significant than in Spruce -Fir Forests. <br />Protecting examples from wild fire, especially severe fires under drought conditions, would help <br />prevent catastrophic loss of these communities or would allow them to persist longer and migrate <br />more slowly. However, in lower elevation areas where a transition to oak forest is inevitable, <br />prescribed burning in the near future, before severe conditions develop, would promote a more <br />gradual and less disruptive transition. It would allow more fire - tolerant and drought - tolerant <br />species to become established. <br />180 Appendix B <br />