Forest Fragmentation In Natural Gas Drilling

From Wikimarcellus

Forest fragmentation is a key ecological concept thought to be closely related to the maintenance and promotion of biodiversity of plant and animal species requiring a forest habitat. Fragmentation essentially occurs once an undivided forest somehow becomes separated into a series of often disconnected patches thus disturbing natural habitats of occasionally very rare species whose ecological niche can primarily be found in deep forest. Natural gas drilling requires the withdrawal of some agricultural and forested acreage for at least a year or more, and it has been argued that this can be a contributing factor to fragmentation and have an ensuing impact on woodland biodiversity. Of course, many other factors can also affect forest fragmentation, and historically these have included a variety of natural and anthropomorphic sources.

Definition of Forest Fragmentation

Fragmentation can have quite varied definitions. It is discussed in the fields of wildlife habitat, biodiversity and land-use planning. It can occur naturally or from forest management practices such as clearcut logging which took place in the 19th and early 20th century in Pennsyvania's forests. It is a complicated process that results from interaction between the forest landscape and human demands on the land to divided it into ever smaller pieces. Simply passing land from one generation to the next serves to subdivide it as different heirs find diverse uses for the land. Regardless of whether fragmentation occurs as the result of suburban development, clearcutting, agricultural use or natural gas well drilling the result is to take a contiguous native forest and divide it into smaller pieces that create a patchwork of different pieces with other vegetation and land uses.