Recognizing the presence of emerging forest health threats and risk of severe wildfire in the Columbia River Gorge’s Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), the Forest Service, Washington and Oregon are working together through a multi-state partnership to build community capacity to respond to the shared emerging threats through training, outreach, and strategic on-the-ground treatments.
Photo credit: Chuck Hersey, Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
Did you know that more than half the forest land in the United States is owned and managed by some 11 million private forest owners? These working forests benefit us all. Private forest lands:
- Supply nearly 30 percent of the water we drink as well as clean air, fish and wildlife habitat, and significant recreation opportunities.
- Provide over 90 percent of our domestically-produced forest products, including the timber needed to build homes and fuel wood for heating them.
- Support 2.4 million jobs primarily in rural communities, and
- Contribute to our nation’s energy security, housing, and infrastructure.
These forests face many threats, including wildland fire, invasive species, pests and disease, and the permanent loss of working forest land to non-forest uses. The Forest Service helps ensure that forest landowners have the best technical, educational, and financial assistance available to achieve their unique objectives and to keep forests working for all of us. We do this through a variety of Cooperative Forestry program tools:
- Forest Legacy permanently conserves environmentally significant forest land threatened by conversion.
- Forest Stewardship resources can help landowners develop a management plan and actively manage their forests.
- Community Forest helps communities protect the forests and open spaces where they live, recreate, and learn.
- Ecosystem Markets engage our partners in our efforts to connect people to the benefits that forests and grasslands provide.
- Wood Innovation creates new opportunities for innovative wood products.
- Urban and Community Forestry focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources.
- Forest Health Protection provides technical and financial assistance on forest health-related matters.
- Landscape Scale Restoration funds innovative cross-boundary projects that address priorities and needs identified in State Forest Action Plans.
- Forest Taxation and Estate Planning provides national leadership on forest tax policy, tax education, and estate planning.
- Forest Resource Coordinating Committee
Your Land and Fire
Your first line of defense against wildland fires is knowledge. Here are resources that will help you prepare for and possibly survive a wildfire.
- Keep your property and community safe with tips from Fire Adapted Communities and Firewise.
- Learn about fire safety at Be Smart Outdoors.
- Get the kids involved with Smokey Bear.
- Know where fires are burning with Inciweb.
Make Your Land Work for You
Agroforestry is the right tree in the right place for the right reason. Agroforestry can help the environment and maybe your bottom line.
Related blogs:
- Helping Forestland Owners Navigate the Tax Code
- Improving the resiliency and productivity of farmlands through agroforestry
- Selecting Trees to Grow in Cities: Database Captures Urban Tree Sizes, Growth Rates Across US
- Strengthening communities by ensuring nature’s benefits
- Maryland landowner creative wildlife haven and keeps property in the family
- A clear answer to clean water
- Disability not a barrier to conservation planning