Copyright Raul Touzon/National Geographic Stock

For those of us who are dedicated to protecting private forests, a recently released 20-page report by the USDA adds even more credence to our work.  “Threats to At-Risk Species in America’s Private Forest” contains a number of important findings that can lend additional weight to your conservation efforts.  Here are some findings that I found especially helpful in “fueling my fire” for protecting forest on private lands:

• “Sixty percent of the at-risk species of plants and animals in the conterminous, or ‘lower 48’, United States are associated with private forests (Robles et as. 2008)”
• “Seventy-five percent of all forest lands in the East are privately owned”.
• “More than 4,600 native animal and plant species associated with private forest in the United States are at risk of decline or extinction.”
• “In some watersheds, up to 95% of forest-associate at-risk species occur only in private forests.”

Clearly, these findings show that working with private-forest landowners, especially in the East, is an absolute must if we care about protecting biodiversity.

And this is just the big picture – the report also contains maps of the US in which the number of at-risk species and the relative threat to their habitat from increased housing density, wildfire, and insect and disease are shown by watershed.  So, for example, if you work in a watershed in the northwest corner of North Carolina, you will discover the relative threat to forest-associated at-risk species in your little corner of the world compared to the other hundreds of watersheds in the US.

Whether you work to reduce vehicle-wildlife collisions, negotiate conservation easements, or advocate for tax incentives for landowners for forest stewardship, this report reaffirms that forest wildlife needs you!