The Present Forest - Impacts and Trends
Over the years first the Kaufmanns and then the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy have continually acquired new properties to enlarge the boundaries of Bear Run Nature Reserve, until today the WPC owns almost the entire watershed, protecting it from development and allowing it to return to forest. As a result, the forest surrounding Fallingwater and within the Bear Run Nature Reserve is healthier today than it was at the turn of the century.
However, despite years of protection and forest regrowth, the present-day forest is much changed from pre-settlement forests of the area, and even the forest described by early 20th century botanists. In addition to the wholesale removal of trees and severe disturbance of the ground through mining, logging and farming, other important local, regional, and even global impacts have affected these forests. These impacts include: global warming, atmospheric pollutants, forest fragmentation, exotic pest devastations (for example, gypsy moths), invasive exotic plant and animal species, the loss of predators, the overabundance of some native plant and animal species, and the loss or disruption of historical ecological processes, such as fire. Today, forest trees are smaller, plant and animal species composition are significantly altered, and characteristic native species are reduced or absent. For example, the American chestnut has disappeared and the herbaceous layer, in particular, has been severely impoverished and much reduced in its extent, and forest soils have been significantly altered both chemically and in the composition of forest soil microorganisms.
Fallingwater and the Bear Run Nature Reserve have been largely protected from recent disturbance through the efforts of the WPC. A new Fallingwater landscape master plan, and comprehensive environmental survey, will be completed in 2000. The plan will specify treatments to the landscape, to protect it from environmental threats and lessen the impact of 130,000 visitors a year to the site.
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