Read the following passage. Wilderness management has advanced greatly o

For years, forest fires were regarded as uniformly destructive, and forest managers put a lot of effort into preventing them. But it turns out that fire suppression may have destructive long-term effects on the forests it’s supposed to protect.
    For instance, mature oaks have grown so thickly in some places that little light reaches the forest floor. But young oak trees need light in order to grow properly. The lack of light has meant that new oaks aren’t maturing rapidly enough to replace the older oaks. It also means that other tree species that don’t need so much light, such as maples, are invading oak and hickory forests and competing for resources.
    There are competition problems at ground level too. What forest fires, both natural and artificial, used to do is burn off some of the plants on the forest floor before they could grow into huge thickets. Now they run wild over the ground—and again, that means it’s hard for young trees and other native plants to grow.
    Then there’s the increase in the deer populations—this partially results from the lack of forest fires and partially from limitation on hunting—but the thing is, deer like to eat the leaves of oak saplings. So if one of those oak seedlings somehow does manage to get a good start, despite the shade and all the other plants competing for nutrients, it’s likely to be killed by having its leaves eaten.
    Oh, and one other thing: scientists are now finding that forest fires release nutrients from the plants and animals that are burned. That means that, even though the total amount of nutrients is decreased, there can actually be more nutrients available on the soil surface for plants that are trying to grow back afterward.