Forests of the United States



It has been estimated that before European settlement, forests in the United States mainland covered nearly 1 e9acre. Since the mid-1600s, about 300 e6acre of forest have been cleared, primarily for agriculture during the 19th century.

As of 2016, roughly 36.21% (about one-third of the U.S.) is forested. Excluding the U.S. territories, forested land in the U.S. covers roughly 818,814,000 acres (3,313,622 square kilometers). As of 2005, the United States ranked seventh in the rate of loss of its old growth forests.

Current coverage
While total forest area has been relatively stable for the last 100 years, there have been significant regional shifts in the area and composition of the nation's forests. Reversion of marginal farmland in the east, large scale planting in the South, and fire suppression have contributed to increases in forest area. Urbanization, conversion to agriculture, reservoir construction, and natural disasters have been major factors contributing to loss of forests.

Eastern forests cover about 384 e6acre and are predominantly broadleaf (74%), with the exception of extensive coniferous forests and plantations in the southern coastal region. These are largely in private ownership (83%). By contrast, about 363 e6acre of western forests are predominantly coniferous (78%) and in public ownership (57%). Nearly ten million private individuals own about 422 e6acre of forest and other wooded land. Most public forest land is held by four Federal agencies (United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service) as well as numerous state, county, and municipal government organizations.

Major uses of forests include timber production, recreation, hunting, fishing, watershed and fisheries protection, wildlife habitat and biodiversity protection, and gathering nontimber products such as berries, mushrooms, and medicinal plants.

There are boreal forests in Alaska. Forests in Hawaii and the U.S. territories are tropical.

The most heavily forested regions of the U.S. are Maine, New Hampshire, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and West Virginia; the least heavily forested regions are North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

The U.S. had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.65/10, ranking it 67th globally out of 172 countries.

Invasive species
Projects have been undertaken to remove invasive species from forests in the U.S.; for example, in the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, rats were successfully eradicated in the tropical forest on Palmyra Atoll.

Wildfire
The five federal regulatory agencies managing forest fire response and planning for 676 million acres in the United States are the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Several hundred million U.S. acres of wildfire management are also conducted by state, county, and local fire management organizations. In 2014, legislators proposed The Wildfire Disaster Funding Act to provide $2.7 billion fund appropriated by congress for the USDA and Department of Interior to use in fire suppression. The bill is a reaction to United States Forest Service and Department of Interior costs of Western Wildfire suppression appending that amounted to $3.5 billion in 2013.