Program Dashboard

PROJECT NAME
Raising the Profile of Private Working Forests
ALIGNMENT WITH THEORY OF CHANGE
Forest Retention / Value Streams / Community Capacity
X
PROJECT TYPE
Knowledge / Pilot/Demonstration / Operational / Policy
X
PROJECT OVERVIEW AND OUTCOMES
One-third of America (746 million acres) is forested. About 504 million acres are considered “timberland” and thus available/capable of commercial use, with another 52 million acres of reserved (not available for management) and 190 million acres in trees that are not considered productive. At 86%, Maine has the greatest % of its lands in timberland, with Nevada setting the other extreme, 0.5%.
Private owners hold nearly 58% of all U.S. forests, with family forest owners, nearly 11 million of them, stewarding363 million acres (48.7%) of the total. Other private owners, mostly TIMOs/REITs, own another 67 million acres. Remaining acres -- 316 million -- are in public holdings.
Policies established in Washington, DC, and in all fifty state capitals increasingly fail to recognize the important roles that private working forests play in the wide range of benefits that flow from forests. Many of these policies result from advocacy by the growing number of environmental not-for-profits that all-too-frequently don’t have a single staff person with forest management expertise. The American Forest Foundation and the Endowment asked former National Wildlife Federation CEO, Mark Van Putten, to review the state of forest-sector understanding among leading non-profit organizations.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
  • Reviewed public views of conservation/environmental organizations on working forests and conducted interviews with key opinion leaders in media, non-profits, and government. Results
  • These sectors devote relatively little in the way of resources and attention to conservation opportunities on private forests, instead concentrating on ag lands due to more obvious policy approaches such as the Farm Bill.
  • Mainstream conservation groups have a new appreciation for the value of “working forests” and likely could be more deeply engaged in the Northeast, Southeast and Appalachian regions if climate change and concerns about woody biomass feedstocks were addressed.
  • A report was not published due to the confidential nature of some of the interviews.

FUNDS COMMITTED
Endowment Commitment / Leverage via Endowment / Endowment Spending to Date / Leverage Outside Endowment
$11,000 / 0 / $11,000 / $11,000
GRANTEE
American Forest Foundation with contract to: ConservationStrategy LLC
CHRONOLOGY
Date Approved By Board / Date Agreement Signed or Launched / Project/Initiative Life / Status
President’s Discretion
(Reported 2.24.2012) / 3.2012 / 3.1.2012-
1.31.2013 / COMPLETE

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