In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, national forest is a classification of
protected
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...
and managed
federal lands
Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution ( Article 4, section 3, clause 2), Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal l ...
. National forests are largely
forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
and
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
areas owned collectively by the American people through the
federal government, and managed by the
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...
, a division of the
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
. The U.S. Forest Service is also a forestry research organization who provides financial assistance to state and local forestry industry.
As of 2020, there are
154 national forests in the United States.
History
The National Forest System (NFS) was created by the
Land Revision Act of 1891
The General Revision Act (sometimes Land Revision Act) of 1891, also known as the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, was a federal law signed in 1891 by President Benjamin Harrison. The Act reversed previous policy initiatives, such as the Timber Culture ...
, which was enacted during the presidency of
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...
. This act took land to form
national parks
A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individua ...
in the West, including 15 reserves containing more than 13 million acres of land.
At first one would be called a Forest Reserve; a later one would be termed a National Forest. It was the result of concerted action by
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
-area businessmen and property owners who were concerned by the harm being done to the watershed of the
San Gabriel Mountains by ranchers and miners.
Abbot Kinney and forester
Theodore Lukens were key spokesmen for the effort.
Timeline of legislation
* 1897: The Organic Act was passed to protect watersheds and forests while still allowing the timber industry to continue.
* 1905: Congress established the US Forest Service as a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
This agency was formed to map, maintain, and protect forests as well as provide water and timber for national benefit. Gifford Pinchot was appointed the head of the US Forest Service by
President Roosevelt.
* 1907: 99 million acres were added to the national forests.
* 1922: Secretary of Agriculture authorized the selling of national forest land in exchange for private land of equal value, which changed the national forest service from a conservation organization to one that focuses on the logging industry.
* 1925: National forests were authorized to grant grazing permits for 10 years.
* 1944: The Sustained-Yield Forest Management Act was passed which encouraged the building of logging mills throughout the west.
* 1970: The National Environmental Policy Act was passed which required the environmental impact statements to be made for federal actions that may impact the environment. This allowed a legal standing to challenge the logging industry.
* 1973: The
Endangered Species Act passed, giving forest advocates a legal basis to challenge logging if it threatened an endangered species.
* 1976: The National Forest Management Act was put into place to protect lands and ecosystems.
It was to protect national forests from destructive logging practices, so Congress told the Forest System to develop regulations on the size of clearcuts, protect waterways, and restrict the rate of cutting to protect reforestation.
* 1994: The Northwest Forest Plan was announced by President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
to try to slow logging in old-growth forests.
There have been multiple legislative acts to expand the scope of the national forest system, as well as shrinking it. In 2020, the
Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...
encouraged more forest products to be harvested in order to support a struggling economy. There was a plan to develop around 190 million acres of protected National Forests in order to increase logging, grazing, and energy resources.
This would be facilitated through shrinking the rules and regulations required to get permits to conduct such business. In October 2020, the Trump administration proclaimed its goal of "strengthening markets for wood products and incentivizing innovative manufacturing techniques" and reported "The Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service sold 3.3 billion board feet of timber from national forests in fiscal year 2019 — the highest output since 1997".
Furthermore, President Trump signed an
executive order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...
to "establish the United States One Trillion Trees Interagency Council" in order to further the Federal Government's participation in this effort and repeal the current $30 million annual funding cap for the Reforestation Trust Fund.
Geography
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
there are 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands containing 193 million acres (297,000 mi
2/769 000 km
2) of land.
These lands comprise 8.5 percent of the total land area of the United States, an area about the size of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
.
Some 87 percent of national forest land lies west of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
in the mountain ranges of the
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...
.
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
has 12 percent of all national forest lands.
Within the national forest system, there are 1,200 sites listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
and 23 are
National Historic Landmarks
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
.
The
National Historic Preservation Act
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA; Public Law 89-665; 54 U.S.C. 300101 ''et seq.'') is legislation intended to preserve historic and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic ...
requires the Forest Service to identify, investigate, and protect cultural resources on lands it manages.
The U.S. Forest Service also manages all of the
United States national grasslands and nearly 50% of the
United States national recreation areas.
Management
Land management
Land management is the process of management, managing the land use, use and land development, development (in both Urban planning, urban and rural settings, but it is mostly managed in Urban places.) of Land (economics), land resources. Land reso ...
of these areas focuses on
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
,
timber harvesting,
livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
grazing
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...
,
watershed protection,
wildlife
Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...
, and
recreation.
Unlike national parks and other federal lands managed by the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...
, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged.
Forest products are the resources removed and harvested from national forests. They may be for commercial or personal use such as “lumber, paper, and firewood as well as 'special forest products' such as medicinal herbs, fungi, edible fruits and nuts, and other natural products”.
However, the first-designated
wilderness areas
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
, and some of the largest, are on national forest lands.
There are management decision conflicts between
conservationists and
environmentalist
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
s and natural
resource extraction
Extractivism is the process of extracting natural resources from the Earth to sell on the world market. It exists in an economy that depends primarily on the extraction or removal of natural resources that are considered valuable for exportation w ...
companies and lobbies (e.g. logging & mining) over the protection and/or use of national forest lands. These conflicts center on
endangered species protection, logging of
old-growth forests, intensive
clear cut logging, undervalued
stumpage fees, mining operations and
mining claim
Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership (see Split estate). Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surfac ...
laws, and logging/mining access road-building within national forests. Additional conflicts arise from concerns that the
grassland
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...
s,
shrublands, and forest
understory
In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abo ...
are grazed by
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...
, cattle, and more recently, rising numbers of
elk and
mule deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.
Unlike the related whi ...
due to loss of
predator
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
s.
Many
ski resort
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In Nort ...
s and summer
resorts operate on leased land in national forests.
See also
*
National Forest Management Act of 1976
The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976 (P.L. 94-588) is a United States federal law that is the primary statute governing the administration of national forests and was an amendment to the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Plan ...
*
Protected areas of the United States
The protected areas of the United States are managed by an array of different federal, state, tribal and local level authorities and receive widely varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as wilderness, while others are operated wi ...
*
State forest
A state forest or national forest is a forest that is administered or protected by some agency of a sovereign or federated state, or territory.
Background
The precise application of the terms vary by jurisdiction. For example:
* In Australia, a ...
*
References
External links
USDA Forest Service*
Trees of Our National Forests: Their Beauty and Use from the U.S. Forest Service, 1975.
{{authority control
01
*Forest
Forests
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
*National forest
National forest
National forests