Green acres forestry and landscape9/20/2023 ![]() Now we have entered a much drier period, partly due to climate change. Where vegetation naturally might have burned, purposeful fire exclusion let it continue to accumulate, and the pulses of wet weather we had in the 20th century also stimulated a lot of new growth. To some extent, we are victims of our own success. We can foresee fire seasons that might reach 12 to 15 million acres. Two years ago, fires in southeastern Georgia and northern Florida, fueled by extreme drought, burned over half a million acres, sending smoke all the way to Atlanta and even Nashville. In 20, more than 8 million acres burned in 20, more than 9 million acres burned. In 2002, more than 7 million acres burned again. The turnaround came in the summer of 2000: For the first time since the 1950s, more than 7 million acres burned in a single year. In terms of fire and fuels, we are in a whole new era. ![]() ![]() Loss of open space is only one reason for concern. Here in the South, the Southern Forest Resource Assessment foretold a loss of about 30 million acres of forest land by 2040, mainly due to urbanization. The Forest Service is releasing a new report this fall called “Private Forests, Public Benefits.” In it, we estimate that 57 million acres of forest land will see rising housing density between 20. Farms, fields, and forests are giving way to development. If you drive in any direction from any city, you will soon see signs of it. Now, however, we’ve found subtler ways of skinning the country. There are no better examples of restoration on the planet than “the lands nobody wanted”-millions of acres of farmed-out, abandoned, eroded land in the South, Northeast, and Midwest that are now flourishing forests. Recent decades have even seen a slight expansion. In the century that followed, America’s forest estate stabilized overall. Exactly a century ago, they founded the Ocala National Forest here in Florida … and the national system of experimental forests and ranges. They founded SAF in 1900 and the Forest Service in 1905. Entire landscapes, entire regions had been stripped of their once lush forests.īut the generations that followed, generations of foresters and conservationists, rose to the challenge. In 1905, America had lost 168 million acres of forest land in the previous 50 years alone. Such fears, at the time, seemed very real-Americans had only to look around them. He spoke of timber profiteers whose only idea was, and I quote, “to skin the country and go somewhere else.” He spoke of a possible timber famine. President Theodore Roosevelt addressed the Congress, and he spoke of forests in trouble. In January 1905, people gathered in Washington, DC, for the first American Forest Congress. Conservation originated a century ago in response to that same concern. Forest Destructionīut many forests today are in trouble. They are a national treasure, to be protected and preserved for generations to come. Forests are part of our cultural heritage as Americans. Forests bolster our economy through recreation and tourism, through the creation of green jobs, and through the production of wood products and energy. Forests shelter fish and wildlife and offer aesthetic beauty and spiritual renewal for people. Forests take up 12 percent of the carbon dioxide that Americans emit each year from fossil fuel use. Forests provide 53 percent of the nation’s runoff for drinking water and other uses. Forests build soils and protect them from erosion. Forests are responsible for much of our nation’s primary production, the conversion of sunlight into life-giving energy. Today’s forests in wilderness areas … in roadless areas … and in working landscapes-it takes all of them together to meet the needs of our nation.įorests of all kinds provide ecosystem services of all kinds. still understood the critical importance of forest conservation for the future of our country. He charged us with pursuing conservation based on a simple premise: that forests are vital to the well-being of our country.īefore Pinchot, there were no working forests as we know them today. We are here in the spirit of Gifford Pinchot, who founded both the Society of American Foresters and the Forest Service more than a century ago. It is a pleasure and an honor to address this gathering.
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