The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering 193 million acres (780,000 km2) of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's Office, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, as well as Research and Development. The agency manages about 25% of federal lands and is the sole major national land management agency not part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the United States, national forest is a classification of protected and managed federal lands that are largely forest and woodland areas. They are owned collectively by the American people through the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Forest Service is also a forestry research organization which provides financial assistance to state and local forestry industry. There are 154 national forests in the United States.
The Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at 16.7 million acres. Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which is managed by the United States Forest Service, encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords and glaciers, and peaks of the Coast Mountains. An international border with Canada runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The forest is administered from Forest Service offices in Ketchikan. There are local ranger district offices located in Craig, Hoonah, Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Thorne Bay, Wrangell, and Yakutat.
Denali National Park and Preserve, formerly known as Mount McKinley National Park, is a national park and preserve located in Interior Alaska, United States, centered on Denali, the highest mountain in North America. The park and contiguous preserve encompass 6,045,153 acres which is larger than the state of New Hampshire. On December 2, 1980, 2,146,580-acre Denali Wilderness was established within the park. Denali's landscape is a mix of forest at the lowest elevations, including deciduous taiga, with tundra at middle elevations, and glaciers, snow, and bare rock at the highest elevations. The longest glacier is the Kahiltna Glacier. Wintertime activities include dog sledding, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling. The park received 594,660 recreational visitors in 2018.
The Ouachita National Forest is a vast congressionally-designated National Forest that lies in the western portion of Arkansas and portions of extreme-eastern Oklahoma, USA.
The Pacific temperate rainforests of western North America is the largest temperate rain forest region on the planet as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rainforests lie along the western side of the Pacific Coast Ranges along the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America from the Prince William Sound in Alaska through the British Columbia Coast to Northern California, and are part of the Nearctic realm, as also defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rain forests are characterized by a high amount of rainfall, in some areas more than 300 cm (10 ft) per year and moderate temperatures in both the summer and winter months.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres (64,000,000 ha) of land, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, recreational areas, national forests, and conservation areas. It was, and remains to date, the single largest expansion of protected lands in history and more than doubled the size of the National Park System.
Admiralty Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska, at 57°44′N134°20′W. It is 145 km (90 mi) long and 56 km (35 mi) wide with an area of 4,264.1 km2 (1,646.4 sq mi), making it the seventh-largest island in the United States and the 132nd largest island in the world. It is one of the ABC islands in Alaska. The island is nearly cut in two by the Seymour Canal; to its east is the long, narrow Glass Peninsula. Most of Admiralty Island—955,747 acres (3,868 km2)—is protected as the Admiralty Island National Monument administered by the Tongass National Forest. The Kootznoowoo Wilderness encompasses vast stands of old-growth temperate rainforest. These forests provide some of the best habitat available to species such as brown bears, bald eagles, and Sitka black-tailed deer.
The Wilderness Society is an American non-profit land conservation organization that is dedicated to protecting natural areas and federal public lands in the United States. They advocate for the designation of federal wilderness areas and other protective designations, such as for national monuments. They support balanced uses of public lands, and advocate for federal politicians to enact various land conservation and balanced land use proposals. The Wilderness Society also engages in a number of ancillary activities, including education and outreach, and hosts one of the most valuable collections of Ansel Adams photographs at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Inventoried Roadless Areas are a group of United States Forest Service lands that have been identified by government reviews as lands without existing roads that could be suitable for roadless area conservation as wilderness or other non-standard protections. The Inventoried Roadless areas include approximately 60,000,000 acres (240,000 km2) of land in 40 states and Puerto Rico. Most of these lands are in the western portion of the lower 48 states and Alaska. Idaho alone contains over 9 million acres (36,000 km2) of inventoried roadless areas. The inventoried roadless areas range from large areas with wilderness characteristics to small tracts of land that are immediately adjacent to wilderness areas, parks and other protected lands.
The California Wilderness Act of 1984 is a federal law, passed by the United States Congress on September 28, 1984, that authorized the addition of over 3 million acres (12,000 km2) within the state of California to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Conservation activist George Whitmore later credited the Act with establishing "the longest stretch of de facto wilderness in the lower 48 states."
The Forest Service Organic Administration Act of 1897 provided the main statutory basis for the management of forest reserves in the United States, hence the commonly used term "Organic Act". The legislation's formal title is the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 1897, which was signed into law on June 4, 1897, by President William McKinley.
The Rock Creek Roadless Area (B032) is located northwest of Buffalo, Wyoming, in the Bighorn National Forest. It comprises roughly 34,000 acres (140 km2) of forested timberlands, mountain parks, rugged canyons, and stunning rock formations. This area represents the entire spectrum of environments found in the Bighorn National Forest and encompasses prairie land to high alpine peaks. This roadless area is the source of the north, middle, and south forks of Rock Creek, Balm of Gilead Creek, Pheasant Creek, and Ditch Creek. The area is flanked on the eastern side by the Bud Love Big Game Winter Range and the HF Bar Ranch Historic District. On the southern side the roadless area is surrounded by the Paradise Guest Ranch. The roadless area is home to elk, moose, mountain lion, pine marten, blue grouse, ruffed grouse, and raptors. The Rock Creek area is the largest area of quality elk security habitat outside of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area and would provide an important corridor from the high country to the Bud Love Habitat Management Unit. The Rock Creek roadless area is dominated by lodgepole pine, some ponderosa, and aspen stands with low-growing juniper in the undergrowth. The area has not been opened to roads due to the ruggedness of the landscape and the high costs of implementation.
The South Baranof Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area within the Tongass National Forest, located on Baranof Island, Alaska. Covering 319,568 acres south of Sitka, the South Baranof protects glacier-carved fjords, hanging valleys, old-growth temperate rainforests and sheer granite mountains.
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC) is a non-profit organization that focuses on protecting the lands and waters of Southeast Alaska. They promote conservation and advocate for sustainable natural resource management. SEACC is located in the capital city of Alaska, Juneau. The environmental organization focuses on concerns in the Southeast region of Alaska, including the areas of the Panhandle, the Tongass National Forest, and the Inside Passage.
The Sitka Pulp Mill was a pulp mill located on the North and West Shores of Sawmill Cove, approximately five miles East of Sitka, Alaska. In 1956, the mill site was purchased from Freda and John Van Horn by the Alaska Pulp Corporation. This was the first Japanese investment in the United States of America since World War II, and the mill operated from 1959 until 1993. The majority of production was used to create rayon fabric, and to supply Japan with logs to rebuild homes and infrastructure after World War II. In the later years of the mill, as the demand for rayon and logs for rebuilding decreased, the primary focus of the mill became the manufacture of paper.
The Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA) is an act that was intended to amend the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), with the primary intention to increase the protection of the Tongass National Forest from logging. The TTRA was introduced on February 9, 1989, at the 101st Congress, 1989-1990, and was enacted when signed by President George H. W. Bush on November 28, 1990. as law. Refer to the GovTrack.us website for the extended text of the bill. For a bill to become law in the United States it must be approved by both the House and the Senate, and signed by the President, who can veto the bill if they chose to. In response to required adjustments to the initial bill, a conference committee was formed, consisting of members from both the House and the Senate, tasked to produce a conference report on the necessary revisions and changes. This revised version of the bill was passed by both the Senate, with a vote of 99–0, and was approved by the House. The sponsor for this bill was a representative from New York's 3rd congressional district, Robert Mrazek (Democrat).
Little Laurel Branch, a wildland in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests of western Virginia, has been recognized by the Wilderness Society as a special place worthy of protection from logging and road construction. The Wilderness Society has designated the area as a "Mountain Treasure".
Laurel Fork (conservation area), a wildland in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests of western Virginia, has been recognized by the Wilderness Society as a special place worthy of protection from logging and road construction. The Wilderness Society has designated the area as a “Mountain Treasure”.
The Alaska Roadless Rule is an environmental conservation policy that placed significant restrictions on timber removal and road construction or reconstruction in Inventoried roadless areas, which protects about half of the Tongass National Forest and Chugach National Forest's 17 million acres. The Alaska Roadless Rule stems directly from the Roadless area conservation rule in which the United States Forest Service identified areas of natural importance as Inventoried roadless areas and announced the Forest Service 2001 Roadless Rule.
