Most of the ancient Cross Timbers are privately owned, and the integrity of these ecosystem remnants will depend largely on the environmental ethics and civic-mindedness of the owners. But we see both economic and environmental opportunities in the future of the ancient Cross Timbers and this photograph helps illustrate one example. This is a photograph of a new subdivision under development in the hills above the excellent new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir of Skiatook Lake north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ancient Cross Timbers still grace many of the hills in the viewshed of the lake. This particular subdivision simply bulldozed and burned the ancient post oak that were present and will replace them with new homes, bermuda grass lawns, and hybrid pear trees.
Sales are currently quite slow.
People might even pay more for the privilege of an ecologically friendly place to live. The destruction of ancient forests is not confined to the conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest or to the pioneer history of the eastern United States. Large tracts of ancient deciduous forest still grace the hills of eastern Oklahoma, but they continue to be destroyed for grazing land, chip mills, and suburban development. The Cross Timbers are a complex mosaic of upland forest, savanna, and glade which form the broad ecotone between the eastern deciduous forests and the grasslands of the southern Great Plains. Literally thousands of ancient post oak can still be found in eastern Oklahoma, and there is no doubt that the Cross Timbers is one of the least disturbed forest types left in the eastern United States.