“A Three-Year Vacation”

This chapter recounts the Big Blowdown of 1950 in Adirondack, New York. It introduces Clarence Petty, a New York State Forest Ranger who was asked to go up and look at the damage that had happened in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The chapter outlines the appeal of foresters to the state legislature to start a salvage logging program in the forest preserve. It then turns to narrate the early life of Clarence, from being a park ranger to pilot, as well as the story of his brother's life Bill Petty, a regional director of the Conservation Department. Clarence became the undisputed authority on the forest preserve. He combined his years of aerial observation with three major surveying assignments that took him to every acre of state-owned land in the Adirondacks. He called his first assignment “a three-year vacation.” The chapter examines the statewide version of the disagreement between the Petty brothers, in which Clarence and other Forever Wild advocates were horrified by salvage logging in the forest preserve, while Bill and other scientific foresters replied that the friends of the Forever Wild clause were silly and sentimental. Ultimately, the chapter reviews the work of Neil Stout and Clarence Petty to make detailed maps and gather as much useful data as possible on the large roadless areas in the forest preserve.

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in urban search and rescue-methodology, capacity development, and integration

This paper’s purpose is to establish a methodological basis for using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in urban search and rescue (USAR). Modern USAR operations involve the location, rescue (extrication), and initial medical stabilization of individuals trapped in confined spaces or places with complicated access, eg, high structures. As a part of the ongoing modernization process, this paper explores possible options for UAV utilization in USAR operations. Today, UAV are already taking part in support emergency operations all over the world, and possible forms of operation for UAV in USAR environment can be in two primary modes: on-site and logistic chain. The on-site mode includes various capabilities of multilayer UAV array, mostly based on enhanced visual capabilities to create situational awareness and to speed-up search and rescue (SAR) process including using nanodrones for entering into confined places, ventilation ducts, and underground sewer channels can give to rescue teams’ opportunities to have eyes within ruins even before initial clearing process. Cargo drones will be able to bring equipment directly to high floors or roadless areas in comparison to wheeled transportation. The advantages of cargo drones operation are the ability of autonomous flight based on GPS or homing beacon and ability to provide logistics supports without involving additional personnel and vehicles and with no dependence on road conditions.

Balkan Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra balcanica) Avoids Roads, Settlements, and Hunting Grounds: An Ecological Overview from Timfi Mountain, Greece

Balkan chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra balcanica) is a protected species with an Inadequate-Bad (U2) conservation status in Greece. Our study explores its seasonal range use pattern, demography and habitat selection in a site of the Natura 2000 network, Timfi Mountain. To this aim, we examined 1168 observations obtained from six seasonal surveys (2002: four seasons, 2014 and 2017: autumn) and performed an ecological-niche factor analysis (ENFA), using 16 environmental and human-disturbance variables. The species had an annual range of 6491 ha (25% of the study area), followed the typical range-use pattern, and presented the minimum core area during the rutting season (autumn). Timfi Mt hosted 469 individuals in 2017 (the largest population in Greece), increasing by 3.55 times since 2002. The species selected higher altitudes during summer and autumn, pinewoods over broad-leaved woods as winter grounds, and it avoided south-facing slopes. Our results supported the anthropogenic risk avoidance hypothesis; the species always selected remote areas away from roads, human settlements, and hunting grounds. In Greece, 40% of its distribution area falls within hunting ban areas (16.5% of the country). A national conservation policy is needed towards maintaining and increasing roadless areas and hunting-ban areas within Balkan chamois range nationwide.

Direct and indirect effects of noise pollution alter biological communities in and near noise-exposed environments

Noise pollution is pervasive across every ecosystem on Earth. Although decades of research have documented a variety of negative impacts of noise to organisms, key gaps remain, such as how noise affects different taxa within a biological community and how effects of noise propagate across space. We experimentally applied traffic noise pollution to multiple roadless areas and quantified the impacts of noise on birds, grasshoppers and odonates. We show that acoustically oriented birds have reduced species richness and abundance and different community compositions in experimentally noise-exposed areas relative to comparable quiet locations. We also found both acoustically oriented grasshoppers and odonates without acoustic receptors to have reduced species richness and/or abundance in relatively quiet areas that abut noise-exposed areas. These results suggest that noise pollution not only affects acoustically oriented animals, but that noise may reverberate through biological communities through indirect effects to those with no clear links to the acoustic realm, even in adjacent quiet environments.

Quantifying the National Significance of Local Areas for Regional Conservation Planning: North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures

Conservation scientists recognize that additional protected areas are needed to maintain biological diversity and ecological processes. As regional conservation planners embark on recommending additional areas for protection in formal conservation reserves, it is important to evaluate candidate lands for their role in building a resilient protected areas system of the future. Here, we evaluate North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures with respect to their (i) ecological integrity, (ii) role in connecting existing core protected areas, (iii) potential to diversify the ecosystem representation of reserves, and (iv) role in maintaining hotspots of biologically-rich areas not well protected. Mountain Treasures represent a citizen inventory of roadless areas and serve as candidates for elevated levels of conservation protection on U.S. federal lands. We compared Mountain Treasures to other candidate lands throughout the country to evaluate their potential national significance. While the Mountain Treasures tended to be more impacted by human modifications than other roadless areas, they are as important as other roadless areas with respect to their role in connecting existing protected areas and diversifying representation of ecosystems in conservation reserves. However, Mountain Treasures tended to have a much higher biodiversity priority index than other roadless areas leading to an overall higher composite score compared to other roadless areas. Our analysis serves as an example of how using broad-scale datasets can help conservation planners assess the national significance of local areas.

Quantifying the National Significance of Local Areas for Regional Conservation Planning: North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures

Conservation scientists recognize that additional protected areas are needed to maintain biological diversity and ecological processes. As regional conservation planners embark on recommending additional areas for protection in formal conservation reserves, it is important to evaluate candidate lands for their role in building a resilient protected areas system of the future. Here, we evaluate North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures with respect to their (i) ecological integrity, (ii) role in connecting existing core protected areas, (iii) potential to diversify the ecosystem representation of reserves, and (iv) role in maintaining hotspots of biologically-rich areas not well protected. Mountain Treasures represent a citizen inventory of roadless areas and serve as candidates for elevated levels of conservation protection on U.S. federal lands. We compared Mountain Treasures to other candidate lands throughout the country to evaluate their potential national significance. While the Mountain Treasures tended to be more impacted by human modifications than other roadless areas, they are as important as other roadless areas with respect to their role in connecting existing protected areas and diversifying representation of ecosystems in conservation reserves. However, Mountain Treasures tended to have a much higher biodiversity priority index than other roadless areas leading to an overall higher composite score compared to other roadless areas. Our analysis serves as an example of how using broad-scale datasets can help conservation planners assess the national significance of local areas.